Mediating Feminism

Abstract

This study attempts to understand how A-level media studies plays a role in girls' navigation through today's postfeminist media culture. Of particular interest in this article is to identify the ways in which students cultivate a feminist (as opposed to postfeminist) sensibility through their experiences in media studies. Classroom observations were conducted across three UK institutions. Further data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with fifteen girls and four educators. Findings suggest that students adopt a feminist voice when discussing young girls' relationships with media and when articulating their own desires for a career and for equality in the domestic sphere. A postfeminist voice, however, persists in their understandings of natural sexual difference and the reclamation of adult women's sexual subjecthood. Interviewees express hesitation to adopt the feminist label, and educators rarely address feminism as a main topic in the classroom. Though the media studies classroom is a site which improves the awareness of existing gender inequalities, suggestions for updated classroom content are considered to improve the development of girls' feminist sensibility, including a clearer and more detailed exploration of transitions from girlhood to womanhood, and a clarification of the media's role in naturalising gender differences.