Angela McRobbie

Post-feminism

1. Angela McRobbie Angela McRobbie (born 1951 ), is a British cultural theorist, feminist and social commentator whose work combines the study of popular culture, contemporary media practices and feminism. She is a Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London . McRobbie has authored many books and scholarly articles on young women and popular culture, gender and sexuality, the British fashion industry, social and cultural theory, the changing world of work and the new creative economy, feminism and the rise of neoliberalism .

2. Post-feminism and popular culture Popular culture ensures young women that the traditional feminism is something they can happily live without, and young women are encouraged to adopt a “post-feminist” ideology. Post-feminism draws on a neo-liberal vocabulary of “empowerment” and “choice,” offering these to young women as substitutes for more radical feminist political activity. Post-feminist femininity , with its deceptive ideas of “capacity, freedom, change and gender equality” reinstates gender hierarchies and breeds new forms of patriarchal power.

3. Post-feminism Concept : Post-feminism : a kind of substitute for, or displacement of, feminism as a political movement . Explanation : Young women today are the beneficiaries of past liberal feminist victories, to the extent that “gender equality” now seems to be common sense. As a consequence , the media suggests that feminism is no longer relevant — it is expendable, a thing of the past.

4. 1. Complexification of Backlash Post-feminism : a kind of substitute for, or displacement of, feminism as a political movement. McRobbie defines post-feminism as an active process by which feminist gains of the 1970-80s come to be undermined ( Explanation : Young women today are the beneficiaries of past liberal feminist victories, to the extent that "gender equality" seems to be common sense. As a consequence , the media suggests that feminism is no longer relevant — it is expendable, a thing of the past. )  It proposes that elements of contemporary culture have a harmful effect on the  undoing of feminism while appearing to a be well-informed and well-intended response to feminism . (Explanation :  there is a trend found in popular cultural products that seems to suggests or imply that feminism is no longer needed and that female empowerment is achieved through means of the traditional idea of femininity i.e. being “sexy”, having a specific type of body, self-representing in a specific “feminine” way, etc..) Paradox : a statement or proposition which, despite apparently sound reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems logically unacceptable or self-contradictory.

5. 2. Feminism dismantling itself McRobbie talks about a double entanglement which she says is “manifest in popular and political culture” ( Explanation : there are two forces working ( neo-conservative/capitalist ideology and its reflection in popular cultural artifacts with regards cultural commodification ) together to diminish feminism with the argument that it is no longer needed or even desirable, or by appropriating the language and codes of feminism and emptying them of their original meaning , such as in false ideas of female empowerment through the traditional ideas of femininity ) “Women are currently being disempowered through the very discourses of empowerment they are being offered as substitutes for feminism”

6. Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen prefer blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953 ) Beyonce performs onstage during the MTV Video Music Awards August, 2014. Popular feminism is a new form of pretended feminism that looks too much like the old idea of femininity, and which , unlike  traditional feminism, is broadcast widely in the media and   iconically appropriated by celebrities. “How does it happen that this new feminism looks so much like the old, conventional femininity? “

7. 3. Female Success Feminist success :  Feminism has eventually had an impact every aspect of public life, from the media to the educational system. However, McRobbie questions how success is being measured. (Explanation: During the late 80s and especially during the 90s, feminism was taken into account within a range of institutions, making them look   “modern and abreast with social change” , and feminist values were taken on board in education, law and the media. McRobbie explains that within this XXI century cultural space, women don ’ t like to identify with feminism anymore and choose to reject the notion . This form of anti-feminist is seen to be embodied in the successful ‘TV blonde’, young women as “privileged subjects of social change” , however the terms for this success is that they must do without more autonomous feminist politics.

8. 4. Unpopular Feminism One strategy is disempowering of feminism includes it being historicised and generationalised and thus easily rendered out of date.  This presents the idea of feminism as an ideology from the past . Popular cultural products and texts represent feminism as incompatible with femininity , or rather present the idea of female empowerment through the traditional idea of femininity , by provocatively  "enacting sexism “ , whilst at the same time playing with  those   debates about objectification of women and the female body ( ie . The Wonderbra  advert featuring Eva  Herzigova ) Since women have achieved economic independence – they conform a new market in which women are new consumers of women’s products . According to McRobbie , this has created a hyper-culture of commercial sexuality , that can be found in almost every product marketed to the women. Female achievement is predicated not on feminism, but on female individualism , which turns out to mean competition , rather than cooperation , the foundational principle of feminism (as much as of any other revolutionary movement). This certainly hinders the effectiveness of the feminist struggle.

9. Female/Feminist success as reflected by popular culture artefacts? 1950s 1994

10. 5. Feminism Undone Young women today ironically accept the normalisation of pornography, ‘lad mags’, the “page 3 girl”, etc. and the hyper sexualised representations of women within the media as a sign of sophistication (or “being cool” ) and empowerment. S exual objectification is seen as empowering . Due to the ubiquitous presence of this hyper sexualised message and idea about women, most young women prefer to stay silent about this new growth of hyper sexualisation   of the female body, as they are afraid to be criticised or to be perceived as a “prude”, “uncool”, or “old fashioned”.

11. Post-feminist masquerade McRobbie introduces the concept of “Post-feminist masquerade” as one form of dispersed and body-oriented gender power central to the (re)production of masculine hegemony . Exemplified by the “so-called fashionista ,” ( McRobbie , p. 67) the post-feminist masquerade and its various incarnations — the well-educated working girl, the swearing and boozing phallic girl, and the racialized global girl — are adopted freely and self-consciously as statements of personal choice and female empowerment . Paradoxically, however, the post-feminist masquerade operates as an ironic , quasi-feminist gesture, while at the same time, warding off any potential threat or challenge to the traditional patriarchal authority.

12. 6. Female individualisation Neo-conservative ideas have had an impact on the western world and the way the newest generation thinks. One of these ideas is the concept of individualisation , as presented by sociologists such as Giddens and Becks. The earlier period of modernisation (“first modernity”) created a welfare state and a set of institutions (e.g. education and health care) which allowed people in general and women in particular, who had been traditionally dependent on men, to become more independent and able, for example, to earn their own living. Young girls who aim to be independent women must have a lifeplan must become more reflexive in regard to every aspect of their lives, from making the right choice in marriage, to taking responsibility for their own working lives. These arguments appear to fit very directly with the kinds of scenarios and dilemmas facing the young women characters in the narratives of contemporary popular culture (such in the film Bridget Jones Diary ) “Choice is surely, within lifestyle culture, a modality of constraint” .

13. Disarticulation McRobbie argues that young women’s increasing participation in the labor market is accompanied by a cultural politics of what Stuart Hall has called disarticulation . For her purposes, McRobbie defines disarticulation as that force which undermines potential inter-generational solidarities between and among women through the widespread dissemination of values which posit feminism as embittered and passé, the territory of ancient, furry, man-hating lesbians. Moreover, disarticulation works to foreclose potential cross-cultural ties by imagining non-Western women as sexually constrained and victimized, in (false) contrast to “sexually free” young women in the West. The post-feminist celebration of the fashion-conscious ‘thong-wearing’ Western girls” ( McRobbie , p. 27) works to recreate and reinforce notions of Western superiority while disarticulating possible affiliations based on feminist post-colonialist critique . Angela McRobbie , The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, Sage Publications, 2009, 192pp.

14. According to Angela McRobbie , disarticulation works to foreclose potential cross-cultural ties by imagining non-Western women as sexually constrained and victimized, in (false) contrast to “sexually free” young women in the West.

15. Main concepts Femininity Feminism Backlash Third-wave of feminism Post-feminism Disarticulation Post-feminist masquerade

16. Post feminism and popular culture Post-feminism draws on a neo-liberal vocabulary of “empowerment” and “choice,” offering these to young women as substitutes for more radical feminist political activity. Post-feminist femininity , with its “capacity, freedom, change and gender equality” reinstates gender hierarchies and breeds new forms of patriarchal power . Popular culture ensures young women that the traditional feminism is something they can happily live without, and young women are encouraged to adopt a “ post-feminist” ideology . For Professor McRobbie , this is a p aradox (paradox: a statement or proposition which, despite sound reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems logically unacceptable or self-contradictory .)

17. Angela McRobbie McRobbie sets out to explain apparent paradoxes : How is it that “ women are currently being disempowered through the very discourses of empowerment they are being offered as substitutes for feminism?” How does it happen that “this new feminism looks so much like the old, conventional femininity ?”

18. Task 1 Read Angela McRobbie’s “ Post-feminism and popular culture ” extract. Identify the main concepts and argumentation . Create a glossary of terminology with those words which meaning you don’t know and search for those words using both the Oxford dictionary and the internet.

19. Task 2 Look at the different examples of historical representations of femininity in the following slides. Choose three examples from different eras and analyse them: What idea of femininity is being represented? How is it being represented? In what way are the representations in these examples similar or different ?

20. Archetypal and traditional representations of femininity

21. Venus of Willendorf . Estimated to have been made between 28,000 and 25,000 BCE. (Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria )

22. Venus of Laussel Gravettian  Upper Paleolithic  culture (approximately 25,000 years old ) Musée d'Aquitaine   (Bordeaux , France)

23. The  Venus of Lespugue  is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure of the Gravettian, dated to between 26,000 and 24,000 years ago. discovered in 1922 in the Rideaux cave of Lespugue (Haute-Garonne) in the foothills of the Pyrenees by René de Saint- Périer (1877-1950 ). The origins of the Gravettian people are not clear, but as their Aurignacian predecessors, they are known for their Venus figurines.

24. Aphrodite/Venus Aphrodite   is the ancient Greek goddess of  love ,  beauty ,  pleasure , and  procreation .  Venus   is the Roman goddess  of love , beauty , desire ,  sex , fertility , prosperity and victory . In Roman mythology, she was the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy.  The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite for Roman art and Latin literature. In the later classical tradition of the West, Venus becomes one of the most widely referenced deities of Greco-Roman mythology as the embodiment of love and sexuality.

25. The Birth of Venus.  Sandro Botticelli (most probably made in the mid 1480s).

26. The Three Graces In Greek mythology, a  Charis  (/ˈ keɪrɪs /; Greek:  Χάρις , pronounced [kʰáris ])  is one of three or more minor goddesses of charm , beauty , nature , human creativity , and fertility , together known as the   Charites  /ˈkærɪtiːz/ (Χάριτες [kʰáritɛːs]) or Graces. According to Greek poet Hesiod’s Theogony , there were three charites : Aglaia (or Aglaea), which means radiance (or elegance); Euphrosine (or Euphrosyne), which means joy (or mirth); and Thalia, which means flowering (beauty associated with youth). Born of one of Zeus’s affairs, the three Graces were pure virgins who lived with the gods, served at the banquets and fostered joie de vivre. They served Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and were never bored.  In  Roman mythology they were known as the  Gratiae , the "Graces". In some variants, Charis was one of the Graces and was not the singular form of their name. The Three Graces  is a  representation of the mythological three charites, daughters of  Zeus,  Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia - who were said to represent youth/beauty (Thalia), mirth (Euphrosyne), and elegance (Aglaea).

27. The Three Graces   (Peter Paul Rubens, 1635)

28. Representation of women in Judeo-Christian tradition

29. Eve

30. Virgin Mary

31. Boudica  or  Boudicca  (Latinised as  Boadicea  or  Boudicea , and known in Welsh as  Buddug )  was a queen of the British Celtic  Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61, and died shortly after its failure.   John Opie  (1761-1807) Boadicea Haranguing the Britons

32. Britannia

33. Joan of Arc

34. Contemporary representations of femininity Archetypes, stereotypes and countertypes

35. The “We can do it!” poster. " We Can Do It! " is an American wartime propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost worker morale. The poster is generally thought to be based on a black-and-white wire service photograph taken of a Michigan factory worker named Geraldine Hoff . The poster was seen very little during World War II. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called "We Can Do It!" but also called " Rosie the Riveter " after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The "We Can Do It!" image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980s.

36. Perception of women’s identity in the 1950S to modern day Women’s roles were greatly changed in the 1950s, with the men coming back from war and taking their jobs back. During World War II, women had taken men’s jobs while they had been away. After the war, and although many women wanted to keep their jobs, an estimated 1,000,000 women (in America only) were made redundant, so men could occupy their former jobs. Many of them became wives and mothers as the men came back from the war. In 1957, 70% of working women held clerical positions, assembly lines or service jobs. 12 % held a profession and 6% held management positions. Those that held professional jobs worked as nurses and teachers. They found themselves taking care of the house and of their children.

37. Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 –1928 ) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote.  Is she an archetypal representation of femininity ? Why?

38. Angela Yvonne Davis  (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist and radical in the 1960s as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and had close relations with the Black Panther Party through her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. As a result of purchasing firearms used in the 1970 armed take-over of a Marin County, California courtroom, in which four persons were killed, she was prosecuted for conspiracy. She was later acquitted of this charge. She was a professor (now retired) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in its History of Consciousness Department and a former director of the university's Feminist Studies department . Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Why?

39. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Is this a stereotype ? Why?

40. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Is this a stereotype ? Why?

41. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Is this a stereotype ? Why?

42. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Is this a stereotype ? Why?

43. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Why?

44. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Why?

45. Is this an archetypal representation of femininity ? Why?

46. Case of study: Cosmopolitan magazine Evolution of representation of women in Cosmopolitan

47. Comparison of past/present representations of women in the media Topic: Women as housewifes

48. 1950s

49. 2010s

50. 1950s

51. 2011