Van Zoonen and bell hooks- Feminist Theories in Newspapers

Van Zoonen's Theory

• Discourse - people learn about gender from the media 
• Beliefs about gender change depending on the historical and cultural context
• Women objectified by the media because we live in a PATRIARCHAL society
• Women often represented as emotional, nurturing and domestic
• Men represented as individual, suited to business and politics
• Men's bodies are 'spectacle' - something they have worked for

Van Zoonen and Patriarchy

• Van Zoonen believes the media portray image of stereotypical women and this behaviour reinforces societal views. The media continues this behaviour because they believe it reflects dominant social values (what people believe in) and male producers are influenced by this. This is a patriarchy (a society ran by men for men) which dominates oppresses women.
• Feminists are particularly interested in the contribution made by the media to society's dominant ideas about gender roles.
• And in this, the mass media play a crucial role in a socialistation in teaching us how to behave and think in ways that our culture finds acceptable.
• A significant part of this socialisation process is to provide answers to questions like: What does it mean to be a woman? And what does it mean to be a man?

How the theory is useful for news:

• Can be applied to any media product, including newspapers
• The concept of patriarchy may be applied to the ownership and control of newspapers, the recruitment and ethos of newspaper professional, news values and the representation of gender in newspapers, especially the representation of women's bodies.

How the theory is limited:

• Does not explain anything specific to newspapers as it is a high-level theory of patriarchy
• In prioritizing gender inequalities, the theory is not useful at looking at other forms of inequality, for example, race, class, etc.

Feminism can be approached in three ways: liberal, socialist or radical

Liberal Feminism

• It is essentially a reformist approach, which tends to see more equal gender relations being brought about by equal opportunities policies and affirmative action programs. It does not appear to question the power dimensions in society that maintain male superiority of status and female inferiority.
• Instead it concentrates on SEX ROLE STEREOTYPES , prescriptions of sex-appropriate behaviours, appearance, interests, skill and self-perceptions (Van Zoonen, 1991:121).

Radical Feminism

• Patriarchy is a social system in which all men are assumed to a dominate and oppress all women, accounts for women's positions in society.
• Radical feminists have been in the forefront of exposing male abuse of women and politicizing issues formerly considered as private, such as domestic abuse and more recently, sex tourism and trafficking in women.
• Few media studies have been conducted from a radical perspective. The focus is on pornography and rather polemical: "Pornography exists because men despise women, and despise women as pornography exists" (Dworkin, 1980:289).
• Van Zoonen believes the media strategies of radical feminism are straightforward: women should create their own means of communication and to try to free themselves completely women must cut off all ties with men and male society.
• Mass media are in the hands of male owners and producers, they will operate to the benefit of patriarchal society.

bell hooks

• No capital letters as she does not want to defne herself by her name.
• Women and feminism. Feminism is the struggle to stop patriarchal society. 
• Feminism is a political commitment, You must be actively fighting to be a true feminist.
• Women are not all discriminated against in the same way. Discrimination and oppression are related to class and ethnicity. (INTERSECTIONALITY)

Her work shows how women of colour have been marginalised by power structures in society as well as by white feminists who purport to speak about the universal struggle of all women. hooks argued that mainstream feminism silences experiences of race, ethnicity and class.

How the theory is useful for news:

• Can be applied to any media product, including newspapers.
• Intersectionality draws attention to misrepresentation and stereotypes based on the interrelationship of gender, race, class and sexuality in any newspaper representation.

How the theory is limited:

• Does not explain anything specific to newspapers as it is a high-level theory of patriarchy.

She discusses how students she taught in white, privileged schools feel a sense of entitlement about their future in a way that people of colour students in poorly funded schools do not imagine for themselves. hooks' students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds have jobs, children and other responsibilities that shape their expectation of the future. It is not that hooks' students from Harlem were any less brilliant, the issue is that they exist in a reality where the education system only deemed to provide them with the basic 'tools' to get a job, rather than to enhance their lives in a more profound way.

Examples of feminist theories in the News

Butler: Gender Performativity

A recent article in the Daily Mail Online claims, "Mothers who haven't been home schooling because they 'can't be bothered' say their children are learning through computer games and chores instead - but are branded 'lazy' by other parents". This masthead suggests to the public that all home schooled children are, or should be, taught by mothers, simply from talking about one parental figure, rather than both mother and father, who should work as a unit. 

This perfectly ties in with Butler's theory as the audience can deduce that the man is not mentioned because he is out working to provide for his family, and that the mother SHOULD be the one nurturing and caring, which this article ridicules some mothers of not doing, and not acting correctly, as a mother should.