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Magazines: Mainstream and Alternative

Gender representation in magazines and feminist theory

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 2

Overview

Gender as discourse, the look a cover assumes, the political definition of feminism, race and class, identity resources, and feminist vocabulary used without feminist politics.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How does a magazine's representation of gender vary with its target reader?

Evaluation

Why is van Zoonen's argument useful for analysing a magazine cover?

Key term

How does van Zoonen say the male body is constructed differently?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How does a magazine's representation of gender vary with its target reader?

    Model answer

    A women's lifestyle title and a men's title construct very different versions of gender. Van Zoonen argues that gender meanings are produced in discourse rather than fixed in advance.

  2. 2

    Why is van Zoonen's argument useful for analysing a magazine cover?

    Model answer

    A cover is designed to be looked at, so the body it displays is offered as spectacle. Van Zoonen treats that display as central to patriarchal culture rather than incidental.

  3. 3

    How does van Zoonen say the male body is constructed differently?

    Model answer

    Van Zoonen argues that mainstream culture uses different visual and narrative codes for the male body. Men on display are more often shown as active rather than as passive objects.

  4. 4

    Which theorist defines feminism as a fight against sexist and patriarchal oppression?

    Model answer

    The theorist is bell hooks, who treats feminism as a fight against sexist and patriarchal oppression. The wider ideology of domination is her target.

  5. 5

    Why does hooks describe feminism as a political commitment?

    Model answer

    The writer bell hooks contrasts a political commitment with feminism as a lifestyle choice. A magazine that sells feminism as a look empties the term of its politics.

  6. 6

    Why does bell hooks say sex alone cannot explain oppression?

    Model answer

    Race and class shape oppression alongside sex in the account bell hooks gives. Sex, race and class together decide how far an individual is exploited.

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AWoman's Hour began on the BBC Light Programme in 1946.
BThe Light Programme became Radio 2 in 1967.
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