scholarly journals Wrestling with Gender: Constructing Masculinity by Refusing to Wrestle Women

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Brake

Deborah L. Brake, Wrestling with Gender: Constructing Masculinity by Refusing to Wrestle Women, 13 Nevada Law Journal 486 (2013). In February of 2011, an Iowa high school boy captured national attention when he refused to wrestle a girl at the state championship meet. The media shaped the story into a tale that honored the boy for sacrificing personal gain out of a moral imperative to “never hurt a girl.” Unpacking this incident reveals several “fault lines” in U.S. culture that often derail gender equality projects: (1) religion/morality is interposed as an oppositional and equally weighty social value that neutralizes an equality claim; (2) the agency of persons supporting traditional gender norms is assumed, while the agency of persons contesting them is questioned; (3) opting out or “leveling down” is employed to reinforce status hierarchies while maintaining a semblance of formal equality (neither boy nor girl wrestles); and (4) de-contextualized strands of feminist theory are appropriated and co-opted in service of the existing gender order. This paper asks, what happens when sex equality law is interjected into this narrative? After examining the anatomy of the backlash to the threat to the gender order posed by the entry of girls into wrestling, this paper constructs an argument that Title IX obligates schools and athletic associations to take measures designed to deter gender-based forfeitures that deprive girls of athletic opportunity. It then explores a tougher question: does the introduction of a sex equality claim disrupt the conventional understandings of gender that emerged from this narrative? I ultimately contend that law has a potentially useful role to play in subverting the gender order, but that to do so it must engage the crucial dynamic at the heart of forfeiture incident: the construction of masculinity, both for the boy who forfeited and for the sport of wrestling itself. Feminist legal strategies must contend with how masculinity is constructed and valued for the boys and men who play sports in order to further advance the cause of girls’ and women’s equality in sports.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-135
Author(s):  
Amalinda Savirani ◽  
Nuruddin Al Akbar ◽  
Ulya Niami Efrina Jamson ◽  
Listiana Asworo

This article analyses an experiment in liberal-progressive politics that occurred in Indonesia in 2019. A new party, the Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (PSI, Indonesian Solidarity Party), supported gender equality as part of a broad liberal programme. PSI foregrounded female candidates and focused on gender issues, including controversial topics such as opposition to polygamy. Reflecting party campaign strategies that focused on media exposure, rather than grassroot mobilisation, the party garnered support mostly from educated urban voters. Support for women’s equality – especially on issues such as sexual harassment and gender-based violence – is concentrated in this group and partly reflects recent cultural shifts linked to globalisation and changes in the media landscape. PSI failed to gain representation in the national legislature, limiting its potential to play a major political role in the near future. Even so, this experiment provided opportunities for young women to step forward politically and has popularised discourse on women’s equality.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zofeen Ebrahim

This booklet narrates the stories of five female journalists from Pakistan who are working on environment- and climate-change-related issues. Women are being disproportionately and adversely impacted by climate change and female journalists are uniquely placed to understand and share their stories. However, these journalists are ‘missing in action’ from the media in sharing their experiences of environmental activism and climate action. The publication covers a range of challenges journalists face, from limitations on mobility and harassment, to gender-based discrimination in media houses. It highlights why environmental issues sometimes make headlines while remaining dormant at others.



2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 765-777
Author(s):  
Juan Pablo Artero-Muñoz ◽  
Ricardo Zugasti ◽  
Sira Hernánez-Corchete

In Spain, the media market structure is made up of very different media groups, making it necessary to identify and classify them in a clear and coherent manner. To do so, this article collects secondary information from media companies’ websites and from audience measurement institutions. Results identify 50 media groups with activity in the Spanish market. They are classified into three categories according to the type of outlet, including national, sectorial, and regional. The current structure is based on recent developments in the last four decades of democracy among newspapers, magazines, radio, television and digital media.



2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Anna Miotk ◽  

The text analyzes social media in terms of the possibility of conducting a democratic debate through them. Initially, their users had great hopes to do so. Social media were to be not only a tool for expressing opinions or presenting statements but also for disseminating the model of liberal democracy. However, the business model of these media, as well as content filtering algorithms, introduced to protect users against information overload, prevented this from happening. To prove this thesis, the author referred to Sunstein's public forum doctrine and proved that social media do not constitute its equivalent. Although the media provided a space for discussion, they did not ensure equal access for senders of messages to recipients and recipients to a variety of content. The topic of the negative impact of social media on liberal democracy is already raised in English scholarship (and is already present in Poland through its translations) and it is also gradually gaining academic currency among Polish researchers. What constitutes a novel contribution to the already available research is the presentation of social media in the context of the utopian high hopes the media initially raised.



2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Diana Majury

In this paper, Diana Majury looks at the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent s.15 decision, R. v. Kapp, in a preliminary exploration of the different understandings of equality she sees operating in three different sites (the Supreme Court, equality advocates, and the general public). She looks at the first two sites simultaneously by offering her equality advocate’s critique of the Kapp decision, outlining where the decision falls short of the substantive equality that equality advocates have been theorizing and promoting. She then looks at media responses to the decision, responses that almost unanimously present a formal equality understanding of equality. Recognizing that media coverage provides only a very limited and partial window on public perceptions, the media coverage of Kapp nonetheless raises the spectre that the general public understands equality only to mean formal equality. This conclusion highlights the importance of Rose Vyovodic’s work in combining equality and public education and the need for that work to be continued and expanded.Dans cet article, Diana Majury examine le récent jugement R. c. Kapp de la Cour Suprême du Canada en rapport avec l’article 15 pour faire une exploration préliminaire des compréhensions diverses de l’égalité qu’elle constate être en jeu dans trois lieux différents (la Cour Suprême, chez les défenseurs de l’égalité et chez le grand public). Elle examine les deux premiers lieux simultanément en présentant sa critique du jugement Kapp en tant que défenseure de l’égalité, exposant en quoi le jugement n’atteint pas l’égalité de fond au sujet de laquelle théorisent et que préconisent les défenseurs de l’égalité. Puis elle examine les réactions médiatiques au jugement, réactions qui présentent presque unanimement une compréhension d’égalité comme égalité formelle. Tout en reconnaissant que la couverture médiatique ne présente qu’une fenêtre très limitée et partielle sur les perceptions du public, la couverture médiatique de Kapp laisse tout de même pressentir que le grand public ne conçoit l’égalité que dans le sens d’égalité formelle. Cette conclusion fait ressortir l’importance de l’oeuvre de Rose Vyovodic qui combinait égalité et éducation du public et le besoin que cette oeuvre se poursuive et grandisse.



2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-171
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Müller

On May 26, 2016, the police raided 43 cannabis dispensaries in Toronto, Canada, making 90 arrests. This article aims to describe the narrative of the responsible state agencies concerning the police raid and compare it to the narrative of those who opposed it, such as activists, as well as consumers and sellers of cannabis. While such concepts as moral entrepreneur, moral panic, and moral crusade have traditionally been used to study those in power, I will employ them to explore both the state narrative and ways in which counterclaims-makers resisted it. In order to do so, I will further develop the concept of moral entrepreneurship and its characteristics by relating it to studies of moral panics and social problems. This article will be guided by the following question: How did each party socially construct its cannabis narrative, and in what way can we use the concept of moral entrepreneurship to describe and analyze these narratives as social constructions? I have investigated the media coverage of the raid and ethnographically studied shops in Toronto in order to study the narratives. My findings show that both parties used a factual neutral style, as well as a dramatizing style. The later includes such typical crusading strategies as constructing victims and villains and presenting the image of a dystopian social world. In order to explain the use of these strategies, we will relate them to the shifting wider social and historical context and to the symbolic connotation of cannabis shops in Toronto in particular and in Canada as a whole.



2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Rodrick

This article begins by outlining what the principle of open justice is intended to achieve. It then investigates the nature of the relationship that exists between the courts and the media, and between the media and the public, and suggests that these relationships are not always conducive to realising the aims of open justice. While the reporting role of the traditional news media will undoubtedly persist, at least for the foreseeable future, it is argued that, since courts now have the means to deliver to the public a fuller and truer picture of their work than the media can, they should seize the opportunity to do so.



Author(s):  
Anya Schiffrin

Questions of media trust and credibility are widely discussed; numerous studies over the past 30 years show a decline in trust in media as well as institutions and experts. The subject has been discussed—and researched—since the period between World Wars I and II and is often returned to as new forms of technology and news consumption are developed. However, trust levels, and what people trust, differ in different countries. Part of the reason that trust in the media has received such extensive attention is the widespread view shared by communications scholars and media development practitioners that a well-functioning media is essential to democracy. But the solutions discussion is further complicated because the academic research on media trust—before and since the advent of online media—is fragmented, contradictory, and inconclusive. Further, it is not clear to what extent digital technology –and the loss of traditional signals of credibility—has confused audiences and damaged trust in media and to what extent trust in media is related to worries about globalization, job losses, and economic inequality. Nor is it clear whether trust in one journalist or outlet can be generalized. This makes it difficult to know how to rebuild trust in the media, and although there are many efforts to do so, it is not clear which will work—or whether any will.



2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-108
Author(s):  
Kapil Kafle

The study explores the changing gender relations in media as social development. Changing Gender Relations have been found expressed in the media that can be proven with different examples but the activists and campaigners of gender equality movement are found glued with the decade old metaphors till date. Though the biological identity of a person still determines the power but the gap has been narrowed down. Even men, as activists, have involved advocating for their gender based grievances created as a result of the patriarchy and masculinity. There is discrimination against women, and even violence against them is in the higher volume in the society, but the cases of the remedies have also increased. Power relations have been found very much gendered and sexist, but the account of changes has not been highlighted properly. Changes in power relations are seen in the media but recognition of the same is not made officially. A concept, that most of the women are victims because of their femininity and men are perpetrators because of their masculinity, has also been repeatedly expressed whereas it has been proved that masculinity does not have a biological basis. Methodologically the study is completely based on secondary information of literature review. In conclusion, a concept of social development lies in gender equality has been internalized at least preliminary level by the media that is needed to recognize by the society so that media will be more encouraged to make contributions for the issues of social development.



2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-333
Author(s):  
Michele Landis Dauber ◽  
Meghan O. Warner

Despite a long history of reform efforts, college students remain vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault on campus. This article surveys that history from the 1970s to the present, including a flurry of enforcement activity under President Obama and a backlash and reversed course under Trump. Many of the systems—for example law, education, and public health—designed to ameliorate the epidemic of campus sexual assault have failed to do so. These failures have been particularly pronounced for victims who experience multiple intersecting inequalities. The resulting frustration with legal remedies through campus Title IX processes and the criminal and civil justice system has spurred a new interest in strategies to prevent sexual assault in the first place. Recent political developments, including the #MeToo movement, suggest a potential for democratic political accountability to make progress where legal reform efforts and campus prevention programming have thus far been unsuccessful.



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