Representation Theory

Levi Strauss

·         Binary opposition.

·         Weak versus strong, good versus evil.

Laura Mulvey

• ·         The Male Gaze.
• ·         Woman are objectified and seen as sex objects.
• ·         Virgin/whore dichotomy.

 

Angela McRobbie

• ·         Stereotypes and use of confirmed gender roles.
• ·         Woman – weaker, victims, mothers and carers.
• ·         Men – aggressive, string leaders.
• ·         Media conform/subvert.

 Stanley Cohen

• ·         Groups are demonised thought negative representations.
• ·         Moral panic about this group.

 bel hooks

• ·         ‘Aint I a Woman?’- wrote a book about feminism inspired by a slave woman campaigning.
• ·         Intersectionality – where all these issues converge.
• ·         Black women are seen as the lowest social status of anyone ever due to the convergence of sexism and racism.
• ·         Stereotypes refusing to die – devaluation of black femininity and rape of black women.
• ·         Emasculating the patriarch; contrast to non-gender conformity for white women. End to the patriarchy.
• ·         Oppositional gaze – black women have inherited the idea of not making eye contact.

Liesbet Van Zoonem

• ·         Difference between the representation of women’s bodies and men’s bodies.
• ·         Gender is performative – we contrast our ideas about masculinity and femininity from ‘what we do’ rather than ‘what we are’.
• ·         Internet is not a feminist utopia, based on collaboration because this view is too simple, ignores the rich diversity of how gender is articulated on the internet.