Imaging Feminism, Imaging Femininity: The Bra-Burner, Diana, and the Woman Who Kills

SlutWalk

“…Because feminist activism has not historically been given much mainstream media support (see Bradley 2003;Douglas 1994;Hinds & Stacey 2001;Mendes 2011a;Morris 1973aMorris , 1973b; van Zoonen 1992), I was surprised to discover that the vast majority of my mainstream news sample, taken from eight nations which hosted SlutWalks between 2011 and 2013, was in fact supportive of the movement. This was not only evident in headlines that legitimized the need for the movement, but in the ways the mainstream media constructed it as part of a global stand against sexual violence, victim-blaming and slut-shaming.…”

“…Given the news media's love for declaring feminism 'dead,' it is perhaps unsurprising to note that scholars have paid particular attention to women's activism in a postfeminist era (for exceptions see Dean 2010;Douglas 2010;Hinds & Stacey 2001;Jaworska & Krishnamurthy 2012;Kolesova 2013;Lind & Salo, 2002;McNicol 2012;Mendes 2012;Whelehan 2000;Walter 2010). These studies have found that feminism is constructed as a deeply individualized and personalized ideology, with little discussion of collective feminist activism (Mendes 2012).…”

Spectacles of Gender and Globalization: Mapping Miss World's Media Event Space in the News

“…The Times of India's news narratives on Miss World's founders, sponsors, and contestants as protectors of India's innocent children rearticulated elements of the nationalist media rhetoric that erupted in 1991 when state officials, activists, and religious leaders constructed the rehabilitation of Ameena, a young Muslim girl who was rescued from a "foreign" Arab man, as a quintessential crisis of redemption for the postcolonial nation (Mankekar, 1997). Media accounts of empowered globe-trotting women changing the world also serve as signifying resources for the creation of new icons of popular feminisms that negotiate the tensions between femininity/ feminism and selfish individualism/selfless public service (Banet-Weiser, 1999;Hinds & Stacey, 2001). Repressing a more insidious subtext, the Times of India's imaging of Miss World's vision of caring feminine empowerment in India, the "jewel in the crown" of Britain's former empire, concealed the neocolonial logic of the pageant's strategic philanthropy.…”

“…The prominence of media images in the representational politics of capitalist democracies is a key concern of recent cultural studies work that has examined the ways in which institutions and activist groups harness media spectacles to disseminate narratives of race, gender, class, and nation in the public sphere (Callahan, 1998;Hinds & Stacey, 2001;McLaughlin, 1998;Steiner, 1999). Building on such recent discussions, this article examines visual and textual representations of Miss World's "media event space" in the Times of India, an English-language newspaper that is widely recognized for its "reliability and reputation for balance and fairness" (Shah, 1994, p. 8).…”

"I'm Not a Feminist...I Only Defend Women as Human Beings": The Production, Representation, and Consumption of Feminism in a Telenovela

“…This literature also delves into the region's rejection of the terms feminism and feminist, but the media's role in this disapproval has not been fully explored. This vacuum in the academic literature contrasts with efforts to examine the media's contribution "to the cultural conversation about feminism" (Dow, 1996, p. xiv) that has taken place in the United States (Blum, 1983;Clark, 1990;D'Acci, 1994;Dow, 1996;Lotz, 2001;Mayne, 1997;Mellencamp, 1997;Rabinovitz, 1989Rabinovitz, , 1999, the United Kingdom (Brundson, 2000;Hinds & Stacey, 2001;Hollows, 2000;Read, 2000;Whelehan, 2000), and Australia (Lumby, 1997).…”