Femininities

Question 1

Women’s Sexual Objectification (Fredickson and Roberts 1997)

Answer 1

The experience of being treated as a body or body parts, valued for its use or consumption by others

Question 2

Sex Object Test (Caroline Heldman)

Answer 2

Does the image…

1. only show parts of a sexualized person’s body?
2. present a sexualized person as a stand-in for an object?
3. show a sexualized person as interchangeable?
4. show the person being acted upon as though they are a sexualized object?
5. show that sexual availability is the defining characteristic?
6. show the sexualized person as a commodity?
7. show the body as a canvas?

Question 3

Sexual Objectification

Answer 3

The process of representing or treating a person like a sex object, one that serves another’s sexual pleasure

Question 4

Male gaze

Answer 4

Male’s visual inspection of the female body
Creates a power relationship b/w viewer and subject (of gaze)
Women and non-heterosexual women also participate

Question 5

Contexts of Objectification

Answer 5

Within visual media
While consuming visual media
In everyday life

Question 6

The Sexy Lie (Caroline Heldman)

Answer 6

A widespread misunderstanding that sexual objectification is empowering for women
Sexuality in the media as a means of empowerment is false empowerment

Question 7

Implications of sexual objectification on U.S. women

Answer 7

Eating disorders
Body shame
Body consciousness
Anxiety
Depression
Sexual Dissatisfaction

Question 8

The Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf)

Answer 8

Feminine fulfillment = beauty
Beauty = youthfulness, pertness, and thinness taken to (unreal) extremes that are unattainable for healthy women
The beauty myth hurts men - presents a false image of women to men, men won’t be satisfied

Question 9

Women and the Knife

Answer 9

3 main paradoxes of choice women experience:

1. coercion vs volunteering
2. individuality vs conformity
3. liberation vs colonization

Question 10

Ascendant femininity (Alan Johnson)

Answer 10

• the most dominant script of femininity, most often identified with white women
• Creates subordinate femininities

Question 11

Axes of domination mold a hegemonic femininity

Answer 11

We live in a society with inequalities

Layers of experiences - outcome is one script as dominant

Question 12

Process of “Othering” (Schwalbe et al. 2000)

Answer 12

A dominant group defines into existence a subordinate group

Question 13

Controlling Images (Patricia Hill Collins 2000)

Answer 13

• The result of “othering”
• Images diminish, denigrate, and objectify women of color and justify subordination
• Reaffirms whiteness as normal

Question 14

The Black Matriarch (Hill Collings 2000)

Answer 14

Black women are seen as overly aggressive, domineering, masculinized, overbearing
-Blames black women for certain social conditions which controls their behavior by undermining their assertiveness

Question 15

The Lotus Blossom

Answer 15

• Asian women are seen as hyper-feminine, submissive, EXOTIC
• Available for white men - vulnerable to mistreatment from men due to ultra-submissive images (controlling images)
• DENIGRATES ASIAN FEMININITY

Question 16

Black bodies were reduced to a spectacle

Answer 16

Rules of purity in Western Europe -> sexualized images imposed onto blacks (“exotics”) -> black bodies on display at parties or auctions
Evidence of racist notion of evolution - “proof we evolved from apes” - considered lower in evolution

Question 17

Black sexuality became an icon for DEVIANT sexuality

Answer 17

continuation of cultural imagery satisfies white society’s historic longing for black bodies

Question 18

“Hottentot Venus” - Sarah Baartman

Answer 18

• Black woman who became a spectacle and studied in Europe
• Sold to circus, then became a prostitute
• cut up after death to be “studied”
• placed on display in museum

Question 19

Cultural image: “The Wild Woman”

Answer 19

Different link to nature for black women

-seen as savage and untamable

Question 20

Empowerment

Answer 20

Identify positive constructions of self-esteem, sexual agency, body confidence

Question 21

False Empowerment

Answer 21

Identify problematic constructions of race, gender, the body

Question 22

Oppositional Gaze (bell hooks)

Answer 22

A gaze that defies a gaze cast upon oneself

“I heard you, I see you, I don’t like what you’re doing, I won’t stand for it”

Question 23

Inner Gaze

Answer 23

Self-surveillance vs self-reflection

physical appearance vs moral consistency

Question 24

Is femininity a script of womanhood or does it also apply to girls?

Answer 24

Femininity is applying to girls at an increasingly younger age due to the effects of social media. More young girls are sexualizing themselves. In addition, certain aspects of girlhood finds its way in femininity for adult women