Nhung Nguyen

Key Scholars

• Gaye Tuchman
• Campbell
• Steeves

Seminal Readings

• Campbell, K. K. (1973). The rhetoric of women’s liberation: An oxymoron. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 59, 74– 86.
• Steeves, H. L. (1987). Feminist theories and media studies. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 4(2), 95– 135.
• Tuchman, G. (1978). Introduction: The symbolic annihilation of women in the mass media. In G. Tuchman, A. K. Daniels, & J. Benet (Eds.), Hearth and home: Images of women in the mass media (pp. 3– 38). London, UK: Oxford University Press.

Key Concepts

• discrimination and exclusion on the basis of sex and gender
• objectification
• structural and economic inequality
• power and oppression
• gender roles and stereotypes

Main Premise

Feminist theory in communication is developed and used by scholars to understand gender as a communicative process, with the goal of making social changes important to the well-being of women and, ultimately, everyone. Despite a common purpose, feminist scholars differ on many grounds and typically work in subareas across the discipline of communication. Contemporary feminist theory blossomed among scholars interested in women and communication in the United States in the 1980s, with attention devoted to it in programming in academic communication associations and with a new wave of publishing that theorized, rather than assumed, gender differences.

In communication:

• Mainstream media
• Media coverage on sport and man
• Media coverage on sexual violence
• Media source

Waves of Feminism

First Wave Feminism – 19th and 20th century feminism that focused on legal issues, including the right to vote.  This is when the term feminism was coined by Martha Lear in the New York Times in 1968.

Second Wave Feminism – This began around the 1960s and focuses on building equal rights beyond disenfranchisement.  This is where ideas like equal pay and Title IX became areas of focus.

Third Wave Feminism – This is credited to begin out of the dispute over abortion, where women wanted control over their bodies.  This wave became popular during the 1990s and focused on individualism, diversity and wanted to redefine what a feminist is.

Fourth Wave Feminism – This wave began in the early 2010s and is centered around using the internet for women’s empowerment and focuses on intersectionality.  This wave seeks to continue to fight against the stereotyping of gender norms, but also seeks to support more marginalized communities, which was not as big of a focus in the first three waves.  They also seek to contribute to greater acceptance in society of LBGTQ.  The Me To Movement is a product of the wave.

Types of Feminism

1. Liberal Feminists – work within the structures of society and seek equality through political and legal reform.
2. Radical Feminism – seek equality through what are deemed radical means that are generally not accepted in society, including completely removing the concept of gender.
3. Seperatist and Lesbian Feminism – Think that inequality is rooted in heterosexual relationships.
4. Cultural Feminism – Cultural feminists want to celebrate all the positive characteristics of women.  Believe women should only promote femininity and not masculinity.
5. Social feminism – believe that women are kept in unequal positions because they rely on men for means of support.  Seek to put an end to economic and social inequality.
6. Eco-feminism – Seek to combine environmentalism and feminism.  More spiritual in nature and believe patriarchal actions seek to destroy nature.
7. Black Feminism – Believe feminism and racism are tied together.  Most other forms of feminism do not look at race, they look deeply at race, class and gender.
8. Transfeminism – Less known and newer, but they focus on transgender issues and equality.

Common Methods

• Content analysis
• Observation
• Experiments
• In-depth Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Surveys
• Ethnography

Limitations

One of the limitations to using feminist theory in research is that researchers tend to focus on the differences in men and women in a nature vs. nurture mentality.  From a feminist research standpoint this often means looking at the roles of how men and women are portrayed.  This is not as common now, but it is often looking at the role of the woman as the caretaker and the role of the man as the provider.  Research has started to shift slightly as the third-wave of feminism has evolved, but there is still a common notion to look at roles as a woman’s role or a man’s role in research.

This theory often puts women at the centerpoint and does not always look at research from the man’s perspective.  Taking in perspectives from men and women allows for a broader perspective of the issues being researched.  However, there are some researchers that look at feminism tendencies in men and in male groups.  This has come out of the third wave.

This theory looks at oppression from the perspective of women’s oppression.  There are arguments that this theory often focuses predominantly on White women, thus ignoring the perspectives of minorities.  This gave rise to the Black Feminism perspectives, which focuses on feminism from a minority woman’s point of view.

Developments

Due to the focus on certain groups feminist theory has several different types, so instead of focusing on a broad perspective, researchers may have to focus on particular groups, such as radical feminists, liberal feminists, etc. 

Gender Differences: Some feminist theory provides an analytic framework for understanding how women’s location in and experience of social situations differ from men’s.

Gender Inequality: Feminist theories that focus on gender inequality recognize that women’s location in and experience of social situations are not only different but also unequal to men’s.

Gender Oppression: Theories of gender oppression go further than theories of gender difference and gender inequality by arguing that not only are women different from or unequal to men, but that they are actively oppressed, subordinated, and even abused by men.

Structural Oppression: Structural oppression theories posit that women’s oppression and inequality are a result of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism.

Typical Research Questions

How does media portray/represent women in the news or on television?

Are women represented in media outlets?

How are women treated compared to men in media outlets?

What gender equality issues appear in media outlets?

How are gender issues, such as the Me To Movement, covered by the media?