Commission on the Status of Women 2011 Abstracts
The Male Gaze and Online Sports Punditry: A Case Study of the Ines Sainz Controversy • Aidan Bryant, Syracuse University; Kenneth Merrill, Syracuse University; Emily Dolan, Syracuse University; Siying Chang, Syracuse University • On September 11th, 2010 Ines Sainz, a sports reporter for TV Azteca (a Spanish language Mexican network), was allegedly harassed by members of the New York Jets. Controversy erupted around the role of women in sports broadcasting and the myriad attendant dimensions involved, including issues of credibility, dominant beauty ideals, and the male gaze, among others. This case study assesses how sports blogs covered the controversy, using a combination of in-depth interviewing and textual analysis of four popular sports blogs. This study examines themes of the male gaze, credibility, the role of women in sports broadcasting, and the political/sexual economy of sports blogs.
Sexual Messages in Black and White: A case study of Essence and Cosmo • Carolyn Byerly, Howard University; Rebecca Reviere, Howard University • The study examined the discourse on women’s sexual freedom as it appeared in the advice columns of two popular American magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan — the first oriented toward Black women, the second to White women. The study situated its concerns historically by asking whether the discourse in these columns reflected the tenets of second wave feminism, which advanced new tenets of women’s sexual liberation. Next, it sought to learn whether the discourse engaged sexual themes of transgression, pleasing the other and go-getting, as posed by Machin and Thornborrow. Black feminist theory and critical discourse analysis provided the theoretical framework and methodology. Findings revealed that readers of Essence are more likely to see tenets of sexual liberation embedded in advice columns, which give women a wider range of sexual choices than are those of Cosmo. Cosmo readers are more likely to be advised to excite and keep their men and to be more flexible if they stray.
Don’t Call Me That: Examining the Discourse the Precedes the Term “Mommy Blogger” • Gina Masullo Chen, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University • A textual analysis of 29 women’s blog posts and 653 blog comments debating the meaning of the term mommy blogger reveals that these women feel the term reinforces women’s hegemonic normative role as nurturers, thrusting women into a virtual private sphere in the blogosphere. The use of mommy, versus mother, highlights this subjective norm, although some women pointed out the term was useful for marketing and creating a sense of community with other women online.
An Analysis of Attributes Students Use to Describe Good Male and Female Instructors • Katie Clune, Rockhurst University • The purpose of this study was to analyze ways students describe those instructors they consider to be “good” instructors and to assess how well male and female instructors meet the expectations for a good instructor. Male instructors were more frequently described as engaging, focused on student learning, knowledgeable, and ethical. Female instructors were more frequently described as caring, helpful, and friendly than their male counterparts. Results indicate students may have gendered expectations for their instructors.
“Vicious assault shakes Texas town:” The politics of gender violence in The New York Times’ coverage of a schoolgirl’s gang rape • Meenakshi Durham, University of Iowa • This paper analyzes public discourse around The New York Times coverage of the gang rape of a schoolgirl in Cleveland, Texas. After the story broke, bloggers, commentators and editorial writers launched searing critiques of the story’s victim-blaming and sexist perspective. Using critical textual analysis, this study analyzes the ways in which feminist media scholarship formed an implicit framework for the response. The analysis revealed that lay critics examined sourcing, language use, and racial stereotyping to dissect and dissent with The Times’ reportage. The paper reflects on feminist praxis as it is articulated in online media to bring about changes to a rape culture.
Women to Watch speak out: Looking behind the curtain of mentoring, networking and gender • Kali Flewellen, University of North Texas; Sheri Broyles, University of North Texas; Jean Grow, Marquette University • Senior women in advertising from Advertising Age’s 1997 to 2009 Women to Watch lists were asked open-ended questions about the award. A content analysis of responses identified thematic categories pointing to the importance of mentors and networks for women. Parity in the workplace and whether the “Plexiglas” ceiling is still firmly in place are also discussed. Rich verbatim comments give insights to both the past and hope for the future for women in advertising.
Paying Her Dues: The Early Career of Pioneering Broadcaster Pauline Frederick • Marilyn Greenwald, Ohio University • By the time she died in 1990 at 84, Pauline Frederick had been the first women to broadcast news from overseas and the first women to cover the United Nations as a fulltime beat. By the time she was 39, Frederick had extensive newspaper, syndicate and radio experience, but she was still hired only as a stringer in an era and an industry that marginalized women. This paper examines her early career and outlines how she persevered and navigated a male-dominated industry to become a pioneering journalist.
“Ronald Reagan in Heels”: How Tea Party “Mama Grizzlies” Framed Gender and Public Issues in the 2010 U.S. Mid-Term Election • Jaesik Ha, Indiana University • This study examined how, in the 2010 election, female Tea Party candidates frequently attacked both the “femininity” of male candidates and some of President Obama’s policies, such as immigration and health care. It used a discourse analysis of news media interviews with female Tea Party candidates, as well as the candidates’ television debates, campaign advertisements and web-site content during the course of the mid-term election of 2010. One salient tactic by female Tea party candidates was to attack the manhood of their opponents. A second, recurring strategy favored by female tea partiers was to construct a public persona linked to widely known conservative luminaries in order to appeal to voters. They purposefully tried to depict themselves as disciples of Ronald Reagan and of Sarah Palin. By doing so, they framed themselves as determined, strong, and courageous politicians. The tactical choice to align their public personas with Reagan and to become Palinesque “mama grizzlies” came from their judgment that such personas could be advantageous to their campaigns. Also, even though female Tea Party candidates expressed strong opposition to government intervention, they nonetheless advocated the state’s involvement in individuals’ private lives in moral and cultural issues such as abortion and gay rights. This study shows that the campaign by female Tea Party candidates in the 2010 election was driven by not “women’s” issues, but by the economic distress felt by the American public.
The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Globalization Discourse: The Same Old Story in U.S. Newsmagazines • Dustin Harp, University of Texas at Austin; Summer Harlow, University of Texas at Austin; Jaime Loke, University of Oklahoma • This quantitative and qualitative analysis of Time and Newsweek explores how women are incorporated into a globalization discourse that often is seen as a masculinized public sphere. Results indicate that while female journalists integrate women into the news more than their male counterparts, females are invisible in globalization coverage. When discussing female empowerment via globalization, it is through an economic lens with an eye to the impact on women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers.
What’s the Problem? Newspapers Explain Global Sex Trafficking • Anne Johnston, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Barbara Friedman, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Autumn Shafer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study content analyzed all sex trafficking-related stories appearing in major U.S. print news sources in 2009. A total of 281 news articles were analyzed for the differences occurring in stories that focused on the domestic aspect of sex trafficking from those that focused on transnational dimensions of trafficking. Findings indicated that transnational stories were more likely to cover a range of solutions, causes and consequences to sex trafficking than did domestic focused stories.
Feminist pornography as cultural variation: Using Judith Butler to analyze its potential for resistance • Rachael Liberman, University of Colorado at Boulder • The following paper takes up an analysis using the work of feminist philosopher Judith Butler—specifically Gender Trouble (1990), Bodies That Matter (1993), and The Psychic Life of Power (1997)—as a point of entry for analyzing the work of feminist pornography as resistance. Butler’s commitment to the deconstruction of normative assumptions concerning gender and sexuality, as well as her related conceptualizations of subjectivity, performance, and cultural intelligibility offer an alternative to the long-standing argument that feminist pornography is either a “good” or “bad” project for feminism. As feminists have begun to embrace the postmodernist ideas, a trend easily identified in third wave feminism and navigations though identity politics, it should follow that feminist praxis, such as feminist pornography, should be analyzed in a similar fashion. Butler (1993) points out that gender and sexuality as not static conditions of the body, but are rather processes of materialization or intelligibility that are informed by changing cultural conditions (p. 2). The questions therefore become: Where does feminist pornography fit within the “matrix of gender relations?” (p. 7). To what extent does feminist pornography disrupt the process of sexual norm stabilization? And finally, why does feminist pornography matter for feminism? In order to answer these questions as well as provide a general analysis of feminist pornography vis-à-vis Judith Butler’s theories on performance, subjectivity, and materialization, this paper will analyze the work of three feminist pornographers: Candida Royalle, Tristan Taormino, and Joanna Angel.
Gender Stereotypes and Citizen Journalism: Exploring what effect, if any, gender match has on story credibility for citizen journalism and staff written news • Hans Meyer, Ohio University • Researchers have suggested that gender stereotypes help determine the credibility of news stories, but the Internet may help mitigate that effect, especially for citizen journalism. Through an online experiment that manipulates story authorship – either staff or audience – and the author’s gender, this study suggest other cues on the Web have more of an effect than gender for staff written stories. Audience written stories appeal and are more credible to women if they are written by other women. This reflects that citizen journalism sites work as an alternative to traditional media online.
Feminist Media Literacy and Underserved Girls • Micah Carpender; Leigh Moscowitz, College of Charleston • This project reports on the results of a semester-long feminist critical media literacy initiative targeting underserved fourth- and fifth-grade girls at a Title I school in South Carolina. The goal of this project – an after-school club for girls- was to help students think critically about their relationships with and responses to media messages, particularly in terms of race, gender, and class. Specifically, this club aimed to privilege girls’ voices, experiences, and agency by culminating with the girls’ own media production, zines (hand-made, hand-distributed booklets based around the girls’ own interests and experiences). This study assesses this initiative using the scholarly frameworks of media studies, girls’ studies and feminist critical media literacy. Through examining before and after focus group interviews conducted with participants and analyzing the content of their zines, we ascertain what effect the initiative had on girls’ self-image, critical thinking skills, and media relationships. This study thus provides media educators, scholars, and activists with a case study of the effects of feminist media literacy and cultural production on underserved girls of color. Ultimately, our findings both emphasize the need for feminist critical media literacy education and cultural production and articulate its pedagogical challenges. It is our hope that our assessment of this project will function as a starting point, encouraging educators and activists to continue creating and practicing relevant and meaningful forms of critical media pedagogy with girls.
Anorexia on the Internet: A Look at the Pro-Ana Community Through Feminist, Social Comparison, and Uses and Gratifications Theories • Rachelle Pavelko, University of Memphis • “Pro-ana” refers to those who view anorexia nervosa as a “lifestyle choice” rather than a disease, and is a community rooted within social networking. A thorough review of feminist, social comparison, and uses and gratifications theories was conducted and applied to both pro-ana participants and websites. A content analysis was then executed to determine which females are more prone to join the pro-ana community, and what types of information are available through the websites.
Gender and power at the crossroads: Examining the nexus of gender and power in public relations • Katie Place, Saint Louis University • This qualitative study of 45 women public relations practitioners in the United States examined how gender and power intersect in the public relations industry. One research question was posed: What are the intersections of gender and power in public relations for women practitioners? Results suggest that gender and power intersect through gendered appearances, management style, women’s bonding together for power, expectations and stereotypes, and women’s self-realization and choices. This study contributes to the body of public relations and gender scholarship by illustrating that gender and power are inherently intersectional and forged through discourse, socialization and resulting solidified stereotypes, expectations and workplace standards. Ultimately, gender and power exist in a push-pull system of simultaneous empowerment and oppression.
The Gendering of Weight-Loss Advertisements in the Beginning of the Obesity Age • Deanna Pogorelc, Ohio University • A content analysis of more than 400 weight-loss advertisements published in men’s and women’s magazines between 2001 and 2005 revealed that weight-loss advertising demonstrated patterns of gendered stereotypes and may contribute to weight problems in the United States by driving a preoccupation with food and flaunting idealized male and female bodies.
Coverage of Domestic Violence: A Pilot Study • Megan Ward, Therese Lueck and Heather Walter, The University of Akron • Mediated reality that draws on cultural myths for gendered narratives reinforces patriarchy. This study explores the coverage of domestic violence as a culturally constructed journalistic narrative. A research team assessed journalism students’ understanding of domestic violence before and after presentations and workshops. Overall, the students showed a heightened awareness of domestic violence and an ability to discern the quality of journalistic practices in its coverage.
A False Start, a Heavy Burden and Hugs: A Study of the Female “Firsts” in Newspaper Management • Kimberly Voss, University of Central Florida; Lance Speere, University of Central Florida • This is an examination of the promotions and the aftermath for three significant women in newspaper management: Gloria Biggs, Carol Sutton and Janet Chusmir. Their stories are important to understand how progress was made and how it was slowed. It also provides perspectives about the different paths to management for women. To truly understand the time period, this study will also address the intersection of these women’s careers with feminism. Material was drawn from interviews with former colleagues and family members, media coverage of their promotions, archival materials for Biggs and an oral history for Sutton.
From Inept Intruders to Suspicious Sex Vixens: The Problem of Heterosexuality in Sports Information • Erin Whiteside, University of Tennessee • This research expands on the ways sexuality as a discourse can be understood as an expression of power with a specific effect on women through the exploration of what I call the problem of heterosexuality. As deviants in the space of sports, women stand before a constant “panoptical gaze” (Bartky, 1988). Their presence is questioned and their motives are framed as suspect, two concepts explored in this research. In escaping the lesbian stigma, women may earn acceptance from men and freedom from suspicion regarding their sexuality. Yet, that acceptance may result in a cost to their professional credibility in the form of sexual harassment and suspicion regarding their ethics and virtue as SIDs. Ultimately, in proving their heterosexuality, women must also manage it in a way as to not invite unwanted advances or the perception that their presence in sports information is the product of unethical motives in the form of a desire to meet men. I conclude this article by arguing that sexuality discourses are problematic for women in that female SIDs find themselves in a kind of maze with no way out: Their presence raises constant questions about their sexuality that forces women into a constant state of angst about their appearance and public presentation.
Culture Changes as Reflected in Portrayals of Women in Chinese Magazines Published in Three Eras • Yue Yin, Iowa State University • This study examines how women’s roles and gender were portrayed in magazines published during three epochs of Chinese history: before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution. A content analysis and discourse analysis of articles that discussed the role of women and gender were conducted to determine and describe the most commonly occurring frames applied over time. The findings suggest more attention to the combined impact of the mainstream culture and sub-cultures on media content.
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