M 87M C M edia Audiences M afalda Stasi Gemma Commane Syllabus – 2014-15 Date Topic Tue 20 Jan Introduction Tue 27 Jan Screening Tue 3 Feb Audiences and Gender Tue 10 Feb Audiences and Sexuality Tue 17 Feb Audiences and Ethnicity Tue 24 Feb Subcultural Audiences Tue 3 Mar Adoring Audiences Tue 10 Mar Celebrity Audiences STUDY BREAK Tue 14 Apr Tutorials Tue 21 Apr Tutorials Tue 28 Apr Due Date Tue 11-12.30pm ETG34
Today’s Lecture Audiences and gender Femininities and masculinities Performativity Technologies of gender Drag FeminismSSS 19 th c. equality struggles 20 th c. identity, rights, recognition - classic “ second wave” - non-white, non-straight feminism - post-feminism - new online feminism (?) …
“one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” G ender is a social role, constructed culturally, acquired through social conditioning There’s no such thing as “essential femininity”—it’s a patriarchal myth justifying women’s oppression Women defined only as ‘other’ to men rather than in its own right identity is (hierarchically) relational (De Beauvoir 1949) M asculinities Embodied social performance of gender Hegemonic masculinity: distancing oneself from the non-masculine M ysoginy and homophobia police homosocial borders
Important parts of identity, such as sexuality or gender, are constructed in a performative way: “ gender is a kind of persistent impersonation that passes as the real” Identity is created "through language, gesture, and all manner of symbolic social sign" Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble Performativity “ Gender is always a doing” The doing is constitutive: no identity before or outside performance The doing is always imperfect, which reveals the insubstantiality of gender The performance attracts “ There is no gender identity behind the attention to itself expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Butler 1999: 33).
Technologies of Gender Gender as a product of diverse social power relations De Lauretis’ technology of gender draws on Foucault’s technology of the self women are engendered differently by their specific socio-historical situations, including the abstract cultural representation of “ Woman” Feminism and theories of gender are also technologies of gender The Politics of Passing Drag: An intentional performance A show drawing attention to the artificiality of gender A hyperfeminine ‘masquerade’ Trans: Trying to ‘pass’ A performance that seeks to conceals itself Contested social and cultural ‘knowing’
Readings Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity . Ch. 1 “ Subjects of Sex/ Gender/ Desire” pp.1-34. Halberstam, J. (1998) Female M asculinity . Ch.7 “ Drag Kings: M asculinity and Performance” pp.231-266. On the blog unless otherwise stated Suggested activities You can optionally decide to work as a group. We are putting suggested group activities on the blog. Doing the group activities will help you: – stay on track – gain a better understanding of content – Exchange and share knowledge and experience … Because it’s better together!
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