Section Three: Representation, Language, and Culture
Learning Objectives
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To understand how language and the mass media shape how we see gender.
To decipher how images and language contribute to our understanding of gender and
race.
To see both the perpetuation of gender and racial stereotypes in culture and language as
well as the resistance to these.
Section Summary
Cultural ideas about what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man affect everyone
in the culture. Powerful cultural institutions like the media and the language we shape how we
see ourselves and the world around us.
 Culture is a set of shared ides about the nature of reality, standards of right and wrong,
and concepts for making sense of social interactions.
 Languages, including English, enforce gender differences that privilege men.
 The mass media transmits dominant cultural ideals and guides how we understand
masculinity and femininity in a way that advantages masculinity.
 Race and ethnicity shape these representations of gender.
 Some cultural images challenge mainstream understandings of gender, race, and beauty,
and subordinated groups often construct alternative systems of cultural meanings.
Reading 12: Laurel Richardson, “Gender Stereotyping in the English Language”
The English language perpetuates stereotypes of men and women in the United States.
Language patterns are consistent with gendered patterns in the culture, and influence attitudes
and behaviors.
 When the word “man” or male pronouns are used to refer to all people, most people
understand the words to be about men and not women.
 Occupations and non-human objects are gender-typed in a way that promotes male
dominance and female subordination.
 The words “lady” and “girl” are often used to categorize women as lesser, incompetent,
or immature.
 Everyday language often sexualizes women and associates them with prostitutes while
signaling that men are the sexual aggressors.
 A woman is often defined by her relation to a man while men are usually defined by their
relation to the world.
 The connotations of some words that originally had neutral connotations now have
negative connotations if they are associated with women and positive connotations if they
are associated with men.
Boxed Insert: Gust Yep and Ariana Ochoa Camacho, “The Normalization of
Heterogendered Relations in The Bachelor”
Analysis of the ABC TV show “The Bachelor”, a romance-themed reality show, demonstrates
how shows such as this promote heterogendered relations or the asymmetrical stratification of
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the sexes in patriarchal heterosexuality. Through normailization, which is the process that
constructs and (re)produces powerful assumptive standards about what is desirable and good,
“The Bachelor” reified current heterogendered relations that privilege men and heterosexuals.
The show did this in the following ways:
 The premise of the show portrays women with little power because a group of women
compete for one man’s affections.
 The show concentrated on the women contestants’ physical attractiveness and offered
women as the object of the male gaze.
 The show reinforced the ideal of a subservient woman caring for her husband.
 The show made connections to heterosexual imaginaries of fairy tales.
Reading 13: Judy Taylor, “Feminism Consumerism and Fat Activists: Grassroots Activism
and the Dove ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign”
This article compares how the Dove “Real Beauty” Campaign and a Toronto feminist fatactivism organization, Pretty, Porky and Pissed Off (PPPO), challenge gendered beauty
ideology. The Dove campaign was able to reach a much wider audience than PPPO, it promotes
feminist consumerism that does not challenge beauty ideology in general and maintains
structural gender and intersectional inequality.
 PPPO focused more on challenging corporations, resisting consumerism, and bringing a
complex feminist critique of beauty to a local setting. They used cabaret and street
theatre/protest to challenge people to re-think stereotypes of fat women of beauty.
 Dove, a subsidiary of the Unilever corporation, embarked on a very profitable and
successful marketing campaign to revitalize its brand which featured women whose
bodies were slightly larger and showed more “flaws.” The campaign incorporated TV,
magazine, and billboard ads along with celebrity and feminist endorsements, and
programs aimed at helping raise women’s/girls self-esteem and lower eating disorders.
 The Dove campaign feeds contemporary beauty ideology because it was intended to
make “women feel more beautiful” not to challenge the idea that beauty is an essential
part of women’s identity. Although the campaign suggests that it is challenging beauty
standardized beauty norms, various hegemonic beauty ideals were maintained in the ads
including youth, slenderness, and European features.
 The campaign also encourages people to find beauty through Dove products which
Taylor calls an example of feminist consumerism. Feminist consumerism is the
reformulation of feminism as achieved through grooming and shopping.
 While the “Real Beauty” campaign focused exclusively on positive feelings women
“should” have about their bodies, but PPPO also discussed the painful and angry feelings
they had about beauty culture. Additionally, PPPO activists were more likely to recognize
multiple axes of inequality, to discard the need for men to approve of their looks, and to
reject beauty as an important goal of women.
Reading 14: Debra Gimlin, “Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty”
Interviews with one cosmetic surgeon and twenty of his patients investigate the complicated role
of surgery in the construction of modern standards of beauty. The women who had cosmetic
surgery were actively negotiating the narrow cultural standards of culture regarding age, race,
ethnicity, and gender.
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Women (and men) are having cosmetic surgery at increasing rates. Ninety percent of
cosmetic surgeries are performed on women.
The women who had plastic surgery were largely satisfied with their results, but they
believed they had to defend their decision to others, so the surgery itself could not make
them entirely happy.
Some of the women chose to have cosmetic surgery in order to boost their self-esteem
and improve their social interactions. None of the women believed they had the surgery
to please others.
Each woman believed that the aspects of her body with which she was unhappy were
beyond her control and inaccurately reflected her identity.
The women were not necessarily interested in becoming beautiful, but they wanted to
look “normal,” which primarily meant having young Anglo, feminine features.
Additionally, this definition is tied to understandings of beauty, gender, and class.
Many who had plastic surgery believed that a person’s body was a physical manifestation
of their character.
Doctors who perform cosmetic surgeries have enormous power over and responsibility to
their patients. Additionally, doctors can impose their own ideas of aesthetics on patients.
Reading 15: Ingrid Banks, “Hair Still Matters”
Interviews with 43 African-American women and girls show that the female body is politicized
as a place where race and gender are enacted. Black women understand that their hair is an
important demonstration of their relationship with the world, particularly concerning their race,
gender, and sexual orientation. These women discuss how they feel about their hair and how
others interpret Black women’s hair.
 Society has often judged black women using the white female body as the standard.
White women’s long flowing hair is seen as the ideal for all women’s hair. Race,
ethnicity, and class are important aspects of American beauty ideals.
 Hair is an important aspect of femininity, and particular hairstyles like the “afro” and
long braids have political significance for African Americans.
 Hair has often been an important issue for black women because they have been labeled
as inappropriate or “too ethnic” in their workplace or in popular media if they wear their
hair in natural or braided styles.
 Sexuality and sensuality has often been tied to the length of women’s hair, and many of
the African American women viewed long hair as feminine. Women with “too short” hair
are often viewed as lesbians. Men’s sexuality was not questioned when they had long
hair, however.
 Hair is also part of a global market where hair is traded across the globe and hairstyles
are debated worldwide.
Reading 16: T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, “‘I See the Same Ho’: Video Vixens, Beauty
Culture, and Diasporic Sex Tourism”
This article describes how the hip-hop/music and advertising/fashion industries promote
particular ideals of femininity that favor women who are hyper-sexual, fair-skinned, and
ethnically mixed. Recently, Black women have been encouraged to spend their increasing
disposable income on beauty aids, which often seek to whiten Black features, while Black men
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have been encouraged to spend their money visiting Brazil to have sex with eroticized women of
mixed-race ancestry.
 Commercial hip-hop reduces women to their sexuality, and the humanity, dreams, and
talents of women in music videos are ignores. Recently these videos have favored women
who are predominantly light skinned but have large posteriors and hips.
 While advertising generally favors white women, recently more women of color are
working in the mainstream industry. However, as the author’s example for America’s
Next Top Model suggests, the women of color tend to be fair-skinned and deviate only
slightly from the white ideal.
 These beauty ideals have real world consequences as Black women feel the pain of being
considered less beautiful and are increasing their spending on beauty aids including
plastic surgery.
 Recently, Brazil, particularly Rio de Janeiro, has become a playground for African
American sexual prerogatives, with music videos, magazines, porn, and travel industries
catering to the fetishization of Brazilian mixed-race women.
Boxed Insert: Tara Parker-Pope, “Rewriting Rap to Empower Teens”
Pope describes educators and parents’ use of rap music to discuss the challenges girls face
including the negative portrayals of women in the media. This article gives examples of Atlanta
teens who have rewritten the lyrics to popular songs in order to be empowering to girls.
Discussion Questions
Reading 12: Laurel Richardson, “Gender Stereotyping in the English Language”
1.
2.
3.
What English words for a woman does Richardson find to be demeaning? Why? What
other words for woman have negative connotations?
How does language reinforce differing expectations for men than for women? How can
non-sexist language change the gendered expectations of occupations and other aspects of
culture?
How do sexist language and linguistic stereotyping affect people?
Boxed Insert: Gust Yep and Ariana Ochoa Camacho, “The Normalization of
Heterogendered Relations in The Bachelor”
4.
5.
How were/are the women chosen for “The Bachelor”? How does that reinforce gender
norms?
In what ways does “The Bachelor” promote heterogendered relations according to Yep and
Camacho? Do you think this is problematic? How might shows with a female lead where
men compete for her attention such as the spin-off “The Bachelorette” challenge (or
promote) heterogender?
Reading 13: Judy Taylor, “Feminism Consumerism and Fat Activists: Grassroots Activism
and the Dove ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign”
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6.
7.
8.
9.
How does the Dove “Real Beauty” marketing campaign challenge gendered beauty ideals?
What about beauty does this campaign not critique? How has this campaign been/not been
successful?
What is feminist consumerism? Do you see this at work in other products besides Dove?
Explain.
What about beauty does PPPO challenge? In what ways was this organization successful?
Do you think there are any problems with the PPPO’s challenge to beauty ideals?
Which do you think was more successful at challenging gendered beauty norms, the Dove
campaign or the PPPO? Why?
Reading 14: Debra Gimlin, “Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty”
10. The doctor selected the women Gimlin interviewed. How might this affect her finding that
the women were satisfied with their surgery? How might Dr. Norris’s strict criteria for
weeding out patients also have affected this study?
11. If most doctors Gimlin interviewed believed their patients were “obsessed and impossible
to please” or that the flaws these women saw in themselves were “insignificant,” why
would they perform these surgeries?
12. Gimlin compares cosmetic surgery to going to the gym and to hairstyling. How are these
practices similar or different? According to Gimlin, how are the women who go through
these procedures different from others?
13. Do you believe the women who have plastic surgery have internalized misogyny? How
have some of them internalized racism, ageism, or class standards?
Reading 15: Ingrid Banks, “Hair Still Matters”
14. In what ways is Venus Williams politicized regarding her race and gender? Can you think
of other celebrities who have caused a stir because of their demonstration of ethnicity or
race through their hair, clothes, or body?
15. Why did the women Banks interviewed like long hair? How did race, gender, and sexuality
factor into this?
16. Think about your hairstyle. What are the reasons you picked your style? What would your
friends, parents, or partners say if you changed your style? How do you do gender and race
through the way you style your hair?
Reading 16: T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, “‘I See the Same Ho’: Video Vixens, Beauty
Culture, and Diasporic Sex Tourism”
17. What images of beauty does Madison Avenue promote? How are these similar to or
different from the images promoted in hip-hop videos according to Sharpley-Whiting?
18. Do you agree with Sharpley-Whiting that there is a hierarchy of beauty in the U.S.? What
proof does she offer for this? Can you think of other examples of this hierarchy?
19. Thinking about this article and your own experiences, what affect do you think the limited
forms of acceptable beauty have on women and girls? How do they affect mean and the
relationships between men and women?
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20. Why has Brazil become such a popular destination for tourism? What do you thik this tells
us about beauty and gender norms?
Boxed Insert: Tara Parker-Pope, “Rewriting Rap to Empower Teens”
21. What suggestion does this article have for empowering girls? Why is there a need to rewrite
the lyrics?
Assignments and Exercises
Using Popular Movies to Demonstrate Cultural Standards of Beauty: Many movies focus on the
importance of physical beauty, especially for women. Examples from popular culture not only
capture student interest, but they also give the class a common ground to discuss cultural ideas of
beauty. Music videos, commercials, and films often pan over women’s bodies to demonstrate
sexuality. Short clips of such examples could be shown in class to demonstrate the points in this
section. Also, a movie that challenges (such as Real Women Have Curves) or supports (such as
Weird Science) sexist body ideals could be shown in their entirety as well.
Heterogender in Pop Culture
Yep and Camacho’s Boxed Insert describes how pop culture, which students are often familiar
with and interested in, can be used to demonstrate complicated concepts regarding gender
stratification and heterosexist ideals. Showing clips from or a whole episode of a show such as
“The Bachelor” can generate discussion about how sexism and heterosexism are reinforced in
these shows and how these two systems operate together. Students could also be asked to watch
a reality shows outside class time in order promote discussion in class or in order to complete an
essay on examples of heterogender in society.
Film: Representations of Gender in Advertising: Show Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image
of Women in class. Jean Kilborne demonstrates advertising’s powerful influence on American
gendered beauty standards in this powerful documentary. This 34 minute film provides imagery
and commentary that is current and moving. More information on the film, including a study
guide is provided at:
http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/KillingUsSoftly3/#logistics .
Gendered Language of Sex: This assignment helps students to understand how the words in the
English language for sex and for being sexually active have gendered connotations that affect
how we think about sex and gender. Ask students to make a list of the verbs we use to describe
the act of sex. In these words, who is assumed to be the actor (male/female)? Now ask students
to list words for people who are sexually active. How are the connotations of these words
different for men than for women? Do we use these words to describe other actions? If so, what
does that also say about gender?
Paper on Sex Stereotyping in Music, Film and Television: Ask students to write a paper that
analyzes stereotypes in the mass media. Ask them to perform a content analysis of either five
hours of television shows or music videos, or three movies. Students should describe the
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stereotypical references and images of gender as it intersects with one of the following
categories: race, ethnicity, sexuality, or disability. Tell students to develop categories based on
roles, behaviors, images, positions, language, and other categories that make sense for their
sources of data. This information should be coded in either a table format or a qualitative
narrative. Students should answer the following questions in their analysis: What do the
stereotypes say about the group? How do these stereotypes promote certain groups as dominant
and others as subordinate? Which groups are portrayed positively and which are portrayed
negatively? How? What implications do these stereotypes have for everyday life?
Breaking Free from Gender Stereotypes: It is important for students to think about how current
media forms that challenge gender stereotypes differ from mainstream media, as well how these
forms often do not challenge all gender stereotypes. Provide students with a moment to think
about a popular media outlet (magazine, website, television show, film, music, etc.) that breaks
gender stereotypes. Ask students to describe how the images of women (or men) in this medium
are different from other popular images. Does this medium use language, clothing, or hairstyles
that are not mainstream? How might the medium they are thinking of still uphold some gender
stereotypes?
Bodies: Ask students to interview a woman about her body. Have students reflect on the way
images of age, race, and gender in the media are reflected in what these women say. How do
these women actively challenge or contribute to popular ideas of beauty? What do these women
believe their bodies say about themselves? How important is the woman’s mobility (if she is not
disabled) to her understanding of herself?
Re-writing Lyrics: This exercise can be done as a take-home assignment or an in-class exercise.
Students could be asked to rewrite the lyrics to a song based on the Boxed Insert by Tara ParkerPope, and that doesn’t fall prey to the critiques offered by Sharpley-Whiting. In-class a professor
could play a song and then have students split into groups to rewrite the song in a way that uses
positive portrayals of women and does not focus exclusively on their bodies.
Gender and Representation in Magazines: This assignment is designed to provide students with
some insight into the implicit messages society sends about gender—including how gender is
represented with race, class, and age. This assignment will also introduce students to content
analysis. The goal is to get students to think critically about the role of media representations in
gender socialization. The students should be asked (as outlined on the syllabus) to read a few of
the readings in this section of Feminist Frontiers before doing this assignment. Ask them to
bring to class one magazine of their choice that has advertisements, and list this on the syllabus.
Read the instructions on the following handout aloud (they explain the purpose of this exercise),
and then divide the class into groups of approximately four students each. These groups will
have about a half-hour (depending on how the groups are progressing) to discuss in groups the
following list of questions regarding their magazines, the readings, and their reactions to what
they have read. The class will then come back together to discuss the groups' findings.
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Gender and Representation in Magazines In-Class Handout
Instructions: In American society (and increasingly in other Western and non-Western
countries), children and adults alike are being socialized by the mass media as well as by parents,
peers, schools, and other institutions. Advertising is a particularly interesting medium because it
has the intention of producing a profitable outcome. Much money is spent to induce you, the
consumer, to have certain emotions and to feel certain needs. Advertisements can be viewed as
very effective tools of socialization that suggest the statuses that are available within a society.
They can also give insight into the values of a society.
In this assignment you are asked to break yourselves into groups to examine the advertisements
in the magazines you brought with you to class. As a group, answer the following questions
(please keep a copy of the group's findings for yourself so you can contribute to the discussion
when the class reunites):
1) What magazines did you examine? At what audience is each directed? How can you tell?
2) What roles in society are defined by these ads? Are they represented in any way that defines
who (i.e., race, class, gender, age, ethnicity) should be in these roles?
3) What emotions are being elicited by these ads?
4) How is beauty portrayed in these ads?
5) What do these ads have to say about gender? What gendered norms are reinforced by these
ads?
6) How might these ads be different from ads of the past? For example, can you see changing
attitudes about men and women's work? Have ideas of beauty shifted—even in your
lifetime?
7) Do you think these ads contribute to the gendered "problems" of eating disorders, sexual
victimization, or cosmetic surgery? What would today's author have to say about what you
found?
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Web Links
Against the Theory of “Sexist Language”
Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of non-sexist language. At this website, you can read
about the ideas of one person who challenges the notion that reality is socially constructed
through language that diminishes women’s status and power. Compare and contrast this piece
with the work of Laurel Richardson in Reading 11 “Gender Stereotyping in the English
Language.”
http://www.friesian.com/language.htm
American Society of Plastic Surgeons
As Debra Gimlin points out in “Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty” (14) patients who
seek cosmetic surgery do so for a variety of reasons and plastic or cosmetic surgeons have
opinions about these procedures as well. Use this website to explore plastic surgeons
understanding of cosmetic surgery.
http://www.plasticsurgery.org/
Cosmetic Surgery
Many feminists criticize medical interventions designed to change women’s bodies to conform to
patriarchal beauty standards. In this paper, “Cosmetic Surgery in a Different Voice: The Case of
Madame Noel,” Kathy Davis analyzes the motivations of one early woman surgeon who felt
called to plastic surgery as a means of empowering women.
http://www.let.uu.nl/~Kathy.Davis/personal/cosmetic_surgery.html
Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video
This 55 minute video demonstrates how women are portrayed in music videos and the
consequences of these portrayals. This may be a nice companion to Sharpley-Whiting’s
discussion of these issues. This webstie includes a link to an abridged version of the video (with
less profanity and nudity).
http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/Dreamworlds3
Feminist Majority Foundation: Feminist Campus Music
There are a variety of artists who evoke feminism and discuss gender in their music. This site
provides links to a verity of these artists. IT is worth noting, however, that there are no rappers or
hip-hop artists listed. Why might that be?
http://www.feministcampus.org/know/links/feministgatewayresults.asp?category1=arts%20and%20media&category2=music&category3=folk
Feminist “Zines”
This website is a portal into the world of internet zines (short for magazines) where feminist girls
and women discuss “feminist theory, politics and activism and their impact on our lives.” This
site provides links to various forms of media that challenge the sexism, racism, and/or classism
found in most mass media forms.
http://grrrlzines.net/index.htm
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The Jean Kilbourne Series
In this series of movies Jean Kilborne demonstrates advertising’s powerful influence on
American gendered beauty standards and glamorized drug and alcohol use. This includes her
recent update of her famous Killing Us Softly movies, which is a 34 minute film that provides
current and moving on the negative impact of advertisements. This website provides more
information on the films, including links to accompanying study guides.
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=510-S-D
Non-Sexist Language
As Laurel Richardson (12 “Gender Stereotyping in the English Language”) points out, many
English language traditions are sexist. Many seek to refrain from using sexist language. These
websites provide information on the how to incorporate non-sexist language into written and oral
English.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_nonsex.html
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/publications/texts/nonsexist.html
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/info/antisxla.html
Teens and Cosmetic Surgery
As the articles in this section describe, more and more women are turning to cosmetic surgery,
including young women. On this website, British feminists take on the issue of teens and
cosmetic surgery.
http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/surgery.live?skin=textonly
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