Choosing love, marriage and the traditional role

Stereotypes of white women have historically limited their identities to that of wife and mother. Though restrictive, this type of femininity has been mobilised to create hierarchies of womanhood that legitimate this form and subordinate others. However, social change since the feminist second wave has seen the renegotiation of women’s position, and contemporary antiracist and LGBTQIA+ discourse has seen further departure from traditional ideals of femininity. Mass media is a dominant site where controlling images of women are negotiated and in which dominant, or hegemonic, forms emerge. This article applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to examine popular British gossip magazine Heat’s romance and sex narratives for discourse which (re)produces, negotiates or challenges hegemonic femininity. Through the appropriation of feminist language, Heat propagates an updated hegemonic femininity which preserves the racio-patriarchal discourse of gender difference whilst pacifying feminist audiences. Estereótipos de mulheres brancas historicamente limitam suas identidades aos papéis de esposas e mães. Embora redutoras, essas categorias têm sido mobilizadas com o objetivo de criar hierarquias de feminilidade que as legitimam enquanto subordinam outras formas do feminino. Contudo, desde a segunda onda do feminismo, mudanças sociais relativas à renegociação do lugar da mulher assim como discursos antirracistas e pró-LGBTQIA+ têm possibilitado um distanciamento dos ideais tradicionais de feminilidade. A mídia de massa veicula imagens de mulheres que acabam se tornando dominantes e hegemônicas. Este artigo aplica a Análise Feminista Crítica do Discurso a narrativas de romance e sexo veiculadas na popular revista inglesa Heat e investiga discursos que (re)produzem, negociam ou desafiam a feminilidade hegemônica. Através da apropriação do discurso feminista, a revista Heat propaga uma versão atualizada de feminilidade hegemônica que preserva discursos patriarcais racializados da diferença de gênero ao mesmo tempo em que tenta apaziguar o público feminista.

A Patchwork of Femininities: Working-Class Women’s Fluctuating Gender Performances in a Pakistani Market

Scholars have studied multiple femininities across different spaces by attributing variation to cultural/spatial contexts or in the same space by attributing variation to class/race positions. However, we do not yet know how women from the same cultural, class, and race locations may enact multiple femininities in the same context. Drawing on observations and interviews in a women-only bazaar in Pakistan, I show that multiple femininities can exist within the same space and individual. Working-class women workers in Meena Bazaar switched between performances of “pariah femininity” and “hegemonic femininity,” patching together contradictory femininities to secure different types of capitals at the organizational and personal levels. Pariah femininities enabled access to economic capital but typically decreased women’s symbolic capital, whereas hegemonic femininities generated symbolic capital but could block or enable access to economic capital. The concept of a patchwork performance of femininity explains how and why working-class women simultaneously embody idealized and stigmatized forms of femininity. Further, it captures how managerial regimes and personal struggles for class distinction interact to produce contradictory gender performances. By examining gender performances in the context of social stratification, this article explains the structural underpinnings of working-class women’s gendered struggles for respectability and work.

A Patchwork of Femininities: Working-Class Women’s Fluctuating Gender Performances in a Pakistani Market

Scholars have studied multiple femininities across different spaces by attributing variation to cultural/spatial contexts. They have studied multiple femininities in the same space by attributing variation to class/race positions. However, we do not yet know how women from the same cultural, class, and race locations may enact multiple femininities in the same context. Drawing on observations and interviews in a women-only bazaar in Pakistan, I show that multiple femininities can exist within the same space and be enacted by the same individual. Working-class women workers in Meena Bazaar switched between performances of “pariah femininity” and “hegemonic femininity,” patching together contradictory femininities to secure different types of capital at the organizational and personal levels. Pariah femininities enabled access to economic capital but typically decreased women’s symbolic capital, whereas hegemonic femininities generated symbolic capital but could block or enable access to economic capital. The concept of a patchwork performance of femininity explains how and why working-class women simultaneously embody idealized and stigmatized forms of femininity. Furthermore, it captures how managerial regimes and personal struggles for class distinction interact to produce contradictory gender performances. By examining gender performances in the context of social stratification, I explain the structural underpinnings of working-class women’s gendered struggles for respectability and work.

Evolución de la heteronormatividad a partir de una categorización de los estereotipos de género. Análisis de los videoclips musicales más populares

Representations of masculinity and femininity within the most listened-to commercial music and its evolution, based on a system of our own elaboration of 11 analytical categories of gender stereotypes that explore gender binarism, are examined. In so doing, qualitative and quantitative content analyses of 50 video clips of the most listened-to songs in two periods (2009 and 2019) are carried out. From a post-feminist critical perspective (Gill, 2007, 2017), the study verifies that gender binarism is maintained over time, albeit with important nuances in both years. The results conclude that the most prominent stereotypes are Western hegemonic femininity, associated above all with romantic narratives (mainly in 2009), and Western pariah femininity including dialogs with elements of greater sexualization (especially in 2019). On the other hand, Western Protestant masculinity is present in most of the songs associated with musical genres such as rap or hip-hop, in both periods; while Occidental assured masculinity, which is evident in 2019, is associated with the need to maintain the heteronormative and hegemonic representation of masculinity, even when not fitting the sexuality of the artist. The article concludes that, in ten years, there is an evolution of the heteronormativity among the most popular music videos, where dominant masculinity stereotype continues to be the heterosexual hegemonic masculinity model, in both the romantic and sexual context, while the representation of femininity shows some confrontation with the traditional model. This study contributes to other work on masculinities and femininities as it establishes categories that may be applied to different cultural products and social realities. Resumen Se examinan las representaciones de masculinidad y feminidad dentro de la música comercial más escuchada y su evolución, a partir de la elaboración propia de un sistema de 11 categorías analíticas de estereotipos de género que exploran el binarismo de género. Para ello, se lleva a cabo un análisis de contenido cualitativo y cuantitativo de 50 videoclips de las canciones más escuchadas en dos cortes temporales (año 2009 y año 2019). Partiendo de la perspectiva crítica postfeminista (Gill, 2007, 2017), se comprueba que el binarismo de género se mantiene en el tiempo, aunque con importantes matizaciones en ambos años. Los resultados concluyen que entre los estereotipos más destacados se encuentran: la feminidad hegemónica occidental, asociada sobre todo a narrativas románticas (principalmente en el año 2009), y la feminidad paria occidental, que dialoga con elementos de mayor sexualización (sobre todo en 2019). Por su parte, la masculinidad protestante occidental se encuentra presente en la mayoría de las canciones de géneros musicales como el rap o el hip hop en ambos periodos de tiempo; mientras que la masculinidad asegurada, que se evidencia en 2019, se asocia con la necesidad de mantener su representación heteronormativa y hegemónica, aunque la sexualidad del artista no encaje en ella. A partir de la muestra analizada, el artículo concluye que, en diez años, ha habido una evolución de la heteronormatividad en los videoclips musicales más populares, donde el estereotipo de masculinidad dominante sigue siendo el modelo de masculinidad hegemónico heterosexual, tanto en el plano romántico como en el sexual; mientras que la representación de la feminidad muestra algunas confrontaciones con el modelo tradicional. El estudio supone una aportación a los estudios sobre masculinidades y feminidades pues establece categorías que pueden aplicarse a diferentes productos culturales y realidades sociales.

Women’s Bodies, Femininity, and Spacetimemattering: A Baradian Analysis of the Activewear Phenomenon

Over the past decade, activewear has become a booming international business and cultural phenomenon. It has simultaneously been critiqued for its pervasive neoliberal, postfeminist, and healthism rhetoric and the ways it continues to (re)produce hegemonic femininity. In this paper, the author drew upon new materialist theory, specifically Karen Barad’s concept of spacetimemattering, to contribute to this body of literature, providing an alternative perspective on the production of femininity and feminist politics within activewear. Using a Baradian-inspired approach, this paper brought various material-discourses and events from multiple time periods into dialogue with the activewear phenomenon to (re)think the production of femininity. Specifically, the analysis explored how activewear entanglements across various spatiotemporalities challenge appearance-based femininity and increase the visibility (and acceptance) of the moving female body. Through this exploration, the author provided a way to (re)imagine feminist politics that are embedded in women’s everyday fitness practices.

Feminine and Sexy: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Gender Ideology and Professional Cheerleading

Since the 1970s, National Football League (NFL) teams have hired attractive women to dance in scantily clad uniforms as a means of entertaining their heterosexual, male fans—offering a reflection of hegemonic gender ideology in the process. In recent years, a handful of these professional cheerleaders have spoken up and taken action against gender discrimination. Yet, little has changed. This study takes a feminist critical discourse analysis perspective to examining how gender ideology is (re)produced in discourse surrounding the employment roles of NFL cheerleaders, contributing to the perpetuation of gender inequality in sport. Findings demonstrate that three distinct gender ideologies are (re)produced in the discourse, competing with each other to define meanings associated with NFL cheerleading employment roles. Additionally, analysis reveals that while NFL teams have made changes to their cheerleading programs in response to feminist critiques, discourse surrounding these changes continues to (re)produce hegemonic femininity.

Consuming health, negotiating risk, "eating right"

In the health-risk society, food choice is framed through public health nutrition and dietary risks which are produced through nutritionism and econutrition. Dietary guidelines recommend the consumption of functional foods to target bodily health (Scrinis 2013; Mudry 2010), whereas ecological nutrition pushes sustainable diets for planetary health (Mason & Lang 2017; Friedberg, 2016). These healthy eating discourses construct dietary food risks and reorient ideas about what constitutes good food and eating right. This paper explores how food risk discourses extend the moralizing of healthism through emerging public health nutrition discourses and the ‘new public health.’ I suggest that in considering what constitutes eating right, dietary health risks extend individual responsibility for bodily health to increasing responsibility for the health of our environment or ecosystems, exercised as choice over the foods one chooses to eat. The feminine-citizen-subject is particularly targeted because as Moore (2010) contends, hegemonic femininity is constructed through beliefs about health and the healthy body. Thinking through feminist intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) however, I draw attention to the limits of choice and individualized approaches to managing food risk given the structural constraints of food and health.

Hegemonic Femininities and Intersectional Domination

We examine how two sociological traditions account for the role of femininities in social domination. The masculinities tradition theorizes gender as an independent structure of domination; consequently, femininities that complement hegemonic masculinities are treated as passively compliant in the reproduction of gender. In contrast, Patricia Hill Collins views cultural ideals of hegemonic femininity as simultaneously raced, classed, and gendered. This intersectional perspective allows us to recognize women striving to approximate hegemonic cultural ideals of femininity as actively complicit in reproducing a matrix of domination. We argue that hegemonic femininities reference a powerful location in the matrix from which some women draw considerable individual benefits (i.e., a femininity premium) while shoring up collective benefits along other dimensions of advantage. In the process, they engage in intersectional domination of other women and even some men. Our analysis re-enforces the utility of analyzing femininities and masculinities from within an intersectional feminist framework.