Feminism And The Formation Of Youth Cultures

Question 1

What do feminists argue about youth culture?

Answer 1

Feminists such as Heidensohn (1995) have argued that research into youth subcultures is male stream as females have been largely ignored. Sociologists use the ‘invisible girl’ when describing the role of females in youth culture

Question 2

What does McRobbie’s ‘The Control Theory state’

Answer 2

This theory explains how girls are restricted by their parents and are prevented from going out, having freedom and joining ‘visible’ subcultures.
She argues that girls respond by forming a Bedroom Culture where they stay in their rooms, form tight-knit friendship groups and stick to activities such as gossiping, magazines, and makeup.

Question 3

What does Reddington (2003) state about the presence of females in youth subcultures?

Answer 3

Reddington suggests that as a result of women not working or going out before 1970s, there were no females around to carry out research on and therefore were largely ignored

Question 4

Describe Blackman’s research on the New Wave Girls?

Answer 4

• followed the new wave girls around at school
• the new wave girls were working class, popular and academically able and did not conform to traditional expectations of femininity
• they dressed in oversized jumpers, doc martin boots, black trousers and had their own norms and values e.g. music

Question 5

Evaluation on Blackman’s research on the new wave girls

Answer 5

• biased as Blackman was a male conducting research on girls (this could have affected the validity of his results) (-)
• the new wave girls may have changed their behaviour to show demands characteristics as they knew they were being observes this would have affected validity of research (-)
• Marxists would criticise this research as they do not look at the different social classes of the ills as his research only examines the issue of gender (-)

Question 6

What does McRobbie say about Ragga Girls?

Describe Ragga girls?

Answer 6

McRobbie claims that women are become more asserting and taking control over their sexuality. Ragga girls originated from Jamaica in 1980s and use sexually explicit dancing as a way to ridicule male sexism and resist male oppressions

(-) Ragga girls may be seen as attention seeking when dancing sexually which can make them be objectified and lose their sense of self-respect
(-) Ragga girls focus more on how they look rather their education
(+) postmodernists see Ragga girls as using their right to free will

Question 7

who are the riot grrls? Evaluation on them?

Answer 7

• they originated in the early 1990s
• politics, punk style and feminist consciousness
• the address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism and female empowerment
• the push for girl power movement, lessen the inequality between men and women and push for issues concerning women to be improved (+)
• can be seen as sexist towards men (-)