As I mentioned in my first post, I am part of the third wave of feminism. Which, in my opinion, just keeps getting better and better. ( Class review: first wave = era of women’s suffrage, second wave = ridding the world of sexist images in media and advertisement.) In the third wave, we get to examine not just women and their treatment, but gender and culture in society as a whole.
One topic along these lines that really interests me is what makes a woman, a woman, and a man, a man. And because my first love is the media, I like to incorporate the pressures we all see in the media in this topic.
The Representation of my Femininity may be just as important as my actual Gender.
Everyone is at least vaguely familiar with the idea that the media has a roll in confirming the division between the genders, males usually seen as powerful; women are shown as sensitive or emotional. When we are asked to describe ourselves in the most basic way, we will usually say we are male or female first. By this point, we know which bathroom to walk into.
Some theorists have decided gender is a social and cultural construct. ( Simone de Beauvior “One is not born a woman, one is made a woman”). Therefore, we can be seen as products of circumstance or, should I say it? A product of what media and popular culture tells us to look and act like.
If a person should reject their assigned gender, people tend to be confused by them, or even reject them from their society. However, some groups of people may do this purposefully and actually become well-received by others. More on this in my next post!
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