bristol fawcett society with bristol feminist network representations of women in the media a joint...
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Bristol Fawcett Society with Bristol Feminist Network
Representations of Women in the Mediaa joint campaign
“Representations enter our collective social understandings, constituting our sense of ourselves, the positions we take up in the world, and the possibilities we
see for action in it.”
Lisa Tickner
From: “Sexuality and/in Representation,” in Difference: On Representation and Sexuality, ed. Max Almy et al., (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984),19.:
______________The Guardian 26 November 2008
January 2009
8 November Bristol 2008
We counted 521 magazine covers picturing people, and did a gender break down:
How many for their looks (idealised and to be looked at)
how many for what they did?
Idealised : 291
Women: 245 Men: 46
Women: 85% men: 15%
Magazine covers in WH Smiths and Borders: proportion of women and men portrayed as 'idealised'
Idealised women
Idealised men
DOING : 230
Men: 196 women: 34
Men: 85% women:15%
Proportion of women and men portrayed as 'doing'
Doing: women
Doing: men
John Berger Ways of Seeing 1972
“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
Magazine covers in WH Smiths and Borders: proportion of women and men portrayed as 'idealised'
Idealised women
Idealised men
Proportion of women and men portrayed as 'doing'
Doing: womenDoing: men
“We are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement: the beauty myth…”
1991 Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women,
Some comments we didn’t catch on film….
Newsagent: ‘What are you doing?’Feminist activists: ‘A project about women in the media’Newsagent: ‘Oh that’s ok then, it’s just that we’ve heard there are some feminist activists around today, so we’ve been told to watch out.’
‘Nice arse’
‘These magazines are aimed at thick and sexist individuals’
Women with not much
on
Women with men
Women as
carers and with families
Women shopping & in the kitchen
Rare exceptions
Observer Sports Monthly177 images of men13 of women
Women as leaders
Few references to women who led in their own right as politicians even at a time when they were prominent (UK party conferences, US presidential campaigns)
Images of women in politics and in business profiled their femininity (favourably) or their lack of femininity (unfavourably)
Women leaders are portrayed against a backdrop of inequality
They are positioned as ‘other’ to the masculine business of politics and business leadership
Women continue to be the represented as if we are the exception in a world that is made up of male movers and shakers.
“Representations enter our collective social understandings, constituting our sense of ourselves, the positions we take up in the world, and the possibilities we
see for action in it.”
Lisa Tickner
From: “Sexuality and/in Representation,” in Difference: On Representation and Sexuality, ed. Max Almy et al., (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984),19.: