Feminist theories

FEMINIST THEORIES 

• Laura Mulvey (1975)
• Goffman (1979)
• Berger (1972)
• Gammon and Marshement (1988)
• Avril Levy (2005)
• Bell Hooks (1984)
• Post Feminism 
• Judith Butler 
• Simone De Beauvoir

• women are seen as passive objects 
• men control the narrative 

texts are constructed around the following ; 

• scopophilia/voyeurism - When men derive sexual pleasure from viewing others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity 
• Narcissism - excessive interest in or admiration of ones physical appearance 
• fetishisation - women in films such as the superhero genre have power yet their costumes are sexulised (tight corset etc.) in order for the men to feel they have regained power/control

• Recumbent - close to the floor/subservient 
• cant - submissive tilting of head and toutching face in a childlike way 
• women are translated as being submissive and helpless 

• Men look at women and they watch themselves being looked at 
• women are acculturated to look at themselves through the eyes of an imagined man because the ideal spectator is always assumed to be a man 

• men are the main focus of the narrative/film 
• female gaze - women look to the medis for sexual pleasure from men 
• identify with the aberrant - considered morally unacceptable - vamp - women who have a sexual appetite/rebellious 

• Raunch culture def. - the spread of the values and aesthetics of the red light district within the mainstream culture 
• supporters believe that the feminist project has already been achieved and women no need to longer worry about objectification
• feminist chauvinistic pigs - women who make sex objects of themselves and other women (female ******* CEO etc.)
• sexual equality is a myth - men are still not comfortable about being objects of the female gaze on a sexual scale 
• sex workers believe they are liberated but Levy disagrees with this assumption 
• sex has become commercialised - everywhere you look in society has been sexulised - teenage girls wearing ******* t-shirts or stationary mabey without even knowing ( due to the mainstream culture)

• the colour codes - lighter skinned women are more desirable and considered more acceptable in society in terms of beauty 
• black women are objectified and sexualised in hip hop/R&B videos which reflects the colonistic view of black women 
• commodified blackness - a mediate view of blackness that is considered the normality 
• many black women Westernised their look in order to fir in with the considered beauty ideal 

waves of feminism - 

• 1st wave - late 19th and early 20th century, focused on basic legal rights 
• 2nd wave - 1960's - 1970's ; focused on equality in the home, at work and in society 
• 3rd wave - 1990's to present - due to the first and second waves being based around middle class women, there is an attempt to widen the ideas of feminism 
• Now that men and women are considered equal in society, feminism is no longer needed along with its attitudes and arguments 

Judith Butler - 

• gender - social construct which leads to trates such as masculinity and femininity 
• sex - biological make up 
• Butler is critical of the term 'women' or 'woman' - women are the subject and feminist theorists dont question them 
• Discursive construct - Gender is an ongoing discussion which is constantly being added to 
• Social construct - society has constructed gender 
• Gender is a performance - men/women adopt behaviours to suit themselves - gender is a choice - 'sequence of acts'
• sliding scale of gender - 
• Anyone can adopt any gender traits - a man can be feminine and a woman can be masculine 

Strand of Judith Butler's theory (Sharpe)

• Men belong in the public sphere - business, money, political 
• women belong in the private/domestic sphere - women are nurturing, caring, housewife
• evident in the Victorian era 

• 'one is not born a woman yet becomes one'