Critical and Theoretical Studies Essay, C.A.T.S.
Feminism
The feminism ideology and attitude has a long history, in the nineteen fifties after the Second World War women’s issues came to the fore. Historically there were reasons for the gap between men and women, and it didn’t begin on a date that we can refer to, but we know the changes that had occurred in the society and what was the female role. Unfortunately nowadays in the media civilization has changed its real dimension, nowadays civilisation and being civilised is all about being merely electronically inventive, in that certain areas of the media is abusing women for money.
Looking at both the male and female image in modern media and how each one of those is represented is fundamental. Because and as we know that the media has an effective power over our brains, for the vast majority of the youngsters their behaviour is coming from what they have seen or heard, there are three main players in every individual`s behaviour. The home; as a first root where the young individual learns very important basics, but in some cases what this person learnt at home can vanish with the influence of other players. The society; as the young individual grows up and starts coming out of the small family loop and going into the wider world, which is the society and this includes school, friends, streets, neighbours, relatives and etc. The media; again here because media control plays a big part in society for a young teenager it`s difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong and also the uneducated are easily influenced by unscrupulous editors who are out to make quick profits.
As a reaction to the technology and all the inventions that has benefited or served both humanity and in some how the continuity that had happened in the end of the previous century and still going on until today, but sadly this revolution seems to be led by one side, the tabloid press. The tabloid press show women in semi naked poses often or sensationalise personal stories of their lives.
From the historical social believes, as the bellow points are in sequence order as each one of them completes the other:
- Cultural; in all the cultures women are meant to be doing the house work, and looking after the children and this is seen as women’s work only, also culturally if a married man has done any of the house work he may lose respect in the society if his friends ever found. Moreover historically women have not been accepted in the roles of writers or artists in the past, they have had to use pseudonyms.
- 2. Financially; because women are at home according to the above, so men had more chances to draw the map of history, and or in other words to participate in the society whether working, fighting the wars or any other activity that has nothing to do with the house work or looking after the children, in the eighteenth century when female employment was an issue women found themselves stuck in the middle ‘ there was a new demand for female labour in the factory, but somehow children had to be cared for, and families fed. Women were not able to turn this contradiction to their advantage. Instead they were forced to labour both at home and at work’ (Rowbotham S 1977, P.56) Rowbotham also mentioned that women went to work for less pay, therefore men were always in the fore front of life and even nowadays the wealth is in the hands of men.
- Religious; in general and not particular, religions have emphasized men more than women, as always the leadership has always been the men and forbidden to women, in the researches I have concentrated on which are the three main religions Judaism Christianity and Islam. In Judaism and according to a newspaper article talking about how females are getting paid less than men for working as rabbis, in the same article it says that’ the orthodox Jews do not have women rabbis’ Cooperman,p.A13( 31st July 2004)
In Christianity an example of a female teaching Sunday school in America who was called Mary Lambert and how she was sacked just for being a female teacher, the article say ‘Mary Lambert, 81 has been teaching Sunday school for 54 years. Now a pastor at the Baptist Church in Watertown N.Y. who has been alive for fewer years than Lambert has been teaching has arranged for her dismissal. His reason is simple: the Bible prohibits women teaching and having authority over others. People are outraged but the fact is the pastor is right’. (2010) http://Atheism.about.c
- om/b/2006/26/it`s in the bible-Sunday-school-teacherfired-for-being-a-woman.html.
In Islam in some radical Muslims females driving a car is prohibited and it is under discussion whether or not to allow women to have the right to carry an official driving licence according to a newspaper article, it says ‘Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette- style movement in the deeply conservative state’ McElroy, Telegraph (21st Jan 2008)
Bearing in mind the officials in Saudi Arabia claim that they rule the country according to the Sharia law.
By looking at the three main elements above, they can easily come to the results of making a strong political decision over in every where these elements apply, in other word women a political history, were always seen as second class citizens for example in the United Kingdom women 18th century and early 19th they were not allowed to vote in the House of Commons, ‘ In February 1918 the Representation of the People Bill received Royal Assent. This Act gave most women over the age of 30 the right to vote.’ (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/archives-highlights/archives-the-suffragettes/archives-the-first-women-in-parliament-1919-1945/)
From the above source as well;’ The first woman to be elected to Parliament was the Countess de Markievicz (1868-1927). Of Anglo-Irish origin, she was married to a Polish Count. A member of Sinn Fein, she had played a part in the Easter Rising of 1916 and stood for election for a seat in Dublin whilst in Holloway prison in London in December 1918’’
In Tom Hickman’s book about the sexual century he argues ‘that the media were the main engine of the sexual revolution’ (1999,p245) Mcnair (2002,p9)
Hickman adds then ‘cinema in particular gave shape and form to sexual desire in the twentieth century’ from the beginning cinema has been successful around the world, but also the cinema industry just like any other industry has had to be financially viable. As Mcnair argues because of the nature of the twentieth century of being capitalist in most parts of the world, the cinema and media had to make profits. Making fast profits initially, the producers then became greedy realising that ‘sex’ sells, they then continued producing more and more films showing women in ever more sexual roles. They used women as objects to achieve their profits. They were relying on a woman’s bodies to satisfy young men sexual desire, and this has led to the start of the pornography industry. ‘As recently as 1972, according to a US federal study, the market for pornography in the United States was worth only $10 million. By 1996 the US news and world report put the figure at $8bilion.That same year, according to this source, 8,000 pornographic titles were released on video, distributed across a network of 25,000 video stores. In 1998, according to the trade periodical Adult video news 686million pornographic videos were rented in the US a ninefold increase over ten years. By 2001, at the heart of the US porn business in San Fernando Valley, California 10,000 X-rated movies were being produced each year, employing 20,000 people in 200 companies and generating $4bilion in revenue for the region…… In Britain, where the regulatory and cultural environment is very different from that of the united states (until 2000 there was no legal hardcore porn for sale in the United Kingdom, for example) comparable figures are unavailable, surveys and one of-third couples. UK porn magazines claimed monthly sales of 2million copies in 1998, part of a larger sex industry estimated to be 2bilion pounds per annum’ (Mcnair, 2002,p37) According to what I have mentioned above about the historical roots of the gender gap and how that is still effecting the current social attitudes, plus the cinema`s and media`s effects all together creating what Brian Mcnair called a ‘striptease culture’ this culture means making ordinary people talk about their sex lives and their own sexualities, revealing intimate details about their feelings and bodies in the public sphere.
Comparing two images of women from today’s newspapers 14th April 2011, firstly The Guardian and then The Sun. (Attachment- 1 at the back of this page from the Guardian, but couldn`t attach from the due to the nudity of the content). The difference is immediately obvious in that in The Sun on page three the women naked from the waist up. She has one hand on her and the other on her hair, it’s a provocative pose she is looking the viewer in the eyes and her expression is enticing. She is wearing shorts, which are undone at the top with zip wide open; this is suggesting that she is about to take these off. She is heavily made up and her hair is coiffured and she is wearing jewellery. This is opposed to the natural setting/ background on closer inspections you can see how false she is from her heavy make up, dyed hair, probably photo shopped skin. There is no information tied to this image only a phone number to find more of the same.
In sharp contrast the image on page twenty-three of a young woman shows her fully clothed with not even her arms showing. She is looking down in what appears to be a demure way. Her hair appears to be natural as is her makeup as her freckles show through. She has some lipstick and eye make up on. Due to the style of her clothing her body shape is hidden. She is placed against a plain white background. There is an article accompanying this image concerning fashion sales and forecasts.
The misusing of the women talents has became the most common image nowadays, using females as objects phenomenon nowadays, it is not merely being used for the pornography industry but it went wider to hit other art works such as songs and in particular, music videos, the two
Overall this behaviour has an impact on the audience especially youngsters who are still developing, and they see all these principles of how a real man should act, and the woman should always be beautiful and attractive to the man`s sexual desire, ‘according to social learning theory, individuals learn to be masculine or feminine according to what they see and observe’ Holtzman, (2000, p58)
Another example of modern woman in modern media, that shows the misuse of women in media spread more widely than film, radio and newspapers. Expanded can be found in music videos and songs language, simple example as in comparison to how the picture was in the sixties;
Figure one Figure two
In figure one, is taken from a music video sang by Pit Bull. The song called Hotel Service basically the story of a rich young man who has power over women. By comparing figure two is an image from the sixties video music by Sonny and Cher. The video features a couple singing a song about being in love with each other.
In figure one, the clothes that are worn in the video; the main man character is dressed as business man with an exaggerated signs of wealth, whilst the girls are all dressed as striptease models surrounding the man and dancing, as the person watches the video you can tell there is a camera(man) behind the camera.
In figure two, Sonny and Cher the couple are wearing clothes that are typical of the sixties fashion, but the music band at the back they all men dressed up in a formal office style.
The female role in of female in figure one is degrading because the four or five women all there to impress one man. They are represented as slaves.
In figure two the female role is on a parallel with the man`s role. They have equal importance and share the performance. The language of the song is romantic, showing some noble senses and giving the impression that the two singers are actually in love with each other.
Some feminists argue that there are certain jobs or professions that are suitable for men rather than women, such as crime investigation, security, night shifts or etc. By answering such a theory, simply by looking at an example from the modern history of feminism, the famous female novelist Agatha Christie, who has won many enormous prizes in the name of different writer names ‘Christie hidden author strategy worked well in the sense that it earned her the creative space to produce an extraordinarily compelling fictional universe’ (Gill 1991, p.2)
Conclusion
The gap between men and women has always been there, in all societies as we have looked above at the reasons for the gap which has always been due to the man`s greediness and perhaps due to the conventions of history. The media industry has a massive and crucial responsibility in this domain as we have seen; also I think the vast availability of modern technology has made education even worse sometimes, as youngsters learn from what they see online and what they hear on the radio and observe it into their own life. For the future the change should happened and the sooner the more children brains to save from being sexualised, and this change mean is strong Censorship on media products, this must include censor on the internet by ensuring the content doesn`t feed audience`s sexual desires.
Bibliography and reference:
Mcnair B (2002) striptease culture: sex, media and democratisation of desire, London: Routledge.
McElroy D (2008) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1576182/saudi-arabia-to-lift-ban-on-women-drivers.html.
By Cooperman A http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28774-2004jul30.html p A13
GILL G (1991) Agatha Christie: the woman and her mysteries, London: Robson Books LTD.
Rowbotham S (1977) Hidden from history; 300 years of women’s oppression and the fight against it, London; Pluto press.
Wood, Z (2011) youth brings a little to the moribund retail sector. The Guardian, 14th April 2011. P.23.
(2011) Page three. The Sun 14th April 2011 P.3.
(2011) www.google.co.uk/m/search?site=images=ukclient=safari=&maction=pitbull+hotel=6
(2011) www.google.co.uk/m/search?site=iamge, UK client=safari& source+sonny+and+Cher +got+ u+ baby=11
(2011) http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/archives-highlights/archives-the-suffragettes/archives-the-first-women-in-parliament-1919-1945/
