Ideologies Of Femininity Research Articles

Predicting change in relationship distress and depressive symptoms among couples in Taiwan: The role of attachment, emotional expressivity, and gender roles in Emotionally Focused Therapy.

This pilot study examined predictors of change in relationship distress and depressive symptoms over the course of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) in a one-arm, pragmatic clinical trial of 17 couples in Taiwan. Results revealed that masculine ideology, feminine ideology, traditionalism, and emotional expressivity at intake predicted change in relationship distress. Specifically, women's high traditional gender roles and traditionalism and both partners' high emotional expressivity at intake were associated with decreases in relationship distress over time. In addition, attachment and emotional expressivity predicted change in depressive symptoms. Specifically, high attachment avoidance, high attachment anxiety, and high emotional expressivity at intake were associated with decreases in depressive symptoms over time. While more research is needed, these findings offer preliminary support for the types of partners who may experience more improvement after receiving EFT in Taiwan.

Tangled and Bumpy Roads to Gender Equity: Socio-Cultural Insights from Media Stories About Olympic Athletes and Motherhood

With the 2024 Olympic Games touted as reaching gender parity (i.e., same number of female and male athletes participating), media conversations are continuing about elite athlete mothers. Researchers interrogating media stories of Olympic athlete mothers have shown that their sporting journeys are not straightforward due to tensions linked to gender (in)equity. In this paper we use narrative inquiry as a theoretical lens to explore “comeback themes” synthesized from published media studies of Olympic athlete mothers, along with recent examples of media stories of Olympic athlete mothers. We discuss four comeback themes that include: (in)compatible identities, super mums, veteran status/age, and exposing discrimination, and some implications for gender equity. The first three comebacks perpetuate gender ideologies of heteronormative femininity, good motherhood, ageism, and exceptionalism, which downplay equitable support and change. These themes, along with the exposing discrimination theme, also highlight shifting media representations of motherhood and sport whereby stories expose struggles, realities, and/or structural deficits. We reflect on these themes as a “tangled and bumpy road” to gender equity led by athlete mothers’ voices resulting in changes in maternity rights. These comeback themes show gains in gender equity for sportswomen and highlight areas where more work is needed. Future research recommendations include studying mainstream and social media spaces with an intersectional lens to expand understanding of media stories as pedagogical resources to learn more about motherhood, sport, and gender (in)equity.

Dispositional authenticity, facilitativeness, femininity ideology, and dyadic relationship functioning in opposite‐gender couples: Actor‐partner interdependence analysis

AbstractThis prospective study examined (a) the mediating roles of Carl Rogers' facilitative interpersonal conditions (i.e., genuineness, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard) and (b) the moderating roles of femininity ideology in the association between dispositional authenticity and dyadic relationship functioning using a dyadic approach. Participants, 239 opposite‐gender couples, completed the Authenticity Scale, Barrett‐Lennard Relationship Inventory:mini, Femininity Ideology Scale, and Dyadic Adjustment Scale in two separate phases. Longitudinal data were analyzed using the actor‐partner interdependence (mediation/moderation) model within a structural equation modelling framework. Perceived facilitativeness served as a mediator, channelling the positive associations from dispositional authenticity to dyadic relationship functioning, at both interpersonal and intrapersonal levels. Additionally, femininity ideology emerged as a moderator, influencing the relationships between dispositional authenticity and dyadic relationship functioning in both contexts. These findings underscore the significance of embracing authenticity and transcending traditional femininity ideologies for opposite‐gender partners to thrive cohesively as a dyad. The implications of these findings and avenues for future research are further discussed.

Ideologies of gender representation inHekayat Shaʕbia min Masˁr(2012)

This paper examines how Egyptian folktales, as represented in the sampled data, construct ideologies of femininity and masculinity.1It looks into gender representation from a critical stylistic perspective in El Ashmawy’s (2012) Hekayat shaʕbia men Masˁr [Folktales from Egypt]. Drawing on Jeffries’s (2010) critical stylistic model, the present study utilizes two major tools of textual-conceptual function, namely: (i) naming and describing, and (ii) representation of actions, events, and states. It sets off with a content-focused, thematic analysis of El Ashmawy’s seven folktales. Then the author analyzes the data using the selected textual-conceptual toolkit. The paper primarily explores linguistic encoding of value systems and beliefs, latent in the texts, to unveil the ideologies encoded via linguistic resources. The conceptual-textual function of “naming” and “describing” as well as representation of actions, events, and states linguistically reflect culturally rooted ideologies. Findings show that strategies of naming label men according to their occupational roles, which is directly related to the social and referential gender. Women, on the other hand, are mainly labeled according to their domestic roles within the family category. In terms of describing strategies, folktales associate men sometimes with strength, and other times with helplessness, whereas women are associated with either beauty or resourcefulness in a few cases. Moreover, men are seen as agents, capable of action, whereas women are basically represented, rather than in action. It is commonly agreed that folktales reflect and reproduce ideologies within a community. Unveiling the ideologies residing in folktales can hence explain many of the present time’s prevailing beliefs and values and can also be a tool for propagating balanced conceptualization of gender roles.

Becoming women teachers: gender and primary teacher training in Ireland, 1922–1974

ABSTRACT Drawing on archival material and oral testimony of former students, this paper examines the lives and experiences of women in Catholic primary teacher training colleges in Ireland in the period 1922–1974. It commences with a brief overview of the historical context in which these colleges emerged, situating their development within the socio-political and cultural context of the emerging Free State and the changing primary school curriculum. Residential and single-sex, the paper argues that the colleges promoted a gendered ideology and culture of femininity which mirrored the conservative, nationalistic and ultramontane agenda of post-Independence Ireland. Paradoxically, while this often led to a limited, anti-intellectual experience and a hegemonic framing of women teachers’ professionalism, many graduates used their new-found professional status as teachers to embrace high-profile leadership roles in twentieth-century Ireland, often in male-dominated fields.

Ideologies of Masculinity and Femininity in the Projection of the ‘National Language’: Gendered Discourse of Hindi–Urdu Dichotomization and Standardization

This article takes the linguistic space of North India during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and tries to see how a nationalistic linguistic ideology that was shaping up at that time, creating Hindi and Urdu linguistic communities, used gender as a tool to portray and assert a masculinist vision of language and nation. It involved not just censoring certain representations of women and their cultural spaces, but also using the issue of ‘vulgar’ representations as a premise to marginalize certain languages and their literature. The article looks at the colonial ideology that worked as an enforcer for the nationalists to work towards achieving what they felt as a sanitized and moral form of literature and culture. The linguistic ideology that accompanied these revisions was of projecting Hindi (Khari Boli) as a national language while limiting spaces of other languages, such as Braj, Urdu and Bhojpuri, in the region, by criticizing either their use of sexual imagery or by stereotyping them in a gendered way. This article investigates the arguments of nationalist writers and highlights their masculinist and patriarchal ideas in their bid for the new national language.

It Takes Two to Tango: Links Between Traditional Beliefs About both Men’s and Women’s Gender Roles and Comfort Initiating Sex and Comfort Refusing Sex

Traditional gender roles dictate rigid rules and standards prescribing which behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are considered masculine and feminine within sexual contexts, and thus internalizing these beliefs (higher traditional gender ideology) may influence sexual attitudes. Prior theorizing has primarily focused on how women’s traditional beliefs about women’s gender roles (traditional femininity ideology) and men’s traditional beliefs about men’s gender roles (traditional masculinity ideology) influence their sexual assertiveness. Yet, men can hold traditional beliefs about women, and women can hold traditional beliefs about men, and these beliefs should have important implications for sexual assertiveness. We addressed this gap by testing how both heterosexual women’s (n = 389) and men’s (n = 393) traditional masculinity and femininity ideologies associate with their reported comfort initiating sex and comfort refusing sex in their relationships. When accounting for both sets of beliefs, women’s traditional beliefs about men’s and women’s roles interacted to predict comfort initiating sex, but not comfort refusing sex. Men’s traditional beliefs about men’s roles predicted less comfort refusing sex, and their traditional beliefs about women’s roles predicted less comfort initiating sex. This novel research underscores the importance of considering beliefs about both sets of traditional gender roles for understanding people’s sexual attitudes.

‘Fashion, you’re incomprehensible!’ Teenage girls, Jackie magazine and fashion as a negotiated social statement in the early 1970s

The hugely popular girls’ magazineJackie(1964–93) was a significant source of guidance for its readers on a range of matters, including fashion. This article analyses archive editions ofJackieheld in the Femorabilia collection at Liverpool John Moores University to re-examine its fashion content during a period marked by a shift in emphasis from creativity to consumption. It also revisits Angela McRobbie’s highly influential research onJackie, arguing thatJackie’s fashion coverage fulfils a broader social role than simply supporting the ‘ideology of femininity’ that McRobbie’s contemporaneous work identifies as central to the magazine. Examining issues from 1973 to 1974 illuminates a period which is more nuanced than is often suggested, and which is marked by both continuity and also substantial change.Jackie’s depiction of early 1970s girlhood shows the necessity of negotiating public space for teenage girls. Its fashion content represents the balance of moderation, experimentation and adaptability offered by theJackiereader’s self-presentation. Findings demonstrate the heterogeneous meanings on offer in the magazine: whileJackiereaders are urged to show restraint in engaging with fashion, they are also encouraged to explore the wider world, dressed and ready for it.

The contributions of gender identification and gender ideologies to the purposes of social media use in adolescence.

Gender differences in adolescent social media use are often documented in the research literature, yet few studies delve into why they occur. Accordingly, we investigated whether gender identification and gender ideologies are associated with five major purposes of social media use in adolescence (emotion and activity bonding with friends, social compensation, appearance validation, and bullying). Participants were 309 cisgender U.S. high school students (Mage = 15.74; 59% girls; 53% white) primarily using Instagram and Snapchat but also TikTok (more popular with girls) and Discord (more popular with boys) in 2019. Girls reported greater use of social media for emotion bonding, appearance validation, and social compensation compared to boys, who reported greater competitive activity bonding. Girls and boys did not differ in their use of social media for bullying. In linear regressions, masculinity ideology predicted purposes associated with girls (appearance validation, social compensation), as well as those associated with boys (competitive activity bonding), regardless of gender. Femininity ideology uniquely predicted emotion bonding and social compensation but only mediated the effect of gender for the latter. Findings illustrate that gender is important for understanding uses and gratifications of social media in adolescence, but traditional masculinity ideology is similar across genders and relates to multiple functions of social media in boys' and girls' lives. More work is needed to conceptualize gender beliefs and values in Gen Z, given recent challenges to gender binary ideology and low reliability of the scales in this study, which were developed before social media.

A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Ideologies of Masculinity and Femininity in Folktales of Egypt (1980)

A Critical Stylistic Analysis of Ideologies of Masculinity and Femininity in Folktales of Egypt (1980)

Feminine Ideology, Body Appreciation, and Indirect Aggression in Girls

This study was an investigation of the possible relations and interactions between traditional feminine ideology, and social and relational aggression within a sample of female children and adolescents. Participants included 45 female students (8-19 years of age) who completed measures assessing beliefs about and behaviors feminine ideology, body image (including body objectification), relational and social aggression, and interpersonal maturity. Analyzes revealed that participants who rated themselves as having a weaker internalization of the objectification of one’s body (a subtype of traditional feminine ideology) rated themselves as less likely to use socially-aggressive tactics than those with higher levels of body objectification. No other significant findings were noted. Implications for these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

“‘I’m not weird. I’m just like everybody else’: intersections of embodiment, incarceration, and mental illness on Wentworth and Orange Is the New Black”

ABSTRACT Applying a critical feminist disability studies framework, I look closely at televisual women inmates with mental illness to demonstrate how the dynamics between one’s body and one’s environment contribute to their disabilities. With an examination of three characters from two prominent prison shows (Wentworth and Orange Is the New Black), I discuss how each character’s mental illness operates as commentary for embodiment and the ideology of femininity, the politics of appearance, and unaddressed trauma. I address the following research questions: First, how is the portrayal of mental illness commentary on broader feminist concerns? Second, why are some characters with mental illnesses portrayed in a more sympathetic light while others are not, and how do these choices challenge the dominant ideology of normalcy? And third, how does this commentary showcase the varying nature around societally constructed intersections of women, mental health, and criminality? Ultimately, I argue that while Wentworth showcases how prison can help stabilize characters with more well-known and/or common mental illnesses, OITNB instead depicts how the carceral system can exacerbate them. Despite this difference, both prison shows humanize characters with more well-known and common mental illnesses and vilify characters with lesser known (or lesser common) mental illnesses.

Deconstruction of the Discourse of Femininity: A Case of Thai Girls’ Schools

Summary The study investigates the construction of femininity ideologies of girls-only school websites in Thailand and deconstructs them for analysis at the lexical level. Ideological beliefs underlying the custom of upbringing of young women in Thai cultural contexts are the focus of investigation. We pay a particular attention to how the schools communicate their key messages of vision, mission, core values, and about us on their websites and conduct a corpus-driven discourse analysis on the data. Findings from running tests of frequency and collocation reveal the traits of femininity constructed in the discourse, built the praising of obedience, submissiveness and lady-like features. We conclude that benevolent sexism is a common cultural practice evident in educational institutions.

(Auto)Theorizing the maternal interval: Burlesque performance as creative research

ABSTRACT Burlesque is a form that engages ideas of bodily inscription and gender performativity. Through burlesque, I seek to interrogate, critique, iterate and, ultimately, rewrite existing ideologies of femininity. By placing my works in theatrical space, I am able to add layers of both privacy and display, thereby opening up space for alternative narratives and ontologies to be more clearly articulated. In mobilizing existing traditional cultural/religious tropes of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, I examine the space of the creative interval that occurred during the period of becoming burlesque-performer-mother. This process of art-making can be seen as a mimesis of the writing of Luce Irigaray, specifically relation to her interrogations of masculine texts that found the unsaid, the unwritten, and therefore the unignorable. During this intermezzo in my professional creative trajectory, my awareness of ‘femininity’ and perceptions of my place in the symbolic order, all underwent a fundamental shift. This paper describes the conceptualization and realization of a new burlesque performance following the birth of my child in 2017. Utilizing femme theory and a methodology of autotheory, this paper breathes space into the unignorable maternal interval, in my particular specificity.

Performing Beauty: Femininity Ideology, Neoliberalism and Aesthetic Labor Among Young Women in Mexico

This research is motivated by the norms and practices of femininity that individuals create through performances and bodily practices. It investigates the levels of women’s acceptance of the femininity ideology and neoliberalism in the upper middle class, their effects on aesthetic labor and the objectification of their bodies. It examines how the logic and techniques associated with neoliberalism shapes the construction of current femininities and shifts in the relationship between the self and the body. Through the use of quantitative analysis from data based on young middle class women in Monterrey, Mexico, this study aims to determine how women are making sense of their bodies through selfdiscipline and self-regulation, as well as the ways in which neoliberal and postfeminist constructions of the sexual self and body are made meaningful in women’s everyday lives.

Measurement invariance by race (black, white) of the femininity ideology scale-short form

ABSTRACT The Femininity Ideology Scale – Short Form (FIS-SF) assesses traditional femininity ideology (TFI), which is the internalization of White, Western, heteronormative norms about how women are supposed to think, feel, and behave. As TFI applies to both in-group and out-group members, it is important to examine the FIS-SF’s psychometric properties in different populations who might have unique gender ideologies that compete with TFI, such as the Strong Black Woman ideology (SBWI). This study investigated the measurement invariance of the FIS-SF in a sample of Black (N = 185) and White (N = 944) respondents, who were college students and community-dwellers recruited using internet advertisements. Ages ranged from 18 to 90 years (Mean = 27.10, SD = 11.59). Results indicated that the FIS-SF had a statistically equivalent pattern of items loading on factors, item factor loadings and model fit for White and Black participants. Four of the twelve intercepts of the items regressed on their respective factors were invariant between groups, with Black participants having higher intercepts for all non-invariant items, but their effect size was small. Future research is needed to investigate relationships between SBWI and TFI as well as FIS-SF measurement invariance in other populations.

The role of beauty as currency belief in acceptance of cosmetic surgery and career aspirations among Chinese young women

ABSTRACT The current study tested the “beauty as currency” hypothesis in the framework of Objectification theory with a sample of Chinese young women. Four hundred and four college women completed a pencil-and-paper questionnaire. We hypothesized that beauty as currency would be associated with acceptance of cosmetic surgery and career aspirations through the serial meditation of self-objectification and body surveillance. The results indicated that self-objectification and body surveillance mediated the relation between women’s belief in beauty as currency and acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Body surveillance mediated the relationship between beauty as currency and career aspirations. These findings provide further evidence for the “beauty as currency” hypothesis, suggesting the feminine beauty ideology may lead to women’s higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery and lower career aspirations via the self-objectifying process. Our study provides some implications for understanding the effect of women’s ideologies on gender system change.

Pathways to Pleasure and Protection: Exploring Embodiment, Desire, and Entitlement to Pleasure as Predictors of Black and White Young Women’s Sexual Agency

Sexual agency is a fundamental dimension of sexual subjectivity and well-being. Research and theory suggest that it functions in the service of both protection from harm and enabling sexual pleasure. However, sexual agency can be difficult for women to navigate in a social landscape in which femininity ideologies remain powerful social forces, operating in racialized ways. We examined how embodiment, sexual desire, and entitlement to sexual pleasure were associated with sexual agency in the service of protection (i.e., condom use and refusing unwanted sex) and pleasure (i.e., asking for what one wants from a sexual partner) for Black and White heterosexual college women using path analysis and path invariance testing. We found that across race, women’s embodiment was associated with greater comfort with their sexual desire, which in turn was associated with greater entitlement to sexual pleasure and sexual agency in service of both pleasure and protection. While Black and White women evidenced similar levels of both forms of agency, Black participants’ agency in the service of protection was unrelated to their entitlement to sexual pleasure. We discuss these findings in light of racialized discourses of women’s sexuality and the importance of understanding sexual desire as anchored in the body and enabling young women’s sexual agency.

“Beyond Women’s Powers of Endurance”: The 1928 800-Meter and Women’s Olympic Track and Field in the Context of the United States

In the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, women officially competed in track and field for the first time. After a world-record-breaking 800-meter final, the press inaccurately reported that the runners collapsed at the finish and generally called for the race to be eliminated since it called too greatly on feminine strength. In intervening years between the 1928 and 1932 Olympics, the IOC and IAAF voted to eliminate the race from the program. A fuller understanding of 800-meter race, within a broader American cultural milieu about women’s health and sport, demonstrates how the media and sport governing bodies intersect with ideologies of femininity.

“The Curious Impertinent” and <em>The Second Maiden’s Tragedy</em>: (Self)Subversive Discourses on Gender and Power

This paper provides a comparative analysis of “The Curious Impertinent”, an interpolated novel in Don Quixote (1605), and The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, a play attributed to Thomas Middleton premiered in 1611. Cervantes’s story about the stratagem contrived by a jealous husband who persuades his closest friend to test his wife’s fidelity and the pernicious consequences that ensue is rewritten in the subplot of Middleton’s work and adapted to the Jacobean political and ideological context. The play’s main storyline also mirrors the Cervantine-inspired episode: the female protagonist is equally tempted by a tyrant, but, as opposed to the seduced wife, she resists stoically and gives up her life to prevent an otherwise unavoidable rape. Critics of both works are divided as to whether they uphold the dominant construction of women as ‘naturally’ inferior to men, both being permeated by a blatantly misogynistic language that perpetuates the ‘weaker vessels’ ideology. The analysis developed in this paper aims to prove that, even though each text was produced in a different social context –and hence has different political motivations–, both are self-subversive, as they undermine the dominant ideology of femininity and the consequent power hierarchy, in both the private and the public spheres.