Identities and the Media: Feminism

Media Magazine reading

What are the two texts the article focuses on?
The article focuses on "Pan Am" which is a period drama that is set in the 1960s and is based on the lives on the Pan American World Airline's pilots and stewardesses. It also focuses on Beyonce's music video for her song "Why Don't You Love Me" which focuses on the stereotypical views of a housewife in the 1950s .

What examples are provided from the two texts of the 'male gaze' (Mulvey)?
Pan Am's pilot episode immediately reinforces Mulvey's idea of the "male gaze" as the stewardesses are first shown through a shot of one of them  on the main cover of a magazine. This essentially creates an image that the females only have a single purpose as something to be admired and aspired to by women, and visually enjoyed by men.

In Beyonce's music video for her song "Why Don't You Love Me", the male gaze is also reinforced through the use of the costumes and the clothes that Beyonce is portrayed in. Through the specific use of wardrobe, Beyonce is overly sexualised as she is shown to be wearing "tight high waisted knickers" and this essentially helps to objectify women as something that are only there for the purpose of visual appeal for men.

Do texts such as these show there is no longer a need for feminism or are they simply sexism in a different form?
I personally believe that it is a mix of both, by using these traditional stereotypical conventions in their work, it shows that sexism is still very abundant but essentially in different forms as it is used to increases profits. However, by the very fact that these types of conventions are used, I believe that these works are unintentionalyl reinforcing the sexism present in society and therefore increase the need for feminism and female empowerment

Choose three words/phrases from the glossary of the article and write their definitions on your blog.

Feminism – A movement aimed at defining, establishing, and defending women’s rights and equality to men.

Post-feminism – An ideology in culture and society that society is somehow past needing feminism and that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed.

Third wave feminism – Was a movement that redefined and encouraged women to be

dominant and sexually assertive.

No More Page 3

Research the No More Page 3 campaign. Who started it and why?
The No More Page 3 campaign was started by Lucy-Anne Holmes in August 2012. It was during the London 2012 Olympics that the Page 3 image was found on page 11 and yet the topless picture of the woman was a lot more bigger than the pictures of the female athletes such as Jessica Ennis that had won medals for the UK. She started the campaign in hopes of battling the stigma and the objectification of females in the media.

What reasons did the campaign give for why Page 3 had to go?
The campaign's reason for why Page 3 had to go was due to the fact that there was a constant objectification of women in a negative, offensive, discriminatory and dergoratory way. This essentially meant that the value of women was hugely diminished in the eyes of the media as it showed that women, even those not on Page 3, had nothing good to offer to society other than their looks and their visual sexual appeal for men.

Read this debate in the Guardian regarding whether the campaign should be dropped. What are Barbara Ellen and Susan Boniface's contrasting opinions in the debate?
Barbara Ellen's on the No More Page 3 campaign is that the campaign should continue as Page 3 itself is not only something that is 'a pathetic leering bare-breasted woolly mammoth' but also part of the old ages, 'reeking of male dominance, of women as sexualised and neutralised objects.' 

However, Susie Boniface's opinion is that the campaign is pointless as she states that the Page 3 of the Sun is no longer seen by society to be objectifying women but rather empowering them as women that are confident in their own sexual appeals.

The main campaign website has now been replaced by a site called Sexist News, designed to highlight sexism in the media. Give an example of a recent story the website has highlighted. Do you agree with the view of the website?
A recent story on the website called the "Little Mixed up about what to wear?" article focuses on the clothes worn by band Little Mix during the performance on X-Factor. It focuses on the ideology and the concept that young girls look up to these artists and see them wearing revealing or little to no clothing which they would also recreate as a way of embracing freedom and that they need to conform to this perspective in order to appeal to boys and the male gaze.

How can the No More Page 3 campaign and Sexist News website be linked to the idea of post-feminism?
Both the No More Page 3 campaign and Sexist News represent that we in fact do not live in a post-feminist state. The very fact that matters of sexism are still having to be discussed at length like this whether it relate to the portrayal of women in newspapers or reality TV, shows that actually we're still in a position where things can very much be debated.

What are your OWN views on these campaigns? Do you agree with their aims? Is there still a need for these campaigns in the media?
I personally believe that the No More Page 3 campaign is something that is not only positive for the media industry but for society as a whole. I genuinely believe that there is a greater need for feminism in not just the media industry but also society, as the Page 3 of the Sun often times objectifies women sexually and shows to everyone that the media industry is male dominated. Women every day are doing remarkable and extraordinary things, just as much as men can, and to boil all women down to just their sex appeal for men is something that is extremely wrong and should not be happening. 

Finally, do you agree that we are in a post-feminist state or is there still a need for feminism?
I personally believe that we are not in a post-feminist state and that there is still a definite need for feminism across society. This is because there is still a huge case of inequality amongst women and men especially in the UK, if you take the wages as an issue, there is a pay gap between men and women of about 24% at £5,732. If you translate that into an average woman's life, it totals up to almost £300,000.