 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to this look at critical media studies, specifically in this video, taking a look at feminist analysis. So narrowing in a little more specifically on a particular topic than we have been talking about things like culture and psychoanalysis are a little broader, but now narrowing in on a specific sort of population and perspective when we look at feminist analysis. So let's start off with what do we mean by feminist analysis? Well, feminist analysis examines artifacts using a framework that considers the ways in which an artifact reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women. So what does that mean? Well, again, essentially, just taking a look at things from the perspective of femininity and how that perspective is different for women for a variety of reasons that we'll look at first just a brief bit of history on the feminist movement and what we're actually talking about when we talk about feminism. First of all, there are basically three waves of feminism broad waves of feminism. The first took place in the late 1700s through the early 1900s, which is a long period of time. But then we're really talking about just a general attention that was drawn to the inequality of the sexes during that time. So represented by the US in the women's suffrage movement, and just a general recognition that a woman have not been treated very fairly over history and women deserve equal treatment. I would point out that this really focused a lot on wealthier white women, women of status who were white, which is not out of sync with the rest of American history really. When we look at American history, the first power structure was really dominated by landowning white men. And so it's not maybe surprising that the first wave of feminism would focus on women in that similar social structure, women of power, women of means, meaning they were economically fairly well off and had the ability to speak up. And so but really just a first wave of general attention drawn to the inequality of the sexes, the way that they were treated, the way that they were viewed, and that extended again from the early, sorry, the late 1700s into the early 1900s. Then the second wave really takes place in the early 1960s through the late 1970s, in which time we have World War II that before that had demonstrated the ability of the women to work equally with men during the war effort, women had to step up and work in factories and do work that was traditionally done by men. And so people started recognizing during that World War II era that women are capable, as a prize, women can do things, women are as capable as men, they're as intelligent as men, they can be as strong as men and so forth. And then so the period following that you have these women speaking up and stepping up and saying, look, we really deserve equal treatment and really coincides with the civil rights movement in the United States. So really a call for better treatment of all people who are proportionately misrepresented and maybe look down upon not just women but also people of color, people, minorities, just people in general who had been minimized in that period of history and through that period of history. So along with the civil rights movement, you have this second wave of feminism, women saying, look, we stepped up, we are capable of doing this and we deserve equal treatment. Then you have the more recent, the most recent third wave that started in really the early 1990s and extends into the present, which, again, is almost unbelievable that we're 300 years into this and still working on this. But the third wave here really focused on marginalized women. We talked about in the first wave, it was really focused on really limited to white women of means, economic means. This third wave, the most recent wave has really begun to represent and emphasize marginalized women. So women of color, women in lower economic classes who may not have economic means that the first set, but really focusing on those marginalized women in this most recent wave of feminist action and the most recent iteration of feminism. So just to provide a really brief history, really brief overview of the history of where we're coming from with this discussion. The major premises of feminism include the fact that women are and have been oppressed by the patriarchy, the patriarchy being this dominance of men in the power structure and in the cultures throughout history. So the women have traditionally been oppressed by the patriarchy. Also, the Western culture then is deeply rooted in that patriarchal ideology. There are other cultures that are more patriarchal, but Western culture certainly extremely male driven in that power structure, male dominated in terms of positions of power. I mean, just from a quick example, look at the presidency of the United States, look at the not only is it all men, we've never had a woman president, but we've also had only one president of a minority race, right? So President Obama, the only non white, non Caucasian president. So not only are we men dominating, but primarily white. This is no surprise to anybody who's really been paying attention. The Western culture is deeply rooted in this patriarchal hierarchy. And that while sex is determined by gender, sorry, sex is determined by biology, gender is determined by culture. So when we talk about sex, we're talking about the physical anatomy of a person who talking about their biology, they male or female again, though that there are some cross stinctions there, but but you know, broadly categorizing people are born and anatomically speaking, male or female, primarily that of their reproductive organs that identify that. That's what we mean by sex. Gender, however, when we talk about gender, we're talking about masculine and feminine, which is not determined by biology, it's determined by culture. Gender is a social construct. We determine as a society what constitutes masculinity, what constitutes femininity. And we have over history, as we look back over history, those things have changed. You know, what it means to be masculine or be feminine has changed over time with our culture and varies from culture to culture. So these things are social constructs, not biological constructs. So sex is biology, but but gender is determined by culture and is a is a social construct. So those things cross over and keep those terms in mind as we move forward. And then finally, whether we're consciously aware of those gender issues, they play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of artifacts and including the production and experience of media, right? So keep things in mind, like the fact that communication communicating through a medium, for example, is different than communicating face to face. So there are different tools that are involved in communicating through a medium. First of all, you have barriers to entry. Not everybody has access to the same level of media exposure that other people do, right? Or control of those things. Now, this is, you know, we're seeing a shift in this a little bit through things like social media, through things like what I'm doing here, just independently producing this, you know, from my home, it's it's something that years ago would have been unheard of. But we still do have those discussed in a previous video, the big six, the six organizations that really control the vast majority of the media mass media that is produced in the United States. And there are barriers to entry there. You look at the heads of those, the big six organizations and corporations and people are making decisions, people are controlling that media, still predominantly white men. So there are barriers to entry for women and for all people of minority, really. And then there's a disinhibition effect that takes place and people get brave on the other side of a screen. And so that affects the way that we communicate through a medium. We also have said that media is more than just a channel of communication, that it encourages and discourages some types of interaction, encourages asynchronous communication and discourages face to face communication in some ways, which favors people who have access to that and who have been able to develop those skills over time. So there's things like that. There's, you know, every medium is different. There's just ways that this system has really been developed by the people in power, which again, white men have been empowered. And so that that structure, that organizational culture is predisposed toward those folks. It's made easier for people in that situation, as we discussed in other videos as well, that the fact that white men have controlled the media, they've set it up in a way that makes it easier for them to control. And that's a natural thing to do, but it creates barriers to entry, creates barriers to creativity and expression for people who are not in that dominant power structure. So whether we're conscious of it or not, that pervades every aspect of media creation, right? Media creation, when you look at, again, the people who control those organizations, predominantly white men, most of the people directing and really controlling those media, even at a creative level, or white men think about, you know, film directors, predominantly white men, we're seeing some entry, but, but we know that it's not significant because of the fact that we point out all the time. Oh, that's a, that's a, that director is African American. That's significant, right? Or that director is a woman. The fact that we point these out in the sense of what we've talked about before, othering, in that sense, means that it's, that it's rare enough that, that it's still very much predominantly white men that we note those things. So anyway, every aspect of this is really affected by gender issues. Okay, let's look at some of the common questions that we get into with feminist analysis. First, what is the, how is the relationship between, betrayed? How is the relationship between men and women portrayed? Let's try it that way. How is the relationship portrayed? Is it, you know, we look at old timey movies back in the early days, and it's very much men are in control, men are saving the day, men are going to work, women are really in the background, they're there to take care of the home, they're there to provide emotional support. But how is that relationship portrayed in the artifact that we're looking at? Has that been updated to a more accurate portrayal or not? What are the power relationships between men and women following along there the same kind of idea men have been in this power seat for years and years and years? So is that what's illustrated? And is it supportive of the patriarchy in that sense? Or is it contradicting this? How are the male and female roles defined? Again, it's very clear differentiation between male and female roles and masculine and gender roles, what the men were supposed to do, what the women were supposed to do, how they were supposed to behave in these older older films. Has, has that been crossed up? Has it been? Is there's more androgyny or more cross crossing over of men portraying feminine attributes and women portraying masculine attributes and how are those roles defined in this artifact? What constitutes masculinity and femininity, femininity, what makes up these things? And how do these characters embody these traits? We additionally ask things like, do the characters take on traits from opposite genders? And if so, how does that change others reactions to, right? Do they take on, did we have women taking on more masculine traits and vice versa men taking on more feminine traits? If so, how do the characters relate to that? How does the audience relate to that? How does it affect on the way that they're viewed, the way that they're seen and related to in this, in this piece? What does the work reveal about the operations, both economically, politically, socially or psychologically of the patriarchy? Is it in support of this idea of a patriarchy in the dominance of men and particularly white men? Or is it questioning that? Does it represent different views and represent different outlooks on these things? What is the history of the works reception by the public and the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy? How does the audience respond to this piece? Are they comfortable with it in that it supports the patriarchy? Or are they questioning it because it supports that patriarchy or they or because it supports, you know, disputes the patriarchy, or they supportive of that? So how does the work receptions by the audience? What does that tell us about how this fits into the patriarchy and how the patriarchy is established and how it's currently working in our society? And then what role does the work play in terms of women's artistic history and artistic tradition? So we look at women entering these media is particular or the feminist perspective, entering these media. How does that fit in? How does this work fit into that? How does it contribute to that? How does it counteract that? And these these artistic histories and traditions? Okay, with these questions of mine, I wanted to just do a brief analysis to see an example of something that we could look at here. And I chose the Harry Potter world, I guess we can you look at it as the books or the movies that they're fairly close to these things. So but I just wanted to look at the work of Harry Potter, it's very well known. And so gives us a good reference point for these things. So looking again at these questions, how does relationship between men and women portrayed them actually look at both these first couple questions together, power relationships between men and women? It's fairly traditional, I think in the Harry Potter series. We have not only is the hero male, right, and fairly masculine in the controlling his emotions and things like that, pulling things up that you know, what we would expect of male heroes, so to speak. But most of the other characters as well in the movie of power are male. So you have Dumbledores, the head of Hogwarts, the main bad guys, the man of Voldemort. Most of the central characters are men, the people who are driving the story. You have some exceptions, Hermione is a wonderful character. But as we'll get into that, she really is subordinate to Harry and almost to run in a lot of ways in this series, that she's not, she's got the best ideas probably, but she's not the primary decision maker. She's not the primary driver of decisions. Same with Professor McGonagall, who's a wonderful character and a good representation, but she really is subordinate in most instances to the patriarchal power structure. So a fairly traditional representation of power in these relationships in the Harry Potter series. Or the male and female roles defined. They're pretty defined traditionally, I think. So there's not a lot of straying over in these things. So I think the male and female characters fall pretty, pretty much straight down the line in terms of masculine and feminine representation. Again, I think you could make a case for Hermione displaying some masculine traits as, you know, somebody who is represented as capable and strong, strong willed and making your own decisions. Those are seen in our culture in more masculine traits and she's imbued with some of those. But but for the most part, they fall pretty much straight down a lot. The men tend to be in charge and getting in trouble and getting in adventures and the women tend to be falling in love with the men for the most part. What constitutes masculinity and femininity, again, fairly traditional men acting as men women acting as women in these roles. So I don't there's a lot to look at there other than the fact that say that it's pretty traditional, I think. The characters take on traits from opposite genders, I kind of touched on this a little bit. I think Hermione does represent some masculine traits. I can she gets accused and continue to know that how so and how does this change other's reactions to them. She is seen as bossy and take charge right in some ways and headstrong, which we would define as a lot of times as masculine traits and gets a lot of flack for it. She gets she's kind of excluded from some things she's looked down upon not only because she's all the different background but being a you know, having muggle muggle parents, so to speak, but but also for being who she is. And despite she's not behaving like the other girl, she's not interested in chasing the boys right and developing those kinds of relationships. So she's kind of separated from a lot of the other female characters in that regard as well. So his ostracized a little bit because of that. So but I think you see some of that you can also see a little bit of that Professor McGonagall and vice versa. I think you see Professor Dumbledore taking on some feminine traits. There's been some kind of question from her some inference from J.K. Rowling that that Dumbledore may be gay. So maybe that's why but you do see when you see him acting in a caring way in a concerned way in a compassionate way, which we typically define as as feminine traits. So so we do see some people taking on traits of other genders, but for the most part, it's pretty been pretty traditional in general representation in the series. What does work reveal about the operations of patriarchy? I think I'm especially being that this is from from the UK, which is very buttoned up, very straight down the middle, in terms of gender roles for the most part, even probably more so than the United States, which is saying something because we're pretty buttoned up to. But it does reveal the strength of the patriarchy in that culture, I think. And the notion of being British and being pretty strictly masculine, feminine, so to speak. What is the history of the works reception by the public and the critics tell us about the operation of the patriarchy? Again, it's very well received, obviously, incredibly popular, and tells us that people are comfortable with that patriarchy that that I think in part that the fact that it does fall straight down those lines in terms of male and female representation of masculine and infemininity gives us a pretty good idea that the public is generally comfortable with that that it fits into our mindset of that patriarchy, probably more than some other stories that may veer from from that strict representation a little bit, that this was a little more comfortable in that regard. What role does the work play in terms of women's artistic history and artistic tradition? I do think this is interesting that first of all, the rise of G.K. Rowling is a female art female author in this era, in this area of not only science, fiction and fantasy type books, but also in the sense of sort of what they call the tweener books or the books for adolescents geared toward them, and a lot of adults as well, I read them as an adult, but really were geared more toward those and then the people in the adolescent stage, did open up a lot of doors, not only in that genre in general, but for women in that genre, you look at the number of women who've been able to excel in that field based on the success I think of J.K. Rowling, she opened a lot of doors in that regard, and since then, I think tried to leverage a little bit of the sort of the power that she has gained from that into being a little more of how did the mainstream in terms of, you know, talking about how she couldn't really at the time say that Dumbledore was gay in these books and in these movies, but since then has implied that he maybe was and maybe open those doors a little bit to what people love Dumbledore and if that was the case, then okay, we still love him, you know, so has taken advantage of some of those maybe. So I think it has had an impact on the progression of acceptance of women in not only that genre, but just in general, in the arts and recognition that they have a lot to offer, obviously. So okay, that was a really simple, really quick overview of how we might apply some of those questions and feminist analysis. I hope that this has been helpful for you in understanding this critical lens again, one more thing to end our arsenal in critical media studies, a different kind of lens that we can look at and say, okay, this is a different way that we can examine this artifact. If you have questions about feminist analysis or anything else related to critical media studies, please feel free to contact me, email me, I'd love to hear from you and discuss these items for you. In the meantime, I hope that you will add this critical lens and begin to look at some of the media that we take in through the eyes of feminism and through the eyes of feminist analysis and the feminist representation and just general representation in general in these artifacts.