There are many different kinds of feminisms.
Generally people think of different waves, with the idea that the 1st is associated with the vote leading up to the 1920s, the 2nd associated with the various goals of the 1960s and 1970s, from equal pay to abortion rights, and the 3rd from the 90s to today, focusing more on intersectionality and postmodern identity politics. Some even suggest that the rise of the internet and #MeToo is a 4th wave. But feminist scholars are increasingly wary of the metaphor, which seems to simplify gender issues into generation-flattering pictures that denigrate the complexity of the work of previous generations. For example, the notions that no one before the 3rd wave is interested in intersectionality or that the 2nd wave is only the feminism of white women are not only inaccurate, but they also erase the continuities between waves, generations and different pieces of political struggle. See Evans & Chamberlain (2015) for this argument in full.
With that in mind, let's talk about some of the common concerns among feminism(s). First, it is generally assumed that there is a patriarchal structure to society that oppresses women. Second, it is generally assumed that a degree of sexism or misogyny exists throughout society and especially in popular culture. Third, sex and gender are different things, and recognizing this helps to pull apart some of the mystification of sexism that comes from biological arguments. These ideas will be discussed in turn.
Patriarchy
Patriarchy means "rule by the father," but it has been expanded beyond the context of the family where the term originated. The argument is that the entire society is patriarchal, that it is run by and for males. Note that there are two parts to patriarchy's workings, either of which can be seen as enough to continue the system. Even if the men in charge are all good, there is still a problem of who has access to positions of power. And then, if women are in charge of a society that remains ideologically patriarchal, if they support and validate patriarchal ideology (for example, Phyllis Schlafly, who led the fight to stop the Equal Rights Amendment), there is still a patriarchy. Andrea Dworkin (1983) was amazed at the time at how many women hated feminism, and still I hear so many student say things like "I'm not a feminist, but...".
So many things testify to the ways American society is patriarchal. One example is the institution of marriage. Women are expected to change their names when they marry, not the men. Many prayerbooks still marry couples with the phrase "man and wife." Indeed, marriage itself is considered an institution which is thoroughly patriarchal. The idea is that marriage begins as a way for a male to be certain the children his wife bore were his. Marriage supposedly ensured that when she finally gave him a son (because you couldn't pass property to women), the man could be sure that it was his own flesh and blood. The idea of the dowry, where daughters are basically sold to the men who marry them, still exists in the tradition that the parents of the bride pay for the wedding.
Perez (2019) investigates all the ways that structural patriarchy hurts women daily, from not testing the safe does of medicines on women, to car safety (crash tests are done with dummies that mimic male body types, and most voice-activated emergency systems are not calibrated to reliably pick up women's voices).
The implications for popular culture in a patriarchal society are complex. We'd expect that more men than women hold and maintain positions of power in media. This is generally true. Name a female music producer. The only woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar did so for The Hurt Locker, a film with barely a woman in it. Although there are increasing numbers of female film directors and television showrunners, the vast majority of media is still produced by men.
Etherington (2009) notes the seeming surprise everyone had that there was a female audience who would buy tickets if you made movies for them. The media always underestimated the appeal of a film like Mamma Mia! or Twilight, although that is changing after things like the Pitch Perfect series and Wonder Woman, among others.
But there are more complex ways that films are made for men.
Mulvey (1989) argues that movies are made for male gaze. The entire viewpoint of the camera is typically structured as male. This is most true in older movies, but it is still true today. The basic idea is that when you watch a movie and the male hero looks at something, the shot immediately changes and we see what he is looking at. The camera becomes that male character. Almost never do we take on the gaze of a female character. Even in something like Silence of the Lambs, with a strong female protagonist, in the final scene we see through her stalker's eyes.
Here is a good example of what used to be an obvious Hollywood norm, but is more hidden these days. This is from 1946's The Postman Always Rings Twice. See how the viewer becomes the camera consuming the woman?
Men do the looking and women are only to be looked at. In plot and in ideology, this means that only men are intelligent and active agents. Women are passive and there only for the uses of the men. This is especially true when the camera/hero is looking at a woman. We often share the gaze of the camera as it ogles a women's body, pausing at their breasts or buttocks, perhaps, often staring at the floor and traveling up her legs. This is traditionally never done for a man. Even when we see Kevin Costner's butt, which was a huge deal in the 90s, it is a quick shot through a waterfall, not a lingering consumption of his body. So when Marion sees him in Robin Hood, we share her glance for a second, but it is quick and surprised and she is embarrassed. She knows it is not her place to do the looking. In the 30 years since that film, how often is the woman who looks (and perhaps we, in her place) supposed to be embarrassed by what she sees?
There are exceptions, but they prove the rule. Thelma and Louise follows a woman's lingering gaze at a sexy man, and we see that more often, especially after Magic Mike. Such films increase as times go on, but slowly. Generally females who gaze themselves or who look back at the men doing the gazing are sluts and/or evil. They are femme fatales. A return look is often enough in most films to suggest that she wants sex (that she's asking for it). "Good girls" always lower their eyes or look demurely away, averting their eyes to allow themselves to be appropriately consumed as objects of desire.
This argument is not that a look of sexual desire is necessarily bad. The problem is that desire has been coded exclusively male, as has agency. Women viewers of film must learn either to desire the images of women (which is complex if the viewer is straight) or they must learn to identify with and take pleasure in being looked at (become an object). This is one reason why the cover photo of Cosmo is often indistinguishable from the cover of Playboy.
Symbolic Annihilation
In much feminist thought, sexism, or the belief that women are inferior, usually ends up in misogyny, or the hatred of women. If women are supposed to be objects that should be possessed, they will eventually frustrate that desire by asserting a pesky bit of their own power and agency.
Thus, Tuchman (1978) first defines sexism in the media as symbolic annihilation. Women are erased. She gives three mechanisms for this.
First, omission. Women are simply left out of the picture, even in places where they should be. Hartman (2001), noting that histories are usually written by men who leave out women's roles and voices, still notes evidence for the presence of women as merchants or guild members in the Middle Ages. Yet we don't generally see that in movies or television shows about the Middle Ages. There is some evidence that there were women in strong positions of leadership in the early Christian church, and perhaps even female apostles, although they have been renamed or erased over the years (see Epp, 2005; King, 1998; Pederson, 2008). They certainly don't show up in New Testament based films.
Second, trivialization. Women are assigned to stereotypical roles or given stereotypical concerns. They are often emotional and/or victims. There does seem to be less and less of this in media overall, with more female protagonists and women who might use science or violence to solve traditionally masculine problems (see Magoulick, 2006), but there is argument that these women often become almost like wannabe male puppet figures who are still judged as ultimately inadequate to the task (like Linda Hamilton's character in Terminator 2).
Wonder Woman is powerful, but doesn't have a lot to do in Justice League. And Black Widow, aside from being clothed as a sex object (and being called a slang term for a vagina by Loki in the first film), serves the majority of her time in the franchise giving emotional support to male characters, starting an awkward romance with the Hulk and sacrificing herself for a man. Perhaps she has little to do because she is one of the least powerful? Captain Marvel shows up in Endgame as one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and she, what, rescues Tony, flies through a spaceship and is one of two women (and Cap) to take on Thanos one-on-one and lose? In solo films, fine (sorta), but still, in groups, so often still trivialized, regardless of personality or ability.
Third, condemnation. Women are often highlighted for their mistakes and bad choices. Although this is changing with movies like Booksmart, usually almost anything male characters do ends up just being shenanigans that teach object lessons, while sometimes the most innocuous mistake is enough for a female character to be condemned. Again, this is changing, but slowly. And it often takes the form of an everyone-is-condemned-except-our-protagonists structure. Just look at the current series Pen15. Our two heroines can be awful and embarrassing but are still liked by viewers and each other and redeemed in each episode, which is good. But for the rest of the characters, although the boys are always still redeemed and redeemable, the girls almost all ultimately become irredeemable.
Working women were routinely condemned in popular culture for decades. Faludi (1991) points to how Fatal Attraction worked hard to demonize the single woman who works. She quotes the director, Adrian Lyne, and the star, Michael Douglas, about how much they hate feminism and working women. They see them as sad and pathetic and whiny and violent. In the original script for the film, the male character suffers and is blamed by the end for his affair. In the revision that we see in the finished film, the woman he has sex with becomes the evil monster who must die. She is condemned more for the same act as him.
To what extent does that still occur today? We don't usually see female characters as evil just because they have jobs and passions. Usually. But we still like to tell the story of how much it costs women's souls to achieve so much, from Olivia Pope's sad red wine and popcorn nights (who does that particular combo, really??) on Scandal to most of the women on medical, police, lawyer and politics shows to this day. And, of course, Ellen Degeneres is terrible for not being a good enough boss to stop a toxic working environment on her talk show, but Rick and Morty fans will still consider creator Dan Harmon a hero even though his legendarily problematic work environments got him fired and eventually drove him to animation.
Making the connection with Mulvey's ideas and with Tuchman's own notion that there is a connection between trivialization and victimization, we might add another, visual element to symbolic annihilation. So fourth, violation. Women are violates by showing them as a) inanimate objects, b) beings with only a sexual function, c) in pieces, and d) objects of violence.
The following examples from advertising will illustrate.
a) inanimate objects:
(http://www.realbeer.com/blog/images/20060314-stpauli.jpg) (http://www.designyourway.net/diverse/guinness/guiness-print-advertising-legs1.jpg) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GpDKIamYaMPKYwmHqqiIJEzQv2GKzDjT_fIVDt9Hzzlg4BCiHzEPS8B1zscg4-PPmEKGuRATcNfg-mjj1UzoF-vvvas28YtDXkQFajNWhwrWGx92ep0DaQ7k_iLMJLCOQeMb58mleQ0/s320/heineken_girl.jpg) (http://emmalouisefischer.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/bmw_advertisment_1.jpg)
(http://www.ukgraphicsdesigners.com/wp-content/uploads/subaru-coupe-advert.jpg) (http://knolaust.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/fmjauv0jinh9hyrsz1fusblso1_1280.jpg) (http://blog.magazines.com/images/2010/12/ad_thomasville_soyou.jpg)
You can see the difference between how naturally a woman is shown as an object and how laughable it is for a man:
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1qeesP7oBlKWa9S9SiT4JibvCy79PnNRkU2tjFrxTC3ISgFeVa8nnAg3rVO_x_jZvDsj5t0pPXBViVLhHlPKGNyoNjSZX3DShzk7fy1b7bSb6tH2E0Kduqtw1IsnHm75feyYueh8oiY/s1600-r/hayden-dooney.jpg) (http://adsoftheworld.com/sites/default/files/styles/media/public/ad%203_0.jpg)
(http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/commons/calzino_def.jpg)
b) beings with only a sexual function:
(http://cache.thisorth.at/00000/01034/050.460x325.jpg) (http://adoholik.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/axe_anywhere.jpg) (http://www.kerrydean.com/pictures/burger-king-bk-super-seven-incher-advertisement-picture.jpg)
(http://www.stefanstroe.ro/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/axe_bathtub.JPG) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXB3Is5i-aE_gqUtGJg_UWUQGP3qZnwLJe7ON5MlIV8A0GZdzjGaEs7kdMSIphbOYt2Jf4TS40MUxJ9tIiBQI3n4GtowXMPLLXnmQZTdi_qovxBY7KmuPwW4TOhXBlNUb6vbHvEwVNQ33r/s320/effetto+axe+great+ads.jpg) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOtHEgzKVAu42YNgmaHPF33cCcNQ8gcpy-Z2sQL62axO8QErhUqCTHiITcqpUj3VcXNBX9bA89RF7bt7EaGUvh53EiLgEw7G-G6CrMbcajPAxdBPECJ60Gfq_X3V9IPwkR_zrwwiIkiqUE/s320/madisonave.jpg)
(http://img.youtube.com/vi/0vUXwvy6BE0/hqdefault.jpg) (http://www.iheartberlin.de/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/blush-1.jpg) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMofPL2oOA8PgMYO65NRI8jgHCtzCifd-U7vAWA3k9MdsefcviT-xvodRTJFXwWKnwROZOHimLPre9VSm6YZm3ignjMTtmWr95dYm0zjplR8_pUGuYDsTZMoiNSlP8TMOWMAlLP03nn4/s400/che_magazine_01.jpg)
(http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/commons/che_couponskirt_297x210_uk.jpg) (http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m-ecx0N6cljUEojYW-n9jrg.jpg)
See how awkward it is for the same thing to be done to a man:
(http://www.spot.ph/files/2009/06/bk_flame.jpg) (http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/ml-akMl5aDAPSDbdMPGRQDQ.jpg)
This sort of thing does happen in ad campaigns like for Calvin Klein, but it is far less common.
Here are some examples from comic books, where strong female heroes are constantly reduced to object-status:
In this case, a woman is objectified even as she is brutally killed:
Although young boys may feel like they’ve failed the muscular ideal of comics, those male bodies are never displayed as primarily sexual:
c) in pieces:
(http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/0/6/7/5/1/2/webimg/547189340_o.jpg) (http://www.delivereddrinks.com/images/D/cabana_2-1.jpg) (personal collection)
(http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/gwss1001/karik-1.jpg) (http://www.adverbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mercedes-class-s-8-airbags.jpg) (http://cdn.smosh.com/sites/default/files/bloguploads/noticed-big-mouth.jpg) (http://dlisted.com/files/marcjacobs_poshspice.jpg)
Of course, when men are in pieces, they are still active and the viewer can identify with them.
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3344/3204932153_91661f6eff_o.jpg) (personal collection) (http://www.aef.com/images/book_covers/jovan2.jpg)
d) objects of violence
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhdYyjeXZ7q4_9meGTVhz5dbTU0kXs57Vck-hyL_UQfn4SUffSKLVSNyHho4FvwPBV_pZ0q0tiw5zSuB6tt_oEZowF04gpjr5uZKsTZ1eBAuxXD0VpmdFrXvl-HX4dHu23Qzr8Fh1Xu5s/s1600/CHOO.jpg) (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/images/article-images/tankard-reist_200803_loula.jpg) (http://bedazzled.blogs.com/bedazzled/images/2008/01/09/postagedm2711_468x705.jpg)
(http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1049993.1332625390!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_635/leggs-ad.jpg) (http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/duncan-quinn-suit-ad-depicting-strangled-woman.jpeg)
Think also of the many fetishized moments in horror films where women die in slow and almost sexualized ways. Men die too in those films, but often as an afterthought.
In Friday the 13th, Part II, Jason kills a couple while having sex. Clearly the object is Sandra. Jeff just happens to be in the way:
(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120312101709/fridaythe13th/images/e/ea/Death_Sandra.jpg) (http://images4.fanpop.com/image/quiz/639000/639581_1309989864160_400_259.jpg)
Here’s a sample of violations a) through d) in a set of horror film deaths:
Although most of those examples are from advertising, you can see the echoes in larger culture. Most of those ads were supposed to be funny. If our society wasn’t sexist, would they be?
When a woman's body is consumed in pieces by a traveling camera, she is not only a passive object, but she is really just a collection of objects. She is a conglomeration of sexy parts. There is not only sexism inherent in this, but there is implicit violence as well. Magazine advertisements do this more than anywhere else (except m,aybe in porn). We see lips, legs, torsos . . . name a part. Sometimes we see just hands or faces or feet (the places of action and personality for active men in the world), but the most common image when only parts of a woman's body is shown are of erogenous zones. That the fiction and reality of serial killers reveals that certain men find the idea of a severed women's breast attractive shows the potential connection between this kind of fragmented desire and violence.
Violence is often symbolically remote, but it is there in many forms. That there are so many words like "bitch" in out vocabulary testifies to the level at which even our language is misogynistic. On TV shows which curse, "bastard" often seems to be suggested as the opposing masculine swear. But bastard is merely about the questionability of your lineage, the extent to which you as a man are an unworthy member of the property lineage of the patriarchy because of the sexual misdeeds of your mother. A bitch refers to animalistic sexuality. Males are hated for their idiosyncratic inabilities. Women are hated because they are women. This is what we see in horror films, as well. Men are usually only killed because they got in the way. The women characters (except for one) might as well have the words "Stab Me" on their foreheads. But they need no such tattoos in horror films. In such films breasts serve the same function.
Misogyny is socially enacted in what Susan Faludi (1991) has called backlash. This social war against women and feminists is easily spotted in the 1980s. Faludi looks at movies, television, the media, politics, etc. and points to the ways that hatred of women is not only common but is often celebrated. The idea with misogyny and backlash is that sexist ideology is not just this thing that slightly oppresses you. It is active and acidic. This, as with all oppressive ideologies, our participations in them are never innocent and never without effect. Modleski (1991) further argues that all talk that feminism is over or no longer needed, which she sees proliferating through culture 20 years ago, is a key hegemonic move of that backlash.
Hegemonic Masculinity
A further element of the ideological backlash against feminism is the proliferation of portrayals of hegemonic masculinity (Hanke, 1988). Hegemony, remember, is ideological struggle in which the powerful ideologies make concessions to weaker ones to convince people that it is just common sense or that things are getting better. Hegemonic masculinity is the portrayal of "softer," more feminine men as in thirtysomething and Mad About You. It is also the critique of sexist blowhards in shows like Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond and Coach. On the surface these male characters from the 90s seem positive. They look like critiques of traditional sexism. But when you look at the narratives in which these men are placed, these men most often still assert control. The idea is that it is not so bad that we live in a patriarchy--see how kind and generous men can be. No need to challenge the system. It can protect the womenfolk.
The general history is that in the first half of the 20th century, men were portrayed as a particular kind of superior man, with no emotions, tough, and able to use weapons and honor to solve problems. Like John Wayne and Gary Cooper:
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbu2maDJMdQZg5H9y0d6AsbpJfo91O737Y1b93_Bx6WvgjCs_dphzPUs7ArSJbOihCo_J_6bbMygvAfZgIfF7Do0tPfDFlpJGdP-G66tVQliMzjAnBdVdCwJomoIW8gnfR-SL74Wj6Z6q/s1600/john+wayne+rio+bravo+2.jpg) (http://the100.ru/images/actors/id316/828-039_60362.jpg)
But by the 1970s, the “new man,” a more sensitive soul who felt and expressed emotions, cried, and could be mocked showed up. The hero of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956 was a one of these tough guys, but a doctor who could do some science:
He’s got the less manly, sweater-wearing suburban man and the women there helping him, but he’s in charge. The 1976 version of the film, though, has a more sensitive and less effective presence, as disordered as his hair:
(http://flickminute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Invasion-Body-Snatchers_-1978-Horror-Classic.png)
The 70s showed us lots of examples of the crying new man’s superiority to the “old” stereotype. Richard Dreyfuss survives Jaws, while Robert Shaw does not:
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb26y5VJLz1qcye95o1_400.jpg) (http://www.horrorphile.net/images/jaws-robert-shaw1.jpg)
In Love Story, the emotional son is clearly superior to his dad, the unfeeling patriarch:
(http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/1b/50a2b0558b11e19869123138165f92/file/oliverstory4.jpg)
But this new man’s hegemonic function comes when his sensitivity is used as a critical counterpoint to feminism, especially in 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer, when we are supposed to side with the father against the mother and her desire for a career.
(http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/dvdreviews47/kramer_vs_kramer_blu-ray/large/large_kramer_vs_kramer_blu-ray12.jpg) (http://images4.static-bluray.com/reviews/1026_3.jpg)
In the 1980s, when Faludi’s anti-feminist backlash begins, a man who cries at the end of First Blood (1982) becomes a musclebound yelling and killing machine in the sequels:
(http://obscureinternet.com/wp-content/uploads/rambo-first-blood.jpg) (http://billsmovieemporium.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vlcsnap-2010-08-19-14h47m50s48.jpg)
The heroes in the 80s get armored with actual armor, with muscles, and with sarcasm, rejecting the sensitive man and the feminist woman:
(http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02282/robocop_2282286b.jpg) (http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/conan-the-destroyer-movie-image-arnold-schwarzenegger-2.jpg) (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaT93ty4JEJrzg7At9iw_S-uwTryEA_TNjxEik4eVrwrA8khfyANVmBipWvvRXAaodnfQR3wEN_1m9a013wB7UyBOS2JLDfS8U3wSNpXt1TOKlypUVq2amy_EOAXMXOsPFpO6n8NxKjQ/s1600/hard1.jpg)
But, as the culture shifted, this rejection and reassertion of Reagan-era masculine power became ridiculous. Instead of the sensitive man, though, the big doofus came along as the mock-macho sitcom came to the fore. Why bother trying to destroy the patriarchy if this loser is in charge, right? Coach, Home Improvement, King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond built a formula that still exists in many shows. The wife character is always right, but we hate her for it:
This mock-macho guy seems to have evolved into the man-child who must find a way to impress his preteen son as well as the women in his life. Again, not much of a threat. Think of Liar, Liar (1997), Big Daddy (1999), Night at the Museum (2006), and Dan in Real Life (2007):
(http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/5749/419275-liar_liar_1997_570x364_354661.jpg) (www.fanpix.net) (http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/blog/image-2.jpg) (http://mythrandir.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/dan-in-real-life.jpg)
And where have we gone in the last 10 years in terms of how men are portrayed? I'd argue that these roles in popular culture are in a bit of flux.
So the question is always the one about whether or not things are really getting better or not.
Gender
Sex is biological: it is the parts (or chromosomes) you are born with. Gender is the social and cultural attributions given to biological sex. Generally these are sedimented into particular kinds of ideas about what it means to be a woman or a man. These ideas can be internalized behavior patterns we use to define who we are as a male or female. For example, a male might consider being handy with tools an aspect of his masculinity. Femininity, likewise, has certain socially mediated attributes. These things basically are stereotype. A stereotype is, at base, a generalized judgment from insufficient information. The assumption that all men or women are one thing or another is a stereotype. Stereotypes become particularly problematic when they are used to devalue people. So in our culture femininity is devalued and masculinity is praised. Masculine characteristics become inflated and stereotypically feminine characteristics, like emotionality, become devalued.
Because gender roles are social and not biological, there are feminine males and masculine females. Both of these things are generally punished by society for violating relevant gender roles, but it has been argued that both "violations" are often more highly valued than a feminine female. If a woman's masculinity is perceived as part of her threat to male power, then it is punished, but if she's "just one of the guys,' then it is often rewarded by the men in power. It all depends on what ultimate effect such changes in gender roles have on the power structure.
The notion that people are "cisgender," or identify as the gender readily associated with their birth sex, which is a helpful designator in noting privileges that are not experienced by nonbinary and/or transgender people, can sometimes lead people to believe that all gender identities that seem to conform with birth sex are somehow the same. But this is not the case. There are so many stops on that line between biology and gender performance, and since culture moves the markers of what is is hegemonically "normal" or rewarded by others, tracing patterns in those identity performances is important.
This is especially true because a key element of patriarchal mystification is the notion that gender differences are innate or biological. If there are intelligence differences or if girls are just born liking pink and Barbies and cooking and cleaning, then perhaps it is not so bad that women are encouraged to like only these things. But if we admit that we try to masculinize male babies (“Look at your strong little arms!” or the way Zach Galifianakis does in The Hangover) and feminize cute, precious and sweet little girls, if we admit we give kids trucks and dolls but don't realize the way we differentially reward them for making the “right” choice, if we admit that Boomer, Gen X and Millennial girls were more often given housework responsibilities and boys were more often given computers (is that still true today for you?), and if we admit that many grandmothers still call women at college not to ask about studies but if their granddaughter had met any promising boys, we might ask whether these things can and should be changed.
Conclusion
When we put it all together, most people imagine that things are better than they were. Perhaps. But how many of the improvements are hegemonically self-limiting? And how could we tell?
By Steven Vrooman, 1998-2020
References
Dworkin, A. (1983). Right wing women. NY: Perigee.
Epp, E. (2005). Junia: The first woman apostle. Fortress.
Etherington, J. (2009). What do women want? More movies like Mamma Mia!Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/4307230/What-do-women-want-More-movies-like-Mamma-Mia.html.
Evans, E., & Chamberlain, P. (2015). Critical waves: Exploring feminist identity, discourse, and praxis in Western feminism. Social Movement Studies, 14, 396-409. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277972346_Critical_Waves_Exploring_Feminist_Identity_Discourse_and_Praxis_in_Western_Feminism.
Faludi, S. (1998). Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. NY: Crown.
Hanke, R. (1998). The `mock-macho' situation comedy: Hegemonic masculinity and its reiteration. Western Journal of Communication, 62, 73-93. http://bulldogs.tlu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=346735&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site
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