Feminist film theory

Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, black feminists try to establish a voice for black women’s experiences in the world (p. 221). Black Feminism theorists such as Collins want to create knowledge and power within the black women to stand up to the patterned social domination, and allow subordinate groups to express and establish their own reality (p. 221). According to Ritzer and Stepnisky (2013), feminism theory explores the reality…

In A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, Donna Haraway, uses the creation of a cyborg as an allegory to encourage feminists to start to thinking outside gender/feminist norms. Haraway describes how machines and autonomous beings, like animals and humans, are not that different anymore. She states, “Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing…

Masculinities. As the recently-concluded 2016 Presidential Election has revealed, what it means to be Men in the United States (if not the West/Global North) resonates with political volatility. While this particular debate has yielded many a now-ubiquitous theory – hegemonic masculinity (Connell), Structured Action (Messerschmidt), inclusivity (Anderson), female masculinity (Halberstam), manhood acts (Schrock/Schwalbe),…

Analysis of Visual Texts On Gender Equality Commercials Gender equality has been a topic discussed worldwide. What makes it so controversial? The social norm is widely tackled even in the most developed countries we know of. This issue has been historic, as it all comes down to the way our living societies have portrayed a human’s characteristic. From an early age, a child is assigned a specific role to play, which is meant to shape his or her personality. They are taught a specific way…

Advertisements: How media has objectified women throughout the years Advertisements have been a controversial part of America since the 1940’s, their purpose to persuade people into buying their products or look a certain way has survived to this present day. The process of objectifying someone almost always has a purpose behind it, in the case of advertisements the big conglomerates sell the “perfect woman,” in a magazine, whose ethics are to be and look flawless. When one looks up the meaning…

Over the years, the idea of women representation has gradually rose up and took center stage. Feminist around the world are trying to be represented more in this society of inequality. The main focus is to have equality for both male and female. Authors such as Larry McMurtry, has already understood this struggle and has implemented this factor in his books. Throughout his literature, McMurtry has connected the women of the modern day to the women of the 1880’s. He presents this idea through the…

In her speech, “Freedom or Death,” Emmaline Parkhurst argues not for the need of suffrage, but for the necessary use of violent tactics for women protesting suffrage. Parkhurst emphasizes that forceful tactics are justifiable for silenced women to finally gain political rights. Through comparison, hypothetical situations, and historical references, Parkhurst passionately argues the need for women to engage in violent protest to be noticed in a male dominated society. Parkhurst draws…

I was recently told not to be “too feminist.” The advice was kindly meant, a warning that some fear what feminism means. Yet, I continue to think about that comment. What might it mean to be too feminist? I am a feminist. I believe in the equality of the sexes. It represent generations of women before us all around the world who fought and are currently fighting for suffrage, equal rights, equal pay. Feminism simply means women’s rights on the grounds of gender equality. That’s it. No female…

between women, be they of romantic or sexual nature or not. To draw on this observation, one can identify that Rich's notion of compulsory heterosexuality goes hand in hand with the phenomenon of political lesbianism. This concept stems from radical feminist thought and describes the belief that heterosexuality can be equated with male violence which can be solved only through abstinence for both sexes or advocated lesbian relationships (cf. Bryson, 2003: 187). Sexuality is further perceived as…

In Susan Ferguson’s article, “The Radical Ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft” (1999), she assesses Wollstonecraft’s politicization of both the institutions of family and class. Contrary to Abbey, Ferguson argues that although Wollstonecraft politicizes the gender inequality by predicating the emancipation of women to a broader structural change in society, Wollstonecraft does not challenge the separation of the public-private sphere. Nevertheless, Ferguson contends that Wollstonecraft’s work is still…