Place Of Women In Society Research Articles

Alevi ve Bektaşi Sözlü Kültüründeki Değer Kavramları

The meeting of the Turks with Alawism coincides with the beginning of the introduction of Islam. For this reason, Alawism has started to spread among the Turks living in rural areas or living innomads. Written transfer was not very common in these communities because of their way of life. Accordingly, Alawism culture and teachings have been taught and passed on to the next generationsby means of oral transmission. Although this situation creates the impression that some cultural elements belonging to Alawism have disappeared, it is understood that these transfer elements have been preserved to a great extent due to their strength and public acceptance. Gulbank is the strongestof these cultural transfer elements with different forms such as poetry and saying. Gulbank, which is a kind of prayer in Alawi and Bektashi oral culture, also contains strong moral advice. Gulbank often refers to the value patterns that are considered important in the Turkish culture and Islamic tradition.In this study, value patterns on basic topics such as “belief, people, education and science, the place of women in society, friendship, love, affection, modesty, bravery, truthfulness” which are included in the Alawi and Bektashi gulbanks, are discussed. In addition, the concepts of ‘value’ in other oral cultural elements were also investigated. Accordingly, theoretical works and interviews with opinion leaders were examined. The pattern of the study was created in accordance with qualitative research methods. The findings were constructed using a critical point of view and interpretation technique.The main argument of this study is that the concepts of ‘value’, which take a strong place in the Alawi and Bektashi oral culture, are compatible with universal and Islamic values, and at the same time,these values play a vital function in the formation of Turkish culture. Even this claim alone makes the subject important and worthy of investigation.

Gender-Awareness amongst Brazilian Children Enrolled in Primary Education: Implications for Women’s Rights & Equality

The general objectives of this article were to investigate what are the perceptions of Brazilian children enrolled in primary education over gender-assigned roles and the place of women in society and to analyze what could be the impacts of their answers on the foreseeable future of women’s rights and equality in contemporary Brazil. This research was drawn from a qualitative approach and our research method was composed of data collection and data analysis through the use of surveys. Our main conclusions were that gender dynamics within the family core influences a lot the perception of children over gender hierarchies, which can result in repeating patterns of gender inequality and in reinforcing pre-assigned roles for women in society. Thus, the role of gender education is paramount in the task of helping these children challenge and question this unequal and often unjust power balance that takes place in their households. When asked about what they considered to be the role of women in society, the majority of the children surveyed answered that women should work and be responsible for activities such as taking care of the family or doing housework. This vision imposes a burden upon women to follow certain social roles as well as limits the future visions they have for themselves.

Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text by Montserrat Piera

Reviewed by: Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text by Montserrat Piera Connie L. Scarborough Piera, Montserrat. Women Readers and Writers in Medieval Iberia: Spinning the Text. Brill, 2019. 483 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-40037-5. In this ambitious project, Piera focuses on women’s production and reception of texts and on how women’s interaction with other forms of material culture has, or has not, been woven into the historical record. From the outset, the author recognizes the complexities of studying women’s participation in the literary as well as the socio-economic spheres due to the nature of the documentation and sources available. Despite this acknowledgement, she skillfully navigates existing materials and presents a coherent thesis. The book is divided into two main sections: women as readers and women as writers. The latter consists of two subsections: women writing in the court and those writing in the convent. In the first part, Piera points out that reading for women heretofore often has been viewed as a challenging endeavor due to the widely-accepted paradigm of the virgin-prostitute dichotomy so prominent in literary texts. But she disputes this divide, noting that women were capable of seeing this dichotomy as an abstract one and she examines other material sources available to them, such as oral instruction or the visual arts, which would have presented them with more nuanced forms of knowledge. While the author devotes an extensive chapter to the works of preachers and moralists, she focuses on the fact that not all women would have internalized their teachings about the inferiority and rightful place of women in society. In discussing their interaction with secular texts, for example, works of courtly romance or querrelles des femmes, she notes that women readers would have been exposed to the principle of sic et non and thus would have participated in active engagement with these texts —intellectually questioning, criticizing, and resisting them. In the section on women writers associated with the court, Piera devotes one chapter to the writings of Violant de Bar, Queen of Aragon, and another to Leonor López de Córdoba. She asserts that they “could be as close to [the] epicenter of power as men and that they were capable of employing a variety of tactics to ensure that they would remain in that valued position . . . writing was one of the most advantageous and indispensable of such tactics” (176). The author’s analysis of Violant’s writings and other performative acts calls into question some earlier evaluations [End Page 181] of the queen as vain, overly ambitious, or meddling in the affairs of state. In her study of the Memorias of López de Córdoba, she challenges the usual interpretation of this work as female autobiography and places it in its historical context, participating in revising Trastamaran efforts to legitimize the reign of Enrique II and seeking to obtain her own political and social advancement. The author’s reassessment of the Memorias highlights one of the central purposes of her book —to recognize the resistance element in women’s writing and in their interaction with written texts and other forms of cultural production. Turning her attention to women writing in the convent, Piera examines Constanza de Castilla’s Libro de devociones y oficios. Rather than simply analyzing Constanza’s treatise as a private devotional or as a spiritual aid intended for the nuns of the convent Santo Domingo el Real, she sees it as part of larger sensorial and emotional experiences that included illuminations, songs, and reenactments. The author also postulates new readings for two works by Teresa de Cartagena —Arboleda de los enfermos and Admiraçión Operum Dey. With regard to Arboleda most critics have evaluated it as autobiography and as a consolation text in the tradition established by Boethius and Pedro de Luna. She stresses that Teresa is not “writing about her own self as a modern subject might in an autobiography but to bond with her readers and listeners, particularly those who suffer illnesses, which, incidentally, is what gifted preachers would also do in order to emotionally reach his listeners . . .” (334) Admiraçión, in which Teresa defends...

Gender quotas and the selection of local politicians: Evidence from French municipal elections

Using data on the universe of elected politicians in French municipalities, this paper studies the impact of a gender quota law on the political representation of women and on the composition of municipal councils. The empirical strategy, a Difference-in-Discontinuities design, takes advantage of the fact that the policy applies to cities above a population threshold, and that this threshold has been modified over time. I find that the quota policy has a substantial impact on the share of female candidates and elected politicians, but fails to promote female mayors and list leaders, even in cities that have been exposed to the policy for 13 years. Women do not reach leadership positions because they are more likely to resign than male politicians. This higher propensity of women to leave politics is correlated with local gender norms concerning the place of women in society, and also varies with individual characteristics such as age and professional background. In a second part, I show that quotas have little effect on the composition of municipal councils in terms of socio-economic background, age, and political experience.

Space and Identity of Women in Indian English Writings

The women’s studies have been receiving increasing academic and disciplinary recognition throughout the globe. The writers are determined to narrate, respond and react to the place of women in society. The purpose of the present paper is to redefine the image of women in post colonial Indian English literature. The post colonial Indian English writers focus on major issues relating to woman such as her awakening to the realization of her individuality, her breaking away with the traditional image. The transformation of the idealized women into an assertive self willed woman, searching and discovering her true self is described by various Indian Writers like Anita Desai, Sashi Deshpande, Nayantara Sahgal, Bharati Mukherjee, Kamla Markandaya, Manju Kapoor and many others have depicted females who are not silent sufferers but have learnt to fight against injustice and humiliation.

Discurso patriarcal y orden de género en los manuales para mujeres a finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX en México

En el presente trabajo, se analiza el discurso que ofrecen dos libros sobre el lugar de las mujeres en la sociedad y en la familia. Se consideran para ello, dos manuales importantes en las escuelas femeninas: el Manual de economía doméstica de Appleton, de circulación en México y América Latina y El hogar mexicano. Nociones de economía doméstica de Laura Méndez de Cuenca, que tuvo difusión en el centro de México, de contenidos acordes a la experiencia cultural mexicana. Lo que se problematiza es la tensión y transformación de los discursos patriarcales y la apropiación y adaptación de saberes pedagógicos y prácticos que se ofrecen naturalizados por género a las estudiantes. Asimismo se revisa la autoría por género de este tipo de textos escolares. Cómo es que se visibilizaba e invisibilizaba a las autoras de saberes pedagógicos propios de mujeres a la vez que se les subordina o excluye en la autoría más allá de las fronteras parroquiales. Se enfatiza el caso de Laura Méndez de Cuenca, quien como otras maestras escritoras del género de libros escolares, asume su autoría y lucha por colocar su obra en un mundo de autores varones que prescriben conocimientos para mujeres. Estos textos develan el orden de género con el que se realizaba la educación de las niñas y las prácticas por medio de las cuales se pretendía disciplinar a las profesoras-autoras, en un mundo donde la pedagogía y la autoría son controladas por hombres.

ВПЛИВ ПСИХОЛОГІЧНИХ ОСОБЛИВОСТЕЙ ВІЙСЬКОВОСЛУЖБОВЦІВ-ЖІНОК НА РЕЗУЛЬТАТ ВИКОНАННЯ СЛУЖБОВО-БОЙОВОЇ ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ

The article proves the need to study the psychological characteristics of female service personnel, in connection with increasing the role and place of women in society, the imperfection of legal documents, the lack of psychological support for female service personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine, as a specific group of military professions.Using the method of expert evaluation of the effectiveness of military service of servicewomen, indicators of the positive attitude of female service personnel to military service and the motives that ensure their adaptation and self-realization in the military profession are revealed. It has been established that for high efficiency in the performance of military service activities by military women, the leading motive can be any positive motive that conquered the entire motivational sphere. The results of the study of psychological features of female service personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine depending on the effectiveness of military service, are presented, namely: types of accentuation of character traits and temperament in women servicemen; features of intelligence, adaptability and motivation in female service personnel with different effectiveness of combat service. It is revealed that servicewomen with high level of efficiency of combat service are characterized by: more developed abstract thinking, efficiency, high level of general culture, especially a verbal one, better emotional stability, greater orientation to reality, integrity, responsibility, commitment, developed sense of duty and responsibility, business orientation, honesty, simplicity, naivety, emotionality, inability to analyze partner's motives, purposeful Strength, strong will, ability to control their emotions and behavior. Servicewomen with a low level of effectiveness of combat service are characterized by: greater independence, perseverance, but sometimes conflict, aggressiveness, tendency to authoritarian behavior.

Prisms of perceiving femininity. Theoretical and empirical reflections

Within centuries femininity and its understanding have been the subject of numerous observations and analyses. Over the past decades its shape has been gradually becoming outdated and transformed. This article reflects on the prisms of perceiving femininity. It refers to two theories: essentialism and social constructivism. The aim of such considerations is to show the changes of the role and place of women in society (in the light of current norms, trends, opportunities and socio-cultural transformations).

Gender and class: female workers, female resistance and female history in the communist system in Poland

ABSTRACTThis essay shows the effect of the systemic transformation on the role and place of women in society in post-war Poland. Relations between the socialist state and women were dynamic and changed over time. In the first post-war period, many women hoped that the new political order would improve their lives. The industrialization of the country led to the professional activation of women and changed their places of residence, social positions and lifestyles. However, the more the ideology of social justice proclaimed by the state differed from everyday experience, the more often the attitudes of women, as well as the rest of society, shifted from support to criticism. In the 1980s, a large part of the opposition and the Solidarity movement was composed of women, but there were also patriarchal relationships in those structures.Abbreviations:SDKP – Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego [Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland party]PPS – Polska Partia Socjalistyczna [Polish Socialist Party]PPR – Polska Partia Robotnicza [Polish Workers’ Party]

Throwing Our Weight Around: Fat Girls, Protest, and Civil Unrest

Throwing Our Weight Around: Fat Girls, Protest, and Civil Unrest

ГРАЖДАНСКАЯ ПРАВОСПОСОБНОСТЬ ЖЕНЩИН В РОССИИ В ИМПЕРСКИЙ ПЕРИОД

Краснова Инна Викторовна – начальник учебного отдела, старший преподаватель, Уральский филиал Российского государственного университета правосудия, г. Челябинск. E-mail: innakra@74.ru. Inna Victorovna Krasnova – Head of the Training Department, senior lecturer, Ural branch of the Russian state University of justice, Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation. E-mail: innakra@74.ru.

УКРАЇНСЬКА ПОСТМОДЕРНА ЛІТЕРАТУРА: СВІТОГЛЯДНО-СТИЛЬОВІ ДОМІНАНТИ (вивчення у класах гуманітарного профілю старшої школи)

The article attempts to generalize literary studies of contemporary Ukrainian literature, in particular, works of postmodernism for the needs of their school study. Literature of Ukrainian postmodernism is included in the high school curricula, therefore, there is a need to develop a methodology for studying such works by students. We believe that it is necessary to generalize literary studies of ideology and style dominants of Ukrainian postmodernism. The modern literary process in Ukraine is characterized by a variety of creative methods used by writers. Thus, the literature is represented by the continuators of the previous era traditions - neomodernists, and the adherents of modern tendencies - actually postmodernists. We distinguish philosophical and style dominants: expressiveness, carnival of artistic language, linguistic game, intertextuality, authenticity, intermedialism. These traits can be found in the world of fiction, which testifies to the active orientation of modern Ukrainian literature on the best achievements of European and American art. The publications on Ukrainian postmodernism and the examples of specific works have been analyzed by postmodern writers (Y. Andrukhovych, S. Zhadana, Y. Izdrik, O. Zabuzhko, L. Kostenko and others). The signs of this phenomenon are illustrated in the modern literary process. A separate group are the women’s writings, which is often considered in a gender key. Such literature is characterized by the lack of autobiographicalism, nonlinearity of storylines, the motive of “physicality” and the emergence of a new type of characters. Feminist postmodern literature continued to be further affected by Olga Kobylianska and Lesya Ukrainka about the role and place of women in society. However, as with the representatives of the modernist trend, it is impossible to find unambiguous answers. The literary process is still in the active phase of its development, and therefore there must be new intelligence. In order to implement methodological assistance to teachers and students of schools, the theoretical analysis of the problem is under study and the prospects for further research are outlined.

The concept of khranitel’nitsa domashnego ochaga: metaphorical construction of female identity in Russia

ABSTRACTThis essay examines the metaphor of khranitel’nitsa domashnego ochaga, which is often evoked in Russian social, political, religious, and media discourses as part of discussions of the biologically ‘pre-determined’ (and therefore ‘natural’) division of gender roles and the place of women in society. This metaphoric phrase has been translated as ‘custodian [or guardian] of the family hearth.’ In the present study, the metaphor serves as a guiding construct for analysis of the interview discourses of 20 Russian women who live in Moscow, Russia. Following Laclau and Mouffe, the concept of khranitel’nitsa domashnego ochaga is considered a nodal point around which discourses are organized to construct a specific form of cultural narrative that codifies differences between men and women. The study analyzes semantic connections the metaphor reflects in the meaning-making of Russian women, its enduring properties, and the discourses participants drew on in their articulations of khranitel’nitsa domashnego ochaga.

Chariots of Ladies: Francesc Eiximenis and the Court Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Iberia by Núria Silleras-Fernández

Reviewed by: Chariots of Ladies: Francesc Eiximenis and the Court Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Iberia by Núria Silleras-Fernández Emily C. Francomano Silleras-Fernández, Núria. Chariots of Ladies: Francesc Eiximenis and the Court Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015. 328 pp. ISBN 978-0-8014-5383-0 The "chariots" named in the title of this fascinating book are the many iterations of Francesc Eiximenis's Llibre de les dones. First composed at the end of the fourteenth century, when it circulated in manuscript copies, the Llibre was reworked by the author as the basis for another treatise, the Scala Dei. Both the Llibre and the Scala Dei proved to be popular and were printed in the incunable period, with additional editions of the Scala Dei appearing in the sixteenth century. The Llibre was translated into Spanish and printed in the fifteenth century, and then again in the sixteenth, when it came to be known as the Carro de las donas. Silleras-Fernández holds Eiximenis's treatises and their afterlives as mirrors of the evolution of court culture and ideals for women's behavior in Iberia by leading readers through a deeply historicized account of the works' geneses and their physical and verbal transformations. Copious archival evidence and the author's incisive interpretations of the treatises elucidate the networks of relationships forged amongst the work, its author, translators, and their respective intended readers, within the courtly and religious environments of Valencia in the late fourteenth century, fifteenth-century Castile, and sixteenth-century Portugal. Throughout, Silleras-Fernández never lets readers forget the significance of the books as material objects that reflected the status of their patronesses and readers, as well as the impact that material supports in the form of parchment, paper, bindings, print, and illustration exerted on reception. This clear-sighted analysis of the many lives of Eiximenis's work on women, shows that they are "intertexts in a much larger grid of cultural practices" that "can [End Page 222] help us understand the discursive strategies that developed… regarding gender roles and the place of women in society and politics" over two centuries in which many women came to cultural and political prominence in the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (5). Chariots of Ladies is divided into two parts: "Genesis" and "Afterlife". In "Genesis", Silleras Fernández examines and explains the cultural milieu in which Eiximenis composed the Llibre de las donas and then the Scala Dei, situating their creation within the devotional practices and political currents of the Crown of Aragon in the final decades of the fourteenth century. In the first chapter, "A Return to Piety: Eiximenis and the Culture of the Late Medieval Catalan Court", the author presents Eiximenis's works as representing a cultural shift away from the earlier protohumanist trends in the Crown of Aragon. As a Franciscan and a reformer, Eiximenis was concerned to counter what he considered the overly worldly culture of the court and he saw an opportunity to do so when Martí I and María de Luna ascended to the throne. The two chapters that follow revolve around the two women to whom Eiximenis dedicated Llibre and the Scala Dei, Sanxa Ximenis d'Arenós and María de Luna. Importantly, as Silleras-Fernández stresses, both books were presented to their patronesses at signal points in their lives that challenged gender orthodoxy. According to his dedication, Eiximenis composed the Llibre for Sanxa Ximenis d'Arenós, Countess of Prades, who had requested he write "a devout treatise for her [spiritual] health and for the direction of her life" (59). Sanxa's biography leads Silleras-Fernández to call her an "anti-Griselda": after twenty-one years of marriage to Joan d'Aragó, she abandoned her husband and lived on her own dotal lands for a decade before retiring to a convent for twenty years (77). As extraordinary as Sanxa's life and rejection of traditional marriage may seem at first, Silleras-Fernández shows, citing archival evidence of other married women's independent lives, that she was in fact "not at all unique" for her time...

The role of empowering women and achieving gender equality to the sustainable development of Ethiopia

The purpose of this study is to uncover the role of empowering women and achieving gender equality in the sustainable development of Ethiopia. To achieve this purpose, the researcher employed qualitative methodology, with secondary sources as instruments of data collection. Based on the data analysed, findings of the study show that the role of women across different dimensions of sustainable development is less reflected in the country. The use of a women's labour force in the economic development of the country is minimal. The political sphere of the country is, by and large, reserved for men alone. The place of women in society is also relegated to contributing minimally to the social development of the country. In addition, women's rights are not properly being protected in order for women to participate in various the issues of their country but are subjected to abysmal violations. Moreover, women are highly affected by environmental problems, and less emphasis is given to their participation in protecting the environment. The researcher concluded that unless women are empowered and gender equality is achieved so that women can play their role in economic, social, political, and environmental areas, the country will not achieve sustainable development with the recognition of only men's participation in all these areas. The fact that women constitute half the entire population of the country makes empowering them to be an active part of all development initiatives in the country a compelling circumstance. Hence, this paper calls for the strong commitment of the government to empower women and utilize all the potentials of the country to bring about sustainable development.

Gender, Islam and judgeship in Egypt

AbstractThe issue of women serving as judges has been a contentious one in Egyptian society for nearly eight decades. While other Muslim majority countries started appointing women judges as early as the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until 2003 that the Egyptian government announced the appointment of its first ever female judge. Despite the approval of Egypt's religious scholars, her appointment was fiercely contested, among both the general public and the legal profession. In this paper we explore the question of why the appointment of women as judges provokes so much controversy in Egyptian society, and in the judiciary in particular. We show that the debate reveals a preoccupation with the proper place of women in society. With both traditionally educated religious scholars and people lacking formal religious training justifying their point of view by resorting to religious argumentation, the debate is also a clear example of the fragmentation of religious authority in Islam.

Why Do Finance? A Comment About Entanglements and Research in the History of Education

Follow the money: Nancy Beadie, a noted scholar of the links between economy and education, described her way into educational historiography through this leitmotiv.1 It is indeed anything but evident that money in general and the changing development of educational finance in particular have in the last years become the focus of a new generation of historians of education. Educational historiography among educationists, for a long time standing firm on the ground of a rather traditional history of ideas, simply ignored economic aspects of the development of modern education. Particularly, money as the codified means of economic exchange was not only ignored, but also even condemned as a utility that was detrimental to the moralising purposes of modern schooling and modern education. Economic exchanges in schools and even in classrooms were a crucial part of early modern educational culture. Payment in kind for rural teachers, for instance, entailed the delivery of different products to schools or to the schoolmasters’ rooms (often connected to the schoolroom). In settings where the monetary economy was stronger, the payment of school fees also took place in the classrooms. For a long time, entire fields of schooling remained highly commercialised. Money was everywhere. This was certainly the case for higher education for bourgeois middle and upper-middle class girls in Europe. As Christina de Bellaigue has put it, the “business of school-keeping”, conservative in its purposes and its ideology towards the place of women in society, demanded a model of female entrepreneurship that was not compatible with the rather conservative characterisations of the education of women these schools’ mistresses propagated.2 It is this gap between the foundations of educational practices and institutions on the one hand, and the formative ideologies of education and schooling on the other, that may have hindered the consideration of money in educational history. In these comments to the articles of this special issue, I will delve deeper into the role of money and financial matters in education and the historiography of education.

Gender Equity in South African Higher Education Leadership: Where Are We Twenty Years After Democracy?

Gender equity (GE) in relation to the representation of women forms part of policy within South African legislature, as part of a democratic society. Despite GE policy, leadership within Higher Education (HE) is still male dominated. This paper reflects on a desktop review of 23 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa, looking at selected middle and top management levels, as presented on their websites. The findings reveal that gender equity is not practiced within HE leadership and suggest that HE leadership is male dominated; with the glass ceiling a reality for women. A discussion based on a literature review is presented, reflecting that cultural and structural conditions and practices impact on GE leadership in HEIs. It is recommended that HEIs need to be challenged to review leadership and characteristics, and that they should be leaders in changing the perspectives of leadership and the role and place of women in society.

The Discourse in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and Foreign Language Teaching: The Decline of Language Learner Anxiety by the Usage of Hedges, Particular Modals and Adverbs as in the Usage of these Structures in Mrs. Dalloway for a Specific Purpose

An already established way, of which frame is limited by the consensus particular to a specific society or rules activated by the way of thinking of that society, is preferably conducted to achieve a demanded goal instead of applying to possible other ways. Fluidity of languages enables novelists, playwrights, poets, politicians as well as ordinary men to apply to some distinct ways to inject appropriate notions or to explain a tenet to a great mass rather than incline to the ways, which have been known to others. This study draws a parallel between the language Virginia Woolf utilizes in her work Mrs. Dalloway for the purpose of clarifying feminist opinion system and the language used in foreign language classrooms to reduce learner anxiety. Woolf prefers implying her interpretation of the place of women in society with the help of hedges, modals and adverbs rather than explaining it directly. Thanks to the infinite statements in and the flexibility of English Language, Woolf characterizes feminist concept by unresolved and continuous alternations contrary to certain statements used by men. It is known that in the Suggestopedia Method, role-play as a technique of teaching is benefitted to reduce learner anxiety. As Woolf employs hedges, specific models and adverbs in Mrs. Dalloway to explain certain thoughts indirectly, the same structures may be applied to foreign language teaching. For the learners of foreign language in secondary schools, usage of hedges, modals and adverbs indicating that the speaker is not concise in his accounts might lessen the anxiety of learners. In this paper, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway has been analyzed from the aspect of its discourse, through which Woolf tries to teach women thought system to the audience, under the spectacle of the probability of reducing language learning anxiety by the usage of specific structures which signify possibility such as ‘could’, ‘might’, ‘as far as I know’, ‘perhaps’, ‘nearly’, ‘about’ and etc. as in Mrs. Dalloway. The main purpose of this study is to clarify that the usage of these structures mentioned above help reduce foreign language learner anxiety.

Continued Visual Objectification: The Image of the Fair Sex in Occidental Advertisements

Portrayals of women in the mass media have always been a source of contention amongst scholars. Right from the emergence of the mass media, women have been stereotypically portrayed as an inferior being whose primary domain was home and who was viewed as a sexual object. In spite of feminists’ efforts to stop women’s denigration in the media over the course of several decades, women are still depicted as weak and sexual object, especially in the advertising industry. The visual objectification of women engenders a distorted view of the place of women in society. This paper examines the images of women in Occidental advertisements and exhibits that the stereotypical objectification of women leads to desensitization of violence against women and causes women to develop self-objectification. To counter the effect of the images, we argue that media literacy can help people to critically look at the images and recognize the constructed fantasy from reality. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p2886