Self-Objectificationas Representation of Postfeminist Women Empowerment in Fifth Harmony’s Music Videos.

<p> This research attempts to describe the portrayal of postfeminism empowerment that is represented by Fifth Harmony’s self-objectification image in their four music videos; <em>Work from Home, Boss, Worth It </em>and <em>That’s My Girl. </em>This research is descriptive qualitative. The method is employed by watching, classifying and analyzing the data that are collected by selecting the scenes, lyrics and other elements of music video representing the image of self-objectification and postfeminism. The supporting data consist of reviews, interviews and information taken from books, journals, articles, online sources and researches. Since the research is in the scope of American Studies which is an interdisciplinary study, it involves some disciplines that are applied in the form of theory including objectification theory, postfeminism theory, semiotic theory and theory of music video. From the analysis, Fifth Harmony in their music videos use their self-objectification image to portray the values of women empowerment in post-feminism era. The music videos are portraying the issues of domesticity (femininity and sexuality) as women’s choice and source of power, confident and successful independent women as a symbol of Girl Power and sisterhood as source ofwomen’s power in the era of post-feminism.</p><p><strong> </strong></p>

‘Having It All’? : Pre-Teen Girls Negotiate Successful Femininity

<p>Depictions of girls and young women as powerful, unconstrained and outshining boys and men characterise the modern postfeminist cultural climate and imbue femininity with wide reaching success. However, research into postfeminist discourse reveals a far more complicated picture than this straightforward ode to success. Previously the focus has been on successful femininity within education or employment, or on the future aspirations of girls and young women. Yet considering the grandiose postfeminist claims of successful femininity it is important to examine specifically what success means to those who are expected to hold it. The current research has done so from the perspective of ethnically diverse pre-adolescent girls, addressing the lack of research with this age group and with girls from minority ethnic backgrounds. Incorporating the latter enabled the thesis to examine how ethnic identities may intersect with understandings of successful femininity. Focus groups and photo-narrative books were used to explore the ways 32 girls between 11- and 13-years old made sense of successful girl/womanhood, including media representations of successful femininity. Participants were recruited from two urban schools within New Zealand. The study used a feminist poststructuralist framework and employed thematic and Foucauldian discourse analysis to analyse the data. Two overarching themes were identified: ‘Success as Individual Qualities’ and ‘Spheres of Success.’ Across these themes the girls’ drew heavily on postfeminist and neoliberal discourses and constructed success through the competing and contradictory discourses of girl power and traditional femininity. Successful femininity was constructed as a highly individualised endeavour, predicated on the individual qualities of hard work, constant striving towards goals and overcoming adversity. These qualities were required to accomplishing success within three mandatory spheres of success; education, employment and motherhood. The successful female subject was expected to move linearly through these three spheres, engaging in higher education to earn a successful career in order to financially sustain motherhood. Discussions of employment success oscillated between constructions of unbounded possibility for young women in the workforce and recognition of the barriers facing young women and especially Māori women who work. Motherhood, described as the apex of successful femininity, was also shot through with complexity. The girls constructed a narrow scope for success through motherhood: those who had children without planning, had many children or who gave birth while young or single were positioned outside of this successfulness. The ultimate form of successful femininity required a delicate balancing of the three spheres of success in order for women to achieve the contradictory and unobtainable task of ‘having it all.’ Findings demonstrate girls’ lack of access to a language with which to articulate oppression and inequality and emphasise the problematic entanglement of ‘new’ discourses of equality, empowerment and success with the enduring presence of powerful and regulatory traditional discourses of femininity.</p>

‘Having It All’? : Pre-Teen Girls Negotiate Successful Femininity

<p>Depictions of girls and young women as powerful, unconstrained and outshining boys and men characterise the modern postfeminist cultural climate and imbue femininity with wide reaching success. However, research into postfeminist discourse reveals a far more complicated picture than this straightforward ode to success. Previously the focus has been on successful femininity within education or employment, or on the future aspirations of girls and young women. Yet considering the grandiose postfeminist claims of successful femininity it is important to examine specifically what success means to those who are expected to hold it. The current research has done so from the perspective of ethnically diverse pre-adolescent girls, addressing the lack of research with this age group and with girls from minority ethnic backgrounds. Incorporating the latter enabled the thesis to examine how ethnic identities may intersect with understandings of successful femininity. Focus groups and photo-narrative books were used to explore the ways 32 girls between 11- and 13-years old made sense of successful girl/womanhood, including media representations of successful femininity. Participants were recruited from two urban schools within New Zealand. The study used a feminist poststructuralist framework and employed thematic and Foucauldian discourse analysis to analyse the data. Two overarching themes were identified: ‘Success as Individual Qualities’ and ‘Spheres of Success.’ Across these themes the girls’ drew heavily on postfeminist and neoliberal discourses and constructed success through the competing and contradictory discourses of girl power and traditional femininity. Successful femininity was constructed as a highly individualised endeavour, predicated on the individual qualities of hard work, constant striving towards goals and overcoming adversity. These qualities were required to accomplishing success within three mandatory spheres of success; education, employment and motherhood. The successful female subject was expected to move linearly through these three spheres, engaging in higher education to earn a successful career in order to financially sustain motherhood. Discussions of employment success oscillated between constructions of unbounded possibility for young women in the workforce and recognition of the barriers facing young women and especially Māori women who work. Motherhood, described as the apex of successful femininity, was also shot through with complexity. The girls constructed a narrow scope for success through motherhood: those who had children without planning, had many children or who gave birth while young or single were positioned outside of this successfulness. The ultimate form of successful femininity required a delicate balancing of the three spheres of success in order for women to achieve the contradictory and unobtainable task of ‘having it all.’ Findings demonstrate girls’ lack of access to a language with which to articulate oppression and inequality and emphasise the problematic entanglement of ‘new’ discourses of equality, empowerment and success with the enduring presence of powerful and regulatory traditional discourses of femininity.</p>

Female Pleasure and the Gender Politics of “Girliyapa”

In this article, I examine the discursive portrayals of gendered experience and subject positions through Sarjita Jain’s “Girliyapa,” an online entertainment channel (on YouTube) for female-oriented content in India. I demonstrate how the question of female pleasure that the channel repeatedly foregrounds by way of introducing relatively censored topics of discussion (such as girls buying condoms or articulating their orientation toward same-sex love) is inextricably intertwined with a gender politics that never turns a blind eye to the existing conventions, stereotypes, or structural inequalities that precipitate gender-based violence and discrimination throughout the country. The widespread prevalence of marital rape, color prejudice, and workplace sexism which, in turn, does not allow for a straightforward valorization of girl power is thus satirically interrogated by “Girliyapa.”

Representations of Girlhood and Girl Stereotypes in Victoria Aveyards’ The Red Queen Collection

Given the fact that girlhood studies is a new area of investigation which intriguingly demonstrates various ways through which girlhood is structured by different social and cultural codes, we intend to examine girl characters in The Red Queen collection as it was the New York Times Best Selling series. This investigation reveals the way cultural and social norms prescribe specific gender roles and shape different versions of girl characters in this series. To find girl stereotypes in The Red Queen collection, such girlhood theories as Girl Power, Reviving Ophelia, #LIKEAGIRL, Girl Effect and Girl Up have been taken into consideration. Various depictions of girlhood in The Red Queen collection are represented through characters who have different ethnic backgrounds and come from different social classes. This implies that the formation of girl identity has a lot to do with social, economic, political and cultural structures. However, identity formation, as we see in the collection, is an ongoing process and can change in the course of an individual’s self-development.

The Sexual Politics of Blood: Theorizing an Ecology of Gendered Animality and Posthuman Possibilities Through Buffy the Vampire Slayer

First airing at the turn of the millennium, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) held primetime slots on the WB Television Network for the first five seasons and the United Paramount Network for the final two. The show has since sustained a significant following among fans and scholarly audiences through its recent migration to online streaming services like Netflix. The considerable media attention garnered by the 20th anniversary of the series premiere demonstrates this continued cultural relevance.¹ Yet the eponymous heroine is—to borrow Buffy’s own words—“carbon dated” (“Welcome to the Hellmouth”). She remains an icon of Girl Power, embodying the distinctive aesthetics and politics of 1990s mainstream feminism—an evident counterweight to the patriarchal hegemony of preceding young-adult supernatural dramas.

The Sexual Politics of Blood: Theorizing an Ecology of Gendered Animality and Posthuman Possibilities Through Buffy the Vampire Slayer

First airing at the turn of the millennium, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) held primetime slots on the WB Television Network for the first five seasons and the United Paramount Network for the final two. The show has since sustained a significant following among fans and scholarly audiences through its recent migration to online streaming services like Netflix. The considerable media attention garnered by the 20th anniversary of the series premiere demonstrates this continued cultural relevance.¹ Yet the eponymous heroine is—to borrow Buffy’s own words—“carbon dated” (“Welcome to the Hellmouth”). She remains an icon of Girl Power, embodying the distinctive aesthetics and politics of 1990s mainstream feminism—an evident counterweight to the patriarchal hegemony of preceding young-adult supernatural dramas.