Feminist Research in Media and Popular Culture 2022

  This week we read about Rachel Alicia Griffin’s (2015) article about the representations of Black women (specifically the figures of mammy and the jezebel) in the TV show Scandal . The representations of women are shown as the two extremes: one of them being the all-loving, caring, and self-sacrificial; and the other being the ‘witchy’, villain-like, seductive qualities.  This reminds me of the kind of representations of women I grew up with while watching Indian soap operas and Bollywood films from the 90s. Immediately, two specific representations come to mind: “the good housewife” and “bad outsider woman”. There has always been a divide between a "good housewife" who is shown to be traditional, quiet, and shy - through her attire and mannerisms. She follows what her husband says and serving the family is the focus of her life. On the other hand, there is "an outsider woman" who's shown to be seductive, modernised, independent, and rebelling against traditio...

How often do you come across images of women genuinely enjoying themselves? What kind of picture do you imagine when you put together these words “women having fun”? Do you imagine young women in a bar? What kind of attire do you imagine women wearing in such scenarios? Do you imagine middle-aged women sitting on the floor singing songs to each other when you think of fun? Working-class women playing badminton in a public park? When was the last time you saw a sequence of such scenes in a film? I recently came across this project called “ Basanti: Women at Leisure ” by Surabhi Yadav on Instagram. This project documents different women choosing to take rest in various ways in different settings (in terms of physical settings, and also class, profession, caste, region, age, etc.) in India. Although these images feel so familiar because I have been surrounded by such activities for twenty years of my life. It took me only a minute to realize how I have very rarely seen such images in any ...

Monday, 1:39 p.m. We discuss Sue Thornham’s “Fixing into images” in class. We talk about the male gaze - how men have always seen/portrayed women in an objectified and sexualized manner, without their consent. We critically analyze how “a woman is always looked at, but never actually seen” as a complete individual with all her dreams, flaws, memories, and more. She is always portrayed through the lens of a man’s imagination of femininity.  Friday, 2:14 p.m. For my first-ever swimming class on Saturday morning, I go to the Decathlon to buy my first-ever swimming suit - a little worried about the fact that I might have to end up buying something I “should” feel comfortable wearing but I don’t. I go to the women’s swimsuit section only to find a limited number of options, all of them much more revealing than I would prefer. After struggling for an hour and not wanting to settle as yet, I decide to check out some other stores - only to be met with more disappointment. Every store’s wom...

Is it possible to conduct research in social sciences without succumbing to a certain amount of assumptions regarding neutrality or fake universalization of elements within different categories? How does one choose what part of the identity/context of the subject might be relevant for one’s study? For example, the category “women” - how can this one word manage to capture the various complexities of different individuals who may choose (or even be forced to) identify as women? Is this a problem of the language or a problem of methodologies of research or both? Who is even assigning this label of ‘women’ to the research subjects while conducting the research? Who has the authority to assign this label in the first place?  In her essay, ‘ Is there a feminist method?’, Sandra Harding aims to challenge the traditional accounts which paint a distorted picture of the reality of ‘women’ in the social world. Harding argues against a distinctive feminist method of research and rather bring...