Conference Proceeding

II International Conference Gender and Communication

Facultad de Comunicación de Sevilla 1, 2 and 3 de april 2014

Conference proceeding

Juan Carlos Suárez Villegas Rosario Lacalle Zalduendo José Manuel Pérez Tornero Editors

De los autores y las autoras

Dykinson S.L.

No está permitida la reproducción total o parcial de este medio ni su tratamiento informático, ni la transmisión de ninguna forma o por cualquier medio, ya sea electrónico, mecánico, por fotocopia, por registro u otros medios sin el permiso previo y por escrito de los titulares del copyright.

EDITADO POR: Juan Carlos Suárez Villegas Rosario Lacalle Zalduendo José Manuel Pérez Tornero

Abril de 2014

I.S.B.N. 978-84-9085-029-9

INDEX

PART 1. The representation of male and female identities in the media in any format

Witching y bitching: gender representations in contemporany Spanish film Baena Cuder, Irene

Hoe gender representations matter with generation in televisión? Hannot, Muriel; Derinoz, Sabri and Levant, Bertrand

Egypt: a feminist identity Heikal, Azza Ahmed

Feminism and women´s magazines: a discourse analysis of women´s identities and (partners) relationships as articulated in two flemish women´s magazines of the twentieth century´s sixties and seventies Maaike, Van de Voordre and Martina Temmerman

Women sport reporters: feminity in a traditional male field Marilou St. Pierre

Woman without body in Turkish cinema: fetishism in mass communication M. Sami Bayran and Guncel Onkal

The magnificent century: reconstruction of the Ottoman empire family Murat Iri

Overt sexism in media: a lexico-grammatical analysis of androcentricity in Egyptian print media Nayef, Heba

Old-fashioned women. The representation of female image in the Italian television advertising Panarese, Paola

PART 2. Analysis of discourses on gender identities in the media and other communicative contexts (social networks, education systems)

Academic female subject amidst Bourdieu´s “habitus” and Butler´s “performativity” Berfin Varisli and Gokcesu Aksit

Audience reception in Moroccan women´s magazines Bouchara, Aicha

A reading of masculinity in crises: Behzat Ç Merve Ayge Koseoglu

PART 3. The co-education of children and young people through communication in gender equality

Gender, nationalism and genocide Azra Rashid

PART 4. Treatment and prevention of gender equality through education and communication

Strategies to raise public awareness about gender problems through critical games Prosperi, Valeria

PART 5. Criticism of reality and the representation of gender roles in the field of social, economic and scientific labor relations

Women´s war work through a gendered lens: a critical feminist analysis of media representations of women´s labour in the Canadian press (1939-1945) Moniz, Tracy

ABSTRACTS

Telling the truth about Media and gender equality Mariapia Ciaghi

Anti-violence initiatives in Europe: a comparative study on visual discourse to end gender-based violence in Austria and Spain Wolf, Birgit

PART 1. The representation of male and female identities in the media in any format

WITCHING AND BITCHING: GENDER REPRESENTATION IN CONTEMPORARY SPANISH FILM

Irene Baena Cuder School of Film, Television and Media Studies University of East Anglia [email protected]

Abstract: in the last thirty years Spanish women have entered the public sphere and have achieved a progressive empowerment in their struggle for gender equality. These changes in women’s roles have provoked anxiety among some men, who see them as a threat to their privileged position in patriarchal society. This tension is suggested or openly depicted in contemporary Spanish horror films created by a new generation of young male filmmakers in which the threat and the element that brings horror to the narrative is usually a female character. The film Witching and Bitching aka Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (de la Iglesia, 2013) offers a filmic materialisation of this tension within the Spanish context, by presenting a battle between male identities in crisis, anxious about the emergent role of women, and strong, independent female characters, who are depicted as monsters.

Keywords: Gender, masculinity, monstrous-feminine, identity, horror film, Spanish cinema

1.Introduction

Women were the great defeated in the Spanish Civil War, independently of the side they supported. The rights they had achieved during the Government of the Second Republic were denied by the Franco's fascist regime, which imposed over women an extremely reactionary role. Thus, according to the new order established, women had to stay at home, looking after the house and the family, preserving family values and the Roman Catholic moral. As a consequence, "until 1975, the date of Franco's death, a married woman in Spain could not open a bank account, buy a car, apply for a passport, or even work without her husband's approval, and he had the right to claim her salary" (Montero, 1995: 381). With the transition into Democracy, Spanish society started a process of deep change that had a special impact on women who started to move away from these roles and to strive for others that had been denied to them for so long. In the last thirty years women have entered the public sphere and have achieved a progressive empowerment in their struggle for gender equality. These changes in women’s roles have provoked anxiety among some men, who see them as a threat to their privileged position in patriarchal society. This tension is suggested or openly depicted in contemporary films, particularly within the horror genre, as one filmic materialisation of this tension is the representation of strong and/or independent female characters as monsters. However, these anxieties resulting from the emergent role of women in society are present in most of Western societies and so is its filmic materialisation, mainly but not exclusively, through monstrous representations of women, female bodies and femininity in general, as Barbara Creed pointed out in The Monstrous-Feminine. Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysys (Creed, 1993). The film Witching and Bitching, aka Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi (de la Iglesia,

2013) offers a good example of a filmic representation of this male tension towards the female empowerment. The film was released in Spain the 27th of September 2013 and its release was surrounded by controversy, due to the way it portrays women as monsters and men as sympathetic victims. “La última película de Alex de la Iglesia se caracteriza tanto por un enfoque misógino basado en los estereotipos de la guerra de sexos, como por unas brujas con discurso feminista que se libran de la hoguera” (the last Alex de la Iglesia's film is characterised both by its misogynistic approach based on sex war stereotypes and witches with a feminist discourse who avoid the stake) (Píkara magazine 31/10/2013). The film introduces a desperate father who organises and perpetrates a robbery and tries to escape to France. However, his initiative will be abruptly interrupted by a coven in Zugarramurdi, who has another plan for his young son.

2. Hypothesis

The film is told from the male point of view and it displays male and female characters in opposition to each other and in an open confrontation. Thus, whereas male characters are in crisis and fighting to regain their advantageous position in a patriarchal society, female characters are depicted as monsters, organised in a threatening matriarchy. This dichotomy seems to give expression to the shared gender anxieties mentioned above, resulting from the emergent role of women in contemporary Spain. Furthermore, Álex de la Iglesia, the director of the film, recently commented in an interview with Diario Público: "hay en la película cosas que me han pasado a mí. (...) De alguna manera, la película refleja un sentir extendido" (there are things in the film that have actually happened to me (…) somehow, the film reflects a shared feeling) (Diario Público 22- 09-2013), when asked about the relation between men and women in the film. Moreover, the director openly talks about his fear of women in the same interview.

3. Methods

The methodology used was textual analysis framed mainly in Creed's theory of the Monstrous-feminine. Moreover, the analysis has been historically contextualised in Spanish society and its recent past.

4. Results

Told from a male point of view, the film presents a group of male characters struggling to cope with women in general. Moreover, these personae embody the masculinity stereotype and therefore, cannot talk openly about their anxiety concerning women as, according to this gender role, men cannot show any weakness or feelings: "they are conditioned to keep their anxieties to themselves" (Horrocks, 1994:144). The film seems, then, as a way to materialise these shared anxieties and release the tension through the comedy catharsis. As the filmmaker has expressed, "es una forma de reírme de mis carencias y de mis problemas" ("It is a way to laugh about my lacks and my problems") (Publico, 22/09/2013)

4.1 Men on the verge of a nervous breakdown

The male protgonists of the film embody different kind of gender tension related to women. As they explain, they have been suffering this anxiety for some time

and it was just a matter of time that they exploded. The catalyst of this explosion is José's (Hugo Silva) divorce and his powerlessness regarding his son's custody. He is living a situation of disadvantage in relation to his ex-wife and he cannot cope with that. Thus, he decides to abduct the child, rob a we buy gold shop and escape to France, where he hopes to start a new life, without his ex-wife.

The film introduces the protagonist duo (Silva and Casas) far from the galán roles that they usually play. They are dressed as Jesus Christ and a soldier, two highly influential symbols in masculine identities, and they carry heavy weaponry, displaying power. After several comments disapproving the involvement of his son in the robbery, Jose (Silva) breaks down while committing the crime and yells that he has had enough of "the maintenance pension, the judges and his witch of a mother!" He cannot repress his feeling any longer and he explodes. As Horrocks explains, "some men are fed up and angry at being constrained (...) expected to always cope, not to collapse" (Horrocks, 1994:. 143). The tension can be observed in the filmmaking too; short shots full of movement, close ups and a small indoor filming location. It all contributes to increase a claustrophobic feeling. Significantly, another male character in the scene feels identified with Jose and starts criticising his ex-wife and complaining about judges favouring women in divorces. In their attempt to escape the police, they get into a taxi and abduct the taxi driver and a customer. The film's pace slows down and Jose has calm down now. At this point, the film has become a buddy road movie and the taxi offers the perfect intimate locus in which the male characters open to each other and bond, thanks to the outburst of sincerity and the common cause of their problems. Close shots, low lights and a small, closed location in movement, help to express this confessional atmosphere. On one hand, Antonio, Toni, (Casas) does not understand his girlfriend. She is a mystery to him. He embodies the anxiety of some men who do not know how to relate with women and who do not understand them. "tenemos escasa capacidad de comprensión del mundo de las mujeres" (we have a very limited comprehension of women's world) (Público, 22/09/2013) states de la Iglesia . Moreover, he tells his new friends that Sonia, his girlfriend, is a wealthy lawyer "working on very important cases". Furthermore, he states in a close-up that he lost his job and he is afraid of telling her and that is the reason why he was involved in the robbery. The taxi driver, Manuel, sums up his feelings when he suggests that he is, in fact, scared of her. Although Toni responds violently to this suggestion (his manliness is being questioned) he finally admits that he is. On the other hand, Manuel, confesses that he shares a lot with the fugitives as, in his own words, "women have ruined my life too". He continues saying that his mother, his sister and his wife frequently met for coffee and criticise him (a small familiar coven?) Even Sergio, Jose's son, shares this disgust about women and complaints about how girls at his school tell everything to each other, promoting an idea of women gossiping and plotting against men that will be further explored when describing female identities. However, they also want to make clear that they are not misogynistic: "I adore women" Toni states. Thus, they love and fear women at the same time. Following inevitably this collective expression of fear and intimidation in relation to women ends up in another intimate and confessional conversation about erectile dysfunction. As Horrocks points out, "the penis is the source of a man's greatest vulnerability, and his greatest feeling of power" Thus, the author continues, "the erection becomes a fetish that measures one's manhood, virility" (Horrocks, 1994:162-163). Moreover, Peter Lehman stresses out the importance of making a distinction between penis and phallus. “The penis is the literal organ and the phallus is a symbolic concept” (Lehman, 2007 p.5) Thus, whereas all the characters in the car possess the first one, their complaints seem to be related

with the lack of the second one, the phallus and this lack, as they express, is related to women. Manuel relates a failed sexual experience with a "perfect woman" who intimidated him so much that he could not get an erection. This dialogue positions these personae far from the traditional male stereotypical character of the galán or the macho ibérico (Iberian macho), the stereotypical hyper masculine stereotype of "man as provider and taker of erotic initiatives" (Perriam 2003:97, quoted in Triana-Toribio, 2004:152). In addition, the protagonist trio represent a type of male identity not very frequently represented in our national cinema. "If we look at the actors that have recently represented Spanishness and maleness for foreign and local audiences, we find that the most common type is that of the photogenic lead exemplified by Antonio Banderas, or Javier Bardem" (Triana-Toribio, 2004:152). The director was aware of the sex appeal of the protagonist duo, particularly among young audiences, thanks to their work in television in popular shows like, Al Salir de Clase (Jongen, Zaramella, Palencia, Cuadri, 1997-2002), Paco's men (Pina, Écija, 2005-2009) or, more recently, The boat (Escobar, Pina 2011-2013). Moreover, he has referred to the duo as "seductores" (Seducers a la Don Juan) , where he also explains how they attract "colas y colas de mujeres que quieren verles" (queues and queues of women waiting to see them) (Fotogramas, 27/09/2013) and the couple has shared protagonism in numerous marketing photo shoots, interviews and magazine covers (el País, 20/09/2013; Cinemania, Septiembre 2013; Fotogramas, 27/09/2013). However, their personae do not represent this image of galan to which both of them are used to. Instead, the characters embody the feeling of frustration and vulnerability that they discuss in the intimacy of the taxi. They depict masculinity in crisis and the filmmaker has decided to exploit it in a cathartic, comic way. "They remind me of Tony Curtis and Roger Moore" confesses the director about the comic duo Silva-Casas (Público 22-09- 2013). As Silva and de la Iglesia stated in interviews, Jose, Toni and Manuel are "pobres diablos" (poor devils) (Fotogramas 27/09/2013) and other men identify themselves and pity them at the same time. "Me hace gracia y me da pena" (I find it funny and sad) says the director (Público 22-09-2013). After expressing openly their feelings to each other, the group realises that women are their common enemy. Then, they turn against women once again, expressing how they feel vulnerable and afraid to be abandoned. "They are demons!", resumes Toni. Carried away by the male bonding, Manuel states that he feels "one of the gang now" and he expresses his admiration for Jose and his initiative, saying that he "would have liked to do the same thing but didn't have the balls to do it", praising his virility at the same time. Nevertheless, the momentum is abruptly interrupted by a civil guard car and the resulting persecution. As a result, they end up, unknowingly in Zugarramurdi, the Spanish Salem and home of Spanish witches, who will put an end to their bromance.

Meanwhile, another car is working as well as male confessional locus: a police car. Calvo (Nieto) and Pacheco (de la Rosa) are a couple of police detectives investigating Jose's crime who have decided to follow Silvia, Jose's ex-wife hoping that she will lead them to the fugitives. Soon, both men engage in a conversation about women. Detective Calvo shares his thoughts on the case. He thinks Silvia is involved in Jose's plan as an accomplice but Pacheco disagrees as he thinks that “she is only a worried mother”. However, Calvo starts talking freely about women in general and how “they are never thinking what they seem to be thinking”. Moreover, he admits he has no idea of what they really think and then, he compares them to spiders and how they spin a comfortable spider web around you only to poison you when you less expect it. This statement deepens in the idea of women as treacherous, cold, manipulative and

evil and how men know little about them. Pacheco deduces that he has problems with his wife/partner Raquel. Then, Calvo advices Pacheco to leave his girlfriend, in case he has one, because “en cuanto sepa que te tiene cogido por los huevos !te los arranca de cuajo!” (as soon as she finds she's got you by the balls, she'll cut them off!) Nevertheless, when Pacheco feels death is close after being captured by the coven, he confesses Calvo that he has feelings for him. The film introduces this homosexual identity as an alternative to the heterosexual masculine one. Moreover, at the end of the film, these personae will represent a non-traditional nuclear family formed by the two detectives and a rescued victim from the witches; a womanless happy family.

4.2 "La bruja de tu madre" (your witch of a mother)

The depiction of the witches in the film seems to be strongly influenced by Goya's El Aquelarre or El Gran Cabrón, included in the painter's famous Pinturas Negras (Goya, 1820-1823), which supposes one of the main referent to witches representation in Spain. Thus, the mise en scéne, the closed location in a cave and the chiaroscuro lightning remind of this painting. However, the main difference that the film introduces not only in relation to Goya's work but also in relation to other cinematic depictions of witches is the fact that there are no male figures among the witches, not even the devil or a male evil spirit. As a result, whereas the witches in El Aquelarre are gathered around a male central figure known as El Gran Cabrón (The big male goat), who represents the devil, in de la Iglesia's film, the witches summon a female goddess who represents female power, matriarchy and the cult to the feminine.

Regarding the narrative, as Creed states, “there is one incontestably monstrous role in the horror film that belongs to woman – that of the witch” (Creed, 1993:73). Consequently, all female characters in the film without exception are represented as evil witches who torment men. Only Silvia, Jose's ex-wife and Sergio's mother, starts the film as a woman who becomes a witch when she meets the coven in Zugarramurdi. We first know Silvia through Jose's comments about her, when he breaks down and tell everybody that he is “fed up with the divorce, the shared custody and the witch of his mother!”, referring to her. Later in the film there is a phone conversation in which she calls Jose to check on how is her son. This conversation ends up in an agitated discussion. However, we do not see her on the screen until a police officer informs her about the robbery and his son's abduction by his father. Then, we can see that she is a nurse, working at a hospital and, as soon as she knows what have happened, she runs after his son in order to save him since she does not trust in the police to find and save his son. As soon as the witches find out about her presence in the house in Zugarramurdi, they make her one of them, taking part in the ritual and offering his son to the mother goddess. There is a physical transformation that shows her becoming witch. She wears the same dark eye shadow around the eyes, her hair is undone and she is dirty. She is now the witch her ex-husband thought she was when he introduced her to the audience.

The first female characters to appear in the film are the witch protagonist trio formed by grandmother Maritxu (Pávez), mother Graciana (Maura) and daughter Eva (Bang). They are shown plotting around a cauldron therefore they are organised and they already have a plan in which the male characters play a part. They have foreseen what is about to happen: the robbery and the escape plan to France. This brief sequence defines the behaviour and the role that the witches are going to have throughout the film

and Graciana is pointed as the leader of the coven. Furthermore, it depicts women as cunning and manipulative as, according to de la Iglesia, "Los hombres somos seres medio tontos que vivimos en un mundo de confusión. Y las mujeres lo tienen todo clarísimo y nos manipulan" (men are silly human beings who live in a world of confusion) (Diario Público 22-09-2013).

The next time we meet the witches is when the male protagonists arrive to Zugarramurdi. This village is known because the Spanish Inquisition judged forty women for witchcraft and burnt eleven of them in 1610 (Dueso, 2010). Legends of aquelarres (coven meetings to perform rituals) are frequent in the area and the story was first taken to the cinema in 1984 with the film Akelarre (Olea, 1984).

«Los juicios por brujería serían una manera expeditiva y aleccionadora de imponer la nueva doctrina religiosa imperante, en este caso, el catolicismo, y, de paso, dar un escarmiento ejemplarizante utilizando como cabeza de turco a los individuos más díscolos de un determinado grupo social» (Dueso, 2010:47), y, al mismo tiempo, eliminar a la mujer de su rol preponderante a nivel social y religioso” (Witchcraft trials were a way to impose the new doctrine (in this particular situation, Catholic doctrine) and to set an example by using the more unruly individuals as scapegoats. Women were also targetted in order to deprive them of any soical and religious power/influence. (Vilariño 2012:556).

De la Iglesia chose Zugarramurdi because to him, “Zugarramurdi es símbolo de una cultura y una religión alternativa en Euskadi. Con el poder matriarcal, los akelarres, la lucha contra el pensamiento occidental... Es el reino de la diosa madre y de todo lo que supone la religión ancestral”. (Zugarramurdi is a symbol of an alternative culture and religion in the Basque country. With matriarchal power, akelarres, the fight against occidental thinking... it's the realm of the mother goddess and everything involved in ancient religion) (Público 22/09/2013). Moreover, he decided to film in the real locations in which the events took place in the XVII century, including the cave. However, the storyline is not that of a witch hunt in which women try to prove their innocence or that in which a coven perform a ritual and summon the devil. This is a male story in which men are the victims of powerful witches seeking justice so they can recover the place they deserve in society. They want to bring the goddess mother back to the world and stop the worshipping of the “false prophet”. The female goddess works as a symbol of femininity and ultimately, what they plan is to end patriarchy. As a consequence, women are represented as monsters. They bring horror to the narrative as male characters fear them but, where is the root of this fear? As Creed points out, the R.C. Church accused women of “copulating with the devil, causing male impotence, causing the penis to disappear and of stealing men's penises” (Creed, 1993:75). As a result, it seems that the fear of witches and its consequent persecution is based on a “morbid interest of witch as other and a fear of the witch/woman as an agent of castration” (Creed, 1993:73). A materialisation of this male anxiety takes place in the house's kitchen, when Maritxu puts on a metallic, sharp set of teeth and shows it, menacing, to Toni, who is then shown in a close up shot displaying his face in fear. This image is a reference to the vagina dentata and the fear of castration. Moreover, Maritxu will attack Toni and bite him in an arm. It seems then, that the trope of witch to depict woman is very suitable in a story told from a male point of view in which men feel powerless and their virility is threatened by intimidating, empowered women.

In addition, the male personae seem astonished when they encounter the witches, who have an empowered identity, very different from the traditional female othered role that they expect from women in a patriarchal society. For example, when Maritxu is introduced in the storyline, running a bar to which the group of men will soon arrive, she is represented as a very strong, assertive, bad-tempered, bossy old lady. She is rude to her customers and she repeatedly insults and even hits a man who seems to be related to her in some way. She is the boss and consequently she has the authority in the bar. Nevertheless, when Jose and his friends arrive to the place, looking for some food and rest before crossing the border, he feels empowered, particularly after his friends' support. The camerawork shows him empowered as well, using low angle shots that give an image of dominance. However, Maritxu does not recognise this authority and she addresses to them like she does to the rest of the people in the bar, disrespectfully. Soon the men will feel uncomfortable around her and will leave the place at once. They are afraid of her. Furthermore, the witches are monsters because they reject the “proper feminine role” (Creed, 1993:42), bringing abjection to the narrative. When Eva is alone in her room, sexually playing with a broom, Jose and Toni observe her as voyeurs. Then, Toni asks the other peeping Tom what she is doing with the broom and Jose answers: “barrer no, desde luego” (definitely not sweeping the floor). The men are turned on by her sexual game but they also point out to how she does not meet the traditional female role of woman as house keeper, always engaged in cleaning and domestic jobs. Thus, the witches have broken the boundaries between male and female roles and stereotypes and they do not recognise patriarchal authority. Moreover, their intention is to destroy patriarchy and bring back the cult to the primitive mother goddess who ruled the world before the advent of Christianity in an attempt to establish a matriarchy. As a result, not only the witches but everything related to the feminine is depicted as monstrous. Their body, thanks to the help of the make-up and special effects teams is constructed to make them look dreadful. Dark eye shadow, surrounding the eyes, eye lenses and radical hairdos help harden their features. In addition, when the coven is trying to capture the group of men, the witches move like animals, jumping to the walls and walking on the ceiling. Furthermore, the coven will meet to hold an aquelarre and they perform a ceremony in order to summon the mother goddess. This part of the film takes place in a “terrible place, most often a house or a tunnel, in which victims sooner or later find themselves is a venerable element of horror.” (Clover, 1992:30). Thus, the group of men become victims once they have entered and old mansion and the house is a domestic, traditional female locus. Moreover, the ritual mentioned to summon the mother goddess takes place in a dark cave connected by dark tunnels that remind to a intra-uterine cavity. “This intra-uternine settings consist of dark, narrow, winding passages leading to a central room, cellar or other symbolic place of birth”. (Creed, 1993:53). Finally, the most significant element of horror in the narrative is the figure of the goddess mother of the world, which is not only linked to femininity but also represents it. She is shown as a huge naked female body in the shape of the Palaeolithic Venus of Willendorf, with big breasts and a big womb that is believed to represent fertility. “In it we see all the strange laws of primitive earth-cult. Woman is idol and object, goddess and prisoner. She is buried in the bulging mass of her own fecund body” ( Paglia,1990:54) As any other power of nature, this eternally pregnant figure is the giver of life but can also be destructive, as we observe when she steps on some witches, as she cannot see. Moreover, as everything feminine in the film, she is depicted as monstrous. Thus, she is a mother and a goddess and she is a monster too. “Kristeva discusses the way in which the fertile female body is constructed as an abject in

order to keep the subject separate from the phantasmatic power of the mother” (Creed, 1993:25). Thus, witches evil power seems to be ”part of her feminine nature”, linking monstrousness to the female reproductive system (Creed 1993:76-77), in this film, particularly birth, since the goddess is the Mother of the world. The primitive ritual’s zenith takes place when the goddess swallows the chosen one, in this case, Jose’s son, Sergio, and later she gives birth to him. The process is displayed carefully, including what happens inside the goddess’ body. The boy travels from mouth to bottom, coming out by the anus and not the vagina. When the boy is expelled from the body, he is covered in body fluids, like an actual birth and he is welcomed in her real mother’s arms. Again, this sequence remembers to some Goya's works, incuded in the collection known as Caprichos in which we can find several depictions of witches, such as Proclamación de Brujas (Witches Proclamation) (Goya, 1797) or Sueño 6. Pregon de Brujas proibiendo a las que no pasan de treinta años, por mas merito que tengan (Dream 6. Witches Announcement forbidding those who are not over thirty, despite their merit) (Goya, 1796-1797). Both drawings have a main female figure holding a small boy like a wind instrument. Thus, it looks like she was going to devour him but she is, in fact, insufflating air to his body and the air comes out from the boy's anus. On one hand, the drawings relate to the idea of the human body as empty, without any organs. Thus the air come in through the mouth and it is immediately expelled by the anus, just like, in the film, the boy comes into the goddess body through the mouth and he is almost immediately expelled by her anus. On the other hand, both witches have wide hips and voluminous bellies that “revela su capacidad sexual o tal vez su embarazo” (reveals her sexual capacity or perhaps a pregnancy) (Mena Marqués, 2012), which reminds to the mother goddess' body and her “inflated mounds of breast, belly and buttock” (Paglia, 1990) Moreover, in Sueño 6 Pregón de Brujas, there is also a Dominican monk who is represented wearing donkey's ears, a symbol of ignorance. The Dominican order was responsible for the Inquisition, the institution that prosecuted and burnt the witches in Zugarramurdi.Regarding the witches' main occupations at the time, Mena Marqués explains how “El ejercicio de la profesión de sanadoras y parteras residía asimismo en la autorización de la Iglesia, que se oponía a todo conocimiento empírico y desconfiaba por ello de la autoridad y del poder de esas mujeres”(healers and midwives needed an official authorisation from the R.C.Church, which opposed to their empirical knowledge and, consequently, mistrusted the authority and the power of these women) (Mena Marqués, 2012). This repression from the R.C.Church over women, which is not exclusive of this film, is expressed in the film by the witches' plan's main aim, which is to put an end to the reign of the “false prophet” and to bring back the worship to the goddess mother. Goya also shows this repression or injustice over women through the drawing mentioned above. Nevertheless, Goya includes men among the witches whereas the film does not, although we know that there were men among the judged for witchcraft by the Inquisition in Zugarramurdi. This fact only increases the director's intention to represent a sex war and a genuinely female monster.

5. Conclusions

Male characters depict alternative identities to those of the Iberian macho. They mainly embody an identity in crisis, provoked by the empowerment of women. They share collective anxieties that they have repressed for a long time as the ideal of masculinity involves not expressing any kind of feelings and to live any circumstance in life stoically. When they finally open up to each other, they find out that women and their emergent role in society, are the origin of their problems. Thus, they see strong

women as a threat to their virility. As a result, all female personae are portrayed as monsters; evil witches who manipulate and other men. With the purpose of restoring the order, the male characters have to defeat the witches and eliminate the threat the empowered women suppose. Consequently, the end of the film is meant to be a happy ending in which men have overcome their identity crisis. They are shown happy, as they have restored the patriarchal order in which they hold the power and authority. Thus, Jose is again the pater familias of a nuclear family and Toni has regained his confidence and he takes his girlfriend's mobile phone and hang up, stopping her to attend a call from work. He is no longer intimidated by a successful career woman. They are in charge now. They have the authority. In addition, Pacheco and Calvo represent an alternative, equally masculine, nuclear family after symbolically adopting Luismi, Eva's imprisoned brother. Although this seems to be a happy (patriarchal) ending, the witches are shown in this last sequence, observing the group of men from the distance. Silvia has taken Eva's place in the coven and they laugh because they know that sooner or later their time will come and they will finally have their justice. This ambiguous ending, that offer several readings, might be caused by the director's wish of filming a sequel (fotogramas.es, 16/10/2013). Moreover, in this interview, the director expressed his opinion of including "más monstruos y más aquelarre, solo para joder" (more monsters and covens, only to bug you)

6. List of references

Clover, C.J. (1992) Men, Women and Chain saws: Gender in Modern Horror Film. New Jersey, Princeton University Press

Creed, B (1993)The Monstrous-Feminine. Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London; New York,Routledge

Dueso Alarcón, J. (2010) Historia y Leyenda de las brujas de Zugarramurdi: de los akelarres navarros a las hogueras riojanas. San Sebastián: Txertoa

Horrocks, R. (1994) Masculinity in Crisis: Myths, Fantasies and Reality. Basingstoke : Macmillan

Lehman, P. (2007) Running Scared. Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body. Detroit, Wayne State University Press

Mena Marqués, M. (2012) “Proclamación de brujas”, in J. M. Matilla, M. B. Mena Marqués (dir.)(2012) Goya: Luces y Sombras, Barcelona: Fundación "la Caixa", Barcelona: Obra Social "la Caixa"-Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado. p. 144, n. 27

Montero, R. (1995) “The Silent Revolution: The Social and Cultural Advances of Women in Democratic Spain” in Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi (eds) Spanish Cultural Studies: an introduction: the struggle for modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp 381-386

Paglia, C. (1990) Sexual Personae. Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Yale University Press

Perriam, Ch. (2003) Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: from Banderas to Bardem. New York: Oxford University Press

Triana-Toribio, N. (2004) Live Flesh: The Male Body in Contemporary Spanish Cinema. London. Tauris

Vilariño, J. J.(2012) “José Dueso Historia y leyenda de las brujas de Zugarramurdi. De los akelarres navarros a las hogueras riojanas” El Futuro del Pasado : Revista Electrónica de Historia. Vol.3(0), p.554

Online Publications:

Castejón, M. (2013) “Las brujas de Zugarramurdi: entre el sexismo feroz y la reivindicación” Píkara magazine 31/10/2013 Available from (http://www.pikaramagazine.com/2013/10/las-brujas-de-zugarramurdi-entre-el- sexismo-feroz-y-la-reivindicacion/#sthash.4hcnuHUN.dpuf) Viewed on February 2014.

Fotogramas.es (2013) “ Álex de la Iglesia sueña con dirigir la segunda parte de Las brujas de Zugarramurdi”. Fotogramas.es Available from (http://www.fotogramas.es/Noticias/Cine-espanol/Alex-de-la-Iglesia-suena-con- dirigir-la-segunda-parte-de-Las-brujas-de-Zugarramurdi). Viewed on February 2014.

Guimón, P. (2013) “Un Aquekarre Delirante” El País, 20/09/2013. Available from (http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/20/eps/1379688756_980243.html). Viewed in January and February 2014.

Marañón, C. (2013) “Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi”. Cinemanía, 27/09/2013. Available from (http://www.cinemania.es/criticas/detalle/18667/las-brujas-de-zugarramurdi). Viewed on January and February 2014.

Montoya, A. (2013) “Entrevista al director y los protagonistas de 'Las Brujas de Zurragamurdi” Fotogramas 27/09/2013 Available from (http://www.fotogramas.es/Peliculas/Las-brujas-de-Zugarramurdi/Alex-de-la- Iglesia-Hugo-Silva-Mario-Casas-y-sus-problemas-con-las-brujas) Viewed on January and February 2014.

Piña, B. (2013) “Entrevista con Álex de la Iglesia”. Diario Público 22/09/2013. Available from (http://www.publico.es/culturas/469758/prefiero-ser-malo-que- tonto)Viewed on January and February 2014.

Films and tv series

Akelarre (1984) Directed by Pedro Olea. Vitoria: Amboto Producciones Cinematográficas

Al Salir de Clase (1997-2002) Created by Pascal Jongen, Eduardo Zaramella, Elio Palencia and Antonio Cuadri. Madrid: Bocaboca Producciones.

Los Hombres de Paco (2005-2009) Created by Álex Pina and Daniel Écija. Madrid: Globomedia.

The boat (2011-2013) Created by Iván Escobar and Álex Pina. Madrid: Globomedia.

Witching and Bitching (2013) Directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Madrid: Enrique Cerezo Producciones S.A.

Paintings/Drawings/Engravings: de Goya y Lucientes, F. (1820-1823) El Aquelarre or El Gran Cabrón. Online image available at (https://www.museodelprado.es/goya-en-el- prado/obras/ficha/goya/el-aquelarre-o-el-gran- cabron/?tx_gbgonline_pi1%5Bquery%5D=el%20aquelarre&tx_gbgonline_pi1% 5Bgosort%5D=b&tx_gbgonline_pi1%5Bgonavmode%5D=search) de Goya y Lucientes, F. (1797) Proclamación de Brujas. Online image available at (https://www.museodelprado.es/goya-en-el- prado/obras/ficha/goya/proclamacion-de- brujas/?tx_gbgonline_pi1%5Bquery%5D=aquelarre&tx_gbgonline_pi1%5Bgos ort%5D=b&tx_gbgonline_pi1%5Bgonavmode%5D=search) de Goya y Lucientes, F. (1796-1797) Sueño 6 Pregón de Brujas prohibiendo a las que no pasan de treinta años, por más mérito que tengan. Online image available at (https://www.museodelprado.es/goya-en-el-prado/obras/ficha/goya/sueno-6- pregon-de-brujas-proibiendo-a-las-que-no-pasan-de-treinta-anos-por-mas- merito-que-tengan/)

HOW GENDER REPRESENTATIONS MATTER WITH GENERATION IN TELEVISION? Bertrand Levant Département Études et Recherches Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel [email protected]

Hanot Muriel Département Études et Recherches Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel [email protected]

Sabri Derinoz Communication publicitaire, Diversité & Égalité Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel [email protected]

Abstract: this paper focuses on gender representations disparities observed in media by surveys lead in the French speaking part of Belgium. It investigates how men and women representations evolve when dealing with age. Interesting results have occurred: with young people, there’s a clear trend towards more equality in terms of gender representations while with elder people, women suffer from greater and greater inequalities when they grow older. This paper attempts to identify factors explaining how gender representations matters with generation in television by using quantitative and qualitative indicators.

Keywords: television, appearances, gender representations, age, generation, societal changes, media practices

In 2011, 2012 and 2013, The Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel1 of the French speaking community of Belgium carried out three surveys (CSA, 2011 ; CSA,2012 ; CSA,2013) concerning diversity and equality for 26 French speaking Belgian broadcasters’ 2 contents. They were based on a sample of one week’s programs monitored under five diversity axes: sex, age, profession, origin and disability. Each person considered as intervening was indexed under such criteria identifiable on television and giving indications on the type of intervening, the type of intervention and the context of appearance. These three quantitative surveys with qualitative aspects have made it possible to determine trends seen in French speaking Belgian broadcasters’ practices regarding diversity and equality. Focusing on both sex and age criteria, two main trends from the three surveys are obvious for all the media analyzed: women and old people are under-represented on screen in comparison to their respective proportion in society. So, in 2013, the proportion of women appearing on screen reaches only 36,88% (31,47% in 2011 and 33,5% in 2012) while they represented 50,92% of the Belgian society (Statistics Belgium, 2013). The proportion of senior citizens of over 65 years old reaches only

1 The Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles is an independent administrative authority in charge of broadcasting regulation within the French speaking community of Belgium : http://www.csa.be/ 2 In 2013, it represents 12 local public service channels and 14 “national” channels: 3 general public service channels, 5 general private channels and 6 “thematic” private channels (cinema, sports, leisure, people, economy). Always in 2013, the sample represents more than 430 hours of programs and 63.568 people indexed.

3,74% (2,68% in 2011 and 3,65% in 2012) of interventions while this category represented 17,65% of the Belgian society the same year. This underrepresentation of old people has to be read with the over-representation of younger categories. Always in 2013, people from 19 to 34 years represented 43,73% of all appearances (37,13% in 2011 and 30,46% in 2012), while they are 20,15% of the Belgian population in 2010 (Statistics Belgium, 2010). These gaps between representations in TV and representations within society decrease for the 35-49 years and 50-64 years brackets but confirm one phenomenon: the gradual withdrawal, age- wise, of people appearing on TV. G1 : Men/women appearances in TV (2013)

> 65 years 70,75% 29,25%

50-64 years 77,92% 22,08%

35-49 years 65,42% 34,58% Men 19-34 years 55,44% 44,56% Women 13-18 years 49,64% 50,36%

< 12 years 59,56% 40,44%

0% 50% 100%

If we combine both sex and age criteria, we observe in the three surveys that the proportion of women appearing on screen decreases gradually from the 13-18 years bracket where the proportion is the most important to reach its lowest rate for people between 50 and 64 years old (see graph 1). Moreover, focusing on people of whom age and sex have been identified, a double phenomenon can be observed: not only women are under-represented in comparison to men, but they are under-represented especially as they are aging (see table 1). So, in regards of people aged between 19 and 34 years old, women represent 19,6% of interventions, meaning more than half of all interventions on TV in 2013, and almost twice more than what they represent in society. Concerning the 35-49 age bracket and the others following, the proportion of women intervening on TV keeps on going down below their real proportion in Belgium. There is only 1,08% of all appearances of people of 65 years and more, which represents barely a ninth of this bracket’s real proportion in Belgium. Concerning the opposite gender, similarly to women of the same age group, men aged between 19 and 34 are over-represented. Unlike women, this over-representation of men remains in the 35 to 49 age bracket and they are represented more or less proportionally as their percentage in population in the 50 to 64 age bracket. They are besides much better represented for the 65 years and more, despite their lesser proportion in society in comparison to women (ratio of 1 : 2,77 for men while 1 : 9,19 for women). T1 : Men/women distribution by age in TV appearances and in Belgium Baromètre 2013 Belgium 2010 Age M W Total M W Total < 12 years 4,06% 2,75% 6,81% 7,49% 7,16% 14,65% 13-18 years 2,51% 2,54% 5,05% 3,59% 3,43% 7,02% 19-34 years 24,39% 19,60% 43,99% 10,11% 10,04% 20,15% 35-49 years 18,27% 9,65% 27,92% 11,00% 10,75% 21,75%

50-64 years 9,77% 2,77% 12,54% 9,58% 9,69% 19,27% > 65 years 2,61% 1,08% 3,69% 7,23% 9,93% 17,16% Total 61,60% 38,40% 100,00% 49,00% 51,00% 100,00% Women suffer therefore a double discrimination because of gender and age. Two indicators analyzed in the surveys, coupled with age criteria, can explain this double phenomenon: professions identifiable on television and endorsed role by each of intervening people. The three surveys carried out in 2011, 2012 and 2013 revealed the stronghold of upper socio-professional categories – SPC+ (managers, intellectual, artistic and scientific professions) – figuring as intervening people whose profession was identifiable on television. Indeed, in 2013, these categories represented 52,96% of identifiable occupations (46,99% in 2012 and 46,32% in 2011). These results have to take into account the fact that there are a lot of journalists intervening on TV, but it doesn’t modify however this dominating representation: by isolating journalists, we reach 43,34% of intervening people whose identifiable occupations belong to SPC+ (37,3% in 2012 and 34,94% en 2011). For men just like for women, SPC+ stays the most represented category in the three surveys, but it must be taken into account that some variations for the other categories are not insignificant. By isolating the journalists and other bias in the sample 3 , the second most represented category is systematically inactive people for women and professional sportsperson for men. The proportion of unemployment for women can be explained by the number of female students similar to the number of male students on television, but these female students represent in proportion a much more important share, because of the relative number of female identified occupations in comparison to male identified occupations (on average three male occupations are identified for one female occupation). The second place of professional sportsmen can be explained by the fact that sports programs are mainly focused on sportsmen than on sportswomen. Apart from these two variations, the distribution of socio-professional categories represented in television is the same for men as it is for women, by order and proportion, globally constant for the three surveys. SPC+ are the most represented for men and women, they are also the ones that are most subject to variations of sex and identified ages (see graph 2). Women with prestigious occupations are more concentrated between 19 and 34 years whereas men appearing in the same type of occupations appear more often between 35 and 49 years. This trend of gradual slide of women occupying prestigious jobs with age becomes twice more important if we consider another trend which is complementary to the former: the role endorsed. Among all identified prestigious roles endorsed by women in the sample of 2013, 88,42% belong to SPC+ where it reaches 81,12% for men. Consequently, the possibility to play a prestigious role is clearly determined by the social occupation, and this condition is stronger for women. And this possibility fades also with age.

3 The 2013 sample has seen the number of « lifestyles » shows increases, where women are predominantly represented. The coding of lonely hearts ads TV where only women appears have also increase their proportion in the sample.

G2: Men/women distribution of professsions by age (2013) 80,00%

70,00%

60,00%

50,00% Men - Others

40,00% Men - SPC+ Women - Others 30,00% Women - SPC+ 20,00%

10,00%

0,00% < 12 13-18 19-34 35-49 50-64 > 65

To summarize, these observations show two main trends: 1. Inequality between men and women in their representation on TV is a phenomenon that intensifies with age: the older a woman is, the less likely she will appear on television compared to a man of the same age. 2. Television highlights mainly prestigious occupations. Women with prestigious occupations are less numerous on television and are more so with age. This has a direct influence on the prestige of the role endorsed in TV.

This double discrimination of aging women can be explained by the following hypotheses: 1. The gradual disappearance of aging women on TV is due to an endogenous normative phenomenon related to the cohort to whom they belong: the (non) public emphasis of their own image in the media. 2. The gradual disappearance of aging women on TV is due to a structural phenomenon related to the cohorts to whom they belong: a disparity in access and occupation of certain jobs, especially the prestigious ones. 3. The gradual disappearance of aging women on TV is due to a structuring phenomenon of the media itself: the emphasis given to highlight younger women or to ignore elder women. Before discussing the elements allowing to confirm or reject the hypothesis previously suggested, it is useful to compare these observations to other ones made on the same basis and applied specifically to the representation of younger people on TV. Indeed, a survey (CSA, 2013) on the image and the representation of children and young people realized in 2013 on a different sample4 puts into perspective the first observations seen in the three surveys of 2011, 2012 and 2013. The inequality of representations of men and women for all the ages is much more tempered for the intervening people from 3 to 35 years, with a near equality for the entire sample: 49,91% of women for 51,09% of men. However, it is necessary to take into account programs that over-represent one sex or the other. So, by isolating on one side football programs where men are

4 Sample of 11.356 intervening people.

predominantly represented, and on the other, lonely hearts call-TV programs where women are predominantly represented, this near equality has to be tempered in the distribution of gender equality by ages (see graph 3). G3: Young men/women appearances in TV (2013)

26-30 55,55% 44,45%

19-25 54,25% 45,75% Men 13-18 52,06% 47,94% Women 3-12 55,27% 44,73%

0% 50% 100%

Nevertheless, this last observation must not diminish the first one: the study of representation on TV of young people demonstrates a stronger rate of equality than the studies on representations on TV of the Belgian population taken in all. The three surveys mentioned above had already highlighted the fact that women were better represented in the 13-18 age bracket and to a lesser extent in the 19-34 one. These basic observations suggest three main hypotheses: 1. Structural phenomena in society can explain the fact that young people from cohorts between 3 to 35 years today are better represented on TV in terms of gender equality; 2. Structuring phenomena in the media can explain the fact that young people from cohorts between 3 to 35 years today are better represented on TV in terms of gender equality; 3. Egalitarian practices with young people in terms of gender equality are due to the fact that they are young people, in relation with the nature of the generation showed on television, and not in relation with the cohorts. The analysis of few factors contributing to this relative equality of representation of young men and young women allows to understand the nature of the phenomenon. The identified occupations for each sex reveals a more or less equal distribution between men and women, with few variations: the over-representation (massive, saying) of sportsmen, the important presence of women in intermediary occupations due to “lifestyles” programs, the important number of female journalists/anchorwomen explaining the larger presence of women in SPC+. T2 : Young men/women distribution of identified professions in TV (2013) Professions Men Women Total Sports 1171 11 1182 Intermediary professions 112 186 298 Nursery school students 11 27 38 Elementary school students 216 187 403 Secondary school students 126 99 225 Higher education students 62 49 111 Unemployed people/job- 6 7 13 seekers Social beneficiaries 1 1 2

SPC+ 319 502 821 Low qualified professions 49 7 56 Army 2 2 Total 2073 1078 3151

This larger presence of female journalists/anchorwomen has direct consequences on the presence time and speech time repartition (see table 3) between men and women (this indicator was not estimated in the three first surveys). For the time of speech as for the time of presence taken in absolute, we can indeed observe that they are longer for women than for men. Isolating not only the speech time of journalists, but also neutralizing sports programs massively male and night-time lonely hearts call TV programs where only pictures of women related to the ads appear, no big disparities of ages can be seen for the presence time and the speech time between men and women. In fact, they are more or less perfectly equal under this criteria (see table 4). T3 : Young men/women distribution of time of speech and appearances in TV (2013) Speech (in seconds) Presence (in seconds) Men Women Total Men Women Total 3-12 2379 2144 4523 2279 1774 4053 13-18 1983 2704 4687 1996 1891 3887 19-25 20882 31022 51904 10648 23812 34460 26-30 30207 38848 69055 9323 19794 29117 Total 55451 74718 130169 24246 47271 71517

T4 : Young men/women distribution of time of speech and appearances in TV without journalists, sportsmen and Call-TV appearances (2013) Speech (in seconds) Presence (in seconds) Men Women Total Men Women Total 3-12 1899 1871 3770 2133 1710 3843 13-18 1606 2475 4081 1647 1762 3409 19-25 11513 9220 20733 5496 6164 11660 26-30 10504 11849 22353 3638 2514 6152 Total 25522 25415 50937 12914 12150 25064

Two other criteria can help explaining trends of the equality of appearances of young men and young women in the sample: appearance contexts and endorsed roles 5 . Appearance contexts describe the surroundings of each intervening young person: TV studios, streets or neighborhoods, sports areas, schools or classes, associations or youth clubs, homes and institutions or companies. By analyzing the distribution by gender of appearance contexts (see table 5), we observe that, globally, young men and young women appear in a more or less egalitarian manner in all mentioned contexts except in sports spaces and institutions/companies. Inequalities in contexts appearance can be

5 Factors of over-representations of one sex or another (sports programs, call-TV programs, journalists) have been systematically neutralized.

understood by the male dominant representation of all in relation sports, including sports spaces contexts of appearances, and independently to the sports dedicated programs. Inequalities in appearances in institutional or company contexts give an interesting indication, even if it represents a little of the total sample: on the 101 people identified in institutional or company contexts, only a third were women. This very relative result can be put into perspective with the social roles identified to young people appearing on TV. On the 6628 young people whose social role could be described (including having none), 690 have been identified as young workers (see table 6). And among these young workers, just a little bit more than a third (247) were women. This disparity helps moreover to remind the observation of the other identified social roles which are more or less equally distributed. T5 : Men/women context of appearance distribution (2013) Context Men Women Total TV 170 195 365 Street/neighborhood 711 676 1387 Sport areas 444 177 621 School/class 207 229 436 Association/youth club 3 3 Home 87 120 207 Institution/company 66 35 101 Other 656 786 1442 Not identifiable 1037 1029 2066 Total 3378 3250 6628

T6 : Men/women social role distribution (2013) Social role Men Women Total Student 355 342 697 Street youth 81 60 141 Youth club member 5 2 7 Young worker 443 247 690 Youth movement member 10 8 18 Association member 18 14 32 Political party member 15 18 33 Field Activist 20 12 32 User/consumer 96 121 217 Artist 287 216 503 Other 43 28 71 No social role 2005 2181 4186 Total 3378 3249 6627

This observation, coupled with those established for the global sample as for the sample focusing on young people, makes it possible to attempt a partial explanation to the hypotheses proposed above: inequality between men and women in representation on TV is more likely to occur when appearance contexts lead to a strong social differentiation, like the professional world for example. Conversely, equality

between men and women in representation on TV is more likely to occur when appearance contexts lead to a weak social differentiation, like the school environment. In terms of access and representation of individuals, it could be an issue of social status that determines that discriminations occurs or not on television, a social status given – or aimed – by media and that individuals mediatize momentarily. In this sense, it becomes possible that near egalitarian results for gender observed in the sample focused on young people proceeds from a reduction to the fact that they belong to a generation in which they are individually considered indifferent, despite the plurality of their social and gender identities6. This suggests that, with age, media tends to operate discriminations much more by individuation. These discriminations would be less related to the fact that people from 35 to 49 or people from 50 to 64 belong to their respective generations. It would be more related to social occupation and prestige which comes with it on one side, and to normative systems structuring the representation of men and women of these generations (those who have and will have from 35 to 49 or from 50 to 64) or cohorts (those who have only today from 35 to 49 or from 50 to 64). A study lead in the 1980’s on prime-time and week-end daytime network television dramatic programming has showed that women are most concentrated in the 25 to 34 age bracket, while men are most concentrated in the 35 to 44 bracket (Gerbner and al., 1980: 40). Moreover, the same study analyzed the gap between chronological age and social age – life cycle stages. Systematically and for all chronological ages, a higher social age is attributed more often to women than to men (young adults for 13-18, settled adults for 19-29, older person for 55-64 and 65 and more). So, television seems to depict always younger women than men. And they age faster than men. This observation has strong consequences on the image of women showed in the media, particularly on depreciation of importance and prestige of older women activities (Signorielli, 2004: 296). Although this study was focusing on characters of dramatic programming, which represent only a few of the samples analyzed here, the results of the study quoted above gives similar trends: a little bit more than half (51,05%) of women appearing on screen in 2013 are between 19 and 34 (while a little bit less – 45,52% - of men are between 35 and 64) and their proportion compared to men decreases most strongly in the 34 to 49 age bracket. As for the issue of systematic depreciation of importance and prestige of older women activities, the results have also shown that from the age of 35, men occupying prestigious jobs – meaning also a prestigious role – are systematically better represented in the SPC+ distribution by age brackets for each gender, and are even more if we take as basis the number of appearances in absolute. More than thirty years have passed between the observations made by Gerbner’s study and those described in this paper. They tend to suggest that little things have changed between 1980 and 2013 in regards of gender representations evolution on TV with age. However, results given by the sample focusing on young intervening people on screen give ways to optimism and could be indications of something changing. Indeed, if we change our point of view and see things in terms of generational dynamics, it is possible that cohorts between 3 to 30 years today are better supporting egalitarian dynamics reflected in the media, while older cohorts were less supporting. Several indicators can give support to this affirmation. First, real disparities exist in the education level and the degree achieved. Focusing only on university diploma awarded, women between 20 to 34 years are systematically more numerous than men, while 35 passed, men are systematically more numerous to be awarded that kind of diploma (Statistics Belgium,

6 The fact that two thirds of the 6627 young people coded have “no social role” is evocating here, but we need other taxonomy to better understand qualitatively these appearances.

2012). Knowing that the samples analyzed here have always showed over- representation of SPC+ on TV, differences regarding gender access to high level degree can give a partial answer to inequalities of representations of men and women from older cohorts, certainly at least in SPC+ representation on screen. Finally, it could be a less personal neglect of older women than the absence of women occupying prestigious jobs that could explain their much less important representation than in the younger cohorts, since we know that the media mainly highlights SPC+. Conversely, statistics on men and women degree levels could also give a partial answer to the near equalities of representations regarding young people. Secondly, it is important to consider structural phenomenon like activity rates which are lower for women than for men and stronger for 50-54 and 55-64 age brackets (Centre pour l’égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme, 2012). Although they are proof of recurrent phenomenon specific to women like employment access discriminations or career renouncement for family reasons, they would be independent from the media themselves that would only reflect non egalitarian situations particular to society itself. Thirdly, the growing access of women to journalistic professions, even though still under-represented and that the evolution is very slow in Belgium, is a confirmed trend (Simonis, 2013: p13) that can potentially modify media practices towards more equality of men and women treatment on TV, but this has to be demonstrated, however (GMMP, 2010). The central question is the following : are these changes observed in young people representations likely to last as theses cohorts, in real-time, grow older? A study focused on generational dynamics has showed that the overtaking of women’s degree level on men’s degree level doesn’t lead to gender equality in terms of socio-professional level and social status, we are far from it (Chauvel, 2004: 77). It suggests that the arrival of new generations socialized in recent contexts that give support to innovation and lead to a generalization of all the progresses is not mechanical. Similarly, we could claim for a generational dynamic in the media only if we can have, over time and when these generations will have more than 35 years, data allowing to attest or contest these changes and to estimate their level of intensity. It is hard to estimate these kinds of changes in representation of men and women in the media because changes in society can be reflected in the media but are also dependent on media practices themselves. In this regard, hypotheses suggesting that more egalitarian practices are due to appearance contexts or belonging to younger generations should merit deeper attention by qualitative surveys, applied to several media. This could allow to understand why, for example, a journalists tends to reflect more equality in terms of gender representations when covering youth subjects. These kinds of surveys would be likely to understand the realities, or even the difficulties, that restrain media to show a more equal representation of women in television, as information provider and as a member of society. The proliferation of quantitative surveys on diversity and equality representations on TV have already made possible to objectivize the situation but most of all to put at the media’s agenda all the existing disequilibrium. The understanding of this unsteadiness is already a fundamental step for positive impulsion towards more gender equality; the next step is to identify all the mechanisms that can more or less equality be seen in the media, and to systematize the good ones and to attempt to modify the bad ones7. It is within this condition that the optimism aroused by the results of gender representations in young intervening people on TV might become a reality and might establish a higher equality between men and women for the replacement of generations appearing on television.

7 In the French speaking community of Belgium, this kind of good practices panorama has given some margin changes (CSA, 2013).

List of references: Books: Janssen, M. (Ed.). (2012), Baromètre de la diversité et de l’égalité dans les medias de Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Bruxelles, Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, Collection « Etudes et Recherches ».

Janssen, M. (Ed.). (2012), Baromètre de la diversité et de l’égalité dans les medias de Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Bruxelles, Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, Collection « Etudes et Recherches ».

Simonis, M. (Ed.). (2013), La diversité au sein de la profession de journaliste. Bruxelles, Association des journalistes professionnels.

Simonis, M. (Ed.). (2010), Quel genre d’infos ? Rapport final GMMP 2010. Communauté française de Belgique. Bruxelles, Association des journalistes professionnels.

Vosters, D. (Ed.). (2013), Baromètre de la diversité et de l’égalité dans les medias de Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Bruxelles, Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, Collection « Etudes et Recherches ».

(2012), Baromètre de la Diversité > Emploi. Bruxelles, Centre pour l’égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme.

Journal: Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Signorielli, N. and Morgan, M. (1980), “Aging with Television: Images on Television Drama and Conceptions of Social Reality”. Journal of Communication, 30: 37–47.

Online journals Chauvel, L. (2004), “Vers l'égalité de genre : les tendances générationnelles sont-elles irréversibles ? ”, Revue de l'OFCE 3/ 2004 (no 90) , p. 69-84 . URL : www.cairn.info/revue-de-l-ofce-2004-3-page-69.htm, viewed 07/03/2014

Signorielli, N. (2004), “Aging on Television: Messages Relating to Gender, Race, and Occupation in Prime Time”, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48:2, 279- 301, DOI: 10.1207/s15506878jobem4802_7 , viewed 07/03/2014

Online references “Population par sexe et groupe d’âges pour la Belgique, 2003-2013”, Statistics Belgium. URL: http://statbel.fgov.be/fr/statistiques/chiffres/population/structure/agesexe/popbel/, viewed 06/03/2014

“Structure de la population selon l'âge et le sexe : pyramide des âges”, Statistics Belgium. URL : http://statbel.fgov.be/fr/statistiques/chiffres/population/structure/agesexe/pyramide/, viewed 06/03/2014

“Enquête sur les forces de travail 2011-2012”, Statistics Belgium. URL: http://statbel.fgov.be/fr/modules/publications/statistiques/marche_du_travail_et_conditi ons_de_vie/enquete_sur_les_forces_de_travail_2011-2012.jsp,viewed 04/03/2014

EGYPT: A FEMINIST IDENTITY

Azza Ahmed Heikal School of Language and Communication Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport

1. Introduction

Arab Feminist is the rereading of the literary production from a feminist perspective as opposed to the male biased point of view. Many Arab male writers sheltered behind the female persona to express their political, national, or religious beliefs. This is a new approach to the writings of two great Egyptian novelists to enable the reader to unfold the female portrayal of character as a representative of their country "Egypt" either politically or religiously. Nagib Mahfouz the Nobel Prize winner 1988 wrote a novel "The New Cairo" which has been adopted as a famous movie directed by Salah Abo Seif and Staring Sua’ad Husni, Ahmed Mazhar and Hamdi Ahmed. In this very popular cinema production, the female character 'Ihsan' was portrayed to stand for Egypt in the thirties on the other hand and to configure the situation many Egyptian women were indulged in. The cinema has been a very popular means of communication in the 50s of the last century, so the cinematic adaptation helped Mahfouz to spread his ideas to larger number of audience thus the effect is enlarged and the motif is expanded. At the mean time, Fathy Ghanem, an Egyptian journalist Lawyer and writer courageously investigated the issue of many Christian girls' marriage to Muslim Egyptians. Maria Sanrdo the Italian, Roman Catholic girl, daughter of Emelio Sandro marries the young Muslim activist Karim Safwan. Cleverly, Fathy Ghanem, explores his religious root of faith and God's Existence in all religions whether Islam or Christianity through, Maria Sandro's journey towards faith and belief. The novel was also adapted into a TV drama, banned from display in the formal official Egyptian Channels and many other Arab TV's as well. The banning was due to the censorship and social turbulence concerning such a debatable religious subject.

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.”(Said, W. Edward 2012)

2. Arab Feminism

Arab feminism is a new approach to literary production particularly of the Arab male societies. However, this new critical approach is not fully crystallized and figured out yet. If politics has been classically defined as a masculine business, the feminine figures are always presented in the private domestic scenes being the source or the reason of conflicts or disputes.

Conventionally, many Arab writers hide behind the scene of the feminist identity to investigate their political and religious views. Understanding politics and challenging traditional political theories pushed male writers to view Egypt not as a country or a place where they live or belong to but more profoundly to consider Egypt as a feminist identity they all fall in love or rebel against.

Arab women, historically invisible are part of this trend. Arab women whose education and mobility allow them to see and project themselves as public intellectuals are becoming visible at the local, national, and international levels. Protesting their many exclusives from their nations’ narratives, Arab women writers are demanding to be heard and seen. (Cookie, Miriam 2001)

The research is an attempt to correlate gender presentation in literature to different means of communication whether the cinema or the TV. Since Egypt suffers from illiteracy therefore, Cinema, and TV Drama are two means of communication that assists the Egyptians understand and enjoy what is meant or aimed through the presentation of the two female figures Ihsan Shehata and Maria Sandro in Mohfouz's and Fathy's two novels as well.

To explore 'The New Cairo' or ' Cairo in the 30s', transferred name in the cinema 1966, the research will concentrate on four major scenes that succeeded to a great extent to portray the writer's vision regarding Ihsan as a symbol or an image of Egypt, the identity. Mahfouz focused on how Ihsan, the poor, ignorant, beautiful girl has been exploited by all men in her life. Here, Ihsan Shehata, or Souad Hasin, is nothing but Egypt itself.

The first scene, stresses Ihsan's Poverty, ignorance and helplessness in front of a greedy father and mother who deprived her from education and comfort in order to support the rest of their big family. Communicatively, the cinematic scene, expresses in details the poverty of Ihsan, her rotten clothes and dirty room in contrast to her immense beauty and charm. Egypt in 30s was a country suffering the same conditions and upheavals.

The second scene is a severe opposition of poverty, beauty and charm seen against richness, ageing and desire. When Kasem Bek Fahmy bought her body and beauty in return of security and money to her and her family, Ihsan fell a prey to the man who severely exploited her refusing to marry her due to social differences between them since he belongs to the aristocratic ruling class. Besides, he is married and cannot offend his wife although he could have married Ihsan religiously and officially. However, he preferred to use her poverty and family's greed to satisfy his desires and needs rewarding them only money to survive. Again Egypt suffered social discrepancy at that time when the rich exploited the poor and gave them peanuts, owning the lands, the factories, and above all power pushing most Egyptians to work for them as slaves or servants without any social equality.

The Third scene is of Mahgoub Abdel Daem the young graduate from the faculty of law who comes from the countryside to study and work in Cairo. Mahgoub belongs to the middle class, educated but jobless with no origin or support. As a survival and a social climber he accepts a very humiliating deal. As a man he agrees on being a pimp, or a hushed to a woman sold to another one. He also exploited Ihsan supposedly legal wife. Against all ethics, rules, religion codes and even human masculine dignity and honor, Mahgoub, offers his wife to the new Minster Kasem in order to get appointed in his office as the Minster's office manager.

Egypt and Ihsan were victims of the middle educated class who searched only for its benefits and gains presenting nothing to the country or Ihsan expect the Legal frame of belongingness and loyalty. The middle class, as portrayed through the character of Mahgoub, accepted the corruption of the ruling aristocratic class and joined them in their corruption, hypocrisy and exploitation of the poor, ignorant, beautiful Ihsan or Egypt. Politically, socially, religiously Ihsan and Egypt are victims of the father 'Shehata', the Minster 'Kazim' and the employee clerk 'Mahgoub'.

Women may choose to either openly express or to suppress such divergences of interest, which they generally do at their own cost in both cases. I discuss who formulates this dichotomy, who identifies nationalism and feminism and benefits from this identification.” (Rouhana H. 2003 P 5)

The Fourth scene is between Ihsan and Ali, the revolutionary communist who has been a friend of Mahgoub and the beloved of Ihsan. Although he was the only male character who truly loved and cared for Ihsan, yet he is exactly like all the other male character he totally failed her. The early difference between Ali and the rest of the corrupt male characters is that he didn't exploit or made use of her. His only sin or mistake is that he fully indulged himself in politics and the theories of socialism, communism and equality to the extent he lost his life and Ihsan's purity and love as well. At the end when Ihsan went to meet him before his death being wounded and shot due to his political actions against the regime and the British occupation. Ihsan confronted him with his wrong which led to them both to separation and disaster.

She told him that words, books and fights would have not fed her hungry family nor sheltered them against cold and insecurity. This is a climactic scene which crystalizes the whole conflict of the movie or the moral which is the internal conflict between theory and practice, politician and ordinary people, activists and poverty, life of words and life of mouth and body. All have failed Egypt as they have all let Ihsan down and pushed her to her own stained hypocrite sinful destiny being a mistress, sinful a wife and a broken hearted lover.

Fouad Dawara, The national feeling in the literature of Nagib Mahfouz: The novel by nature is a national art which means it is the most artistic expression of the matured feeling of the national distinguished identity… The New Cairo is a portrait of the Egyptian society in the thirties …it has a number of the author's echoes and experience at the university, and at the governmental job. It is a portrait full of incidents, characters, and colours. However, the two domineering ones are poverty and corruption which are interrelated in multi layered structures (P.104).

Ihsan Shehata in The New Cairo with her poverty, ignorance, aspirations, and eventually fall is nothing but the first draft which will be modified and improved for several times introduced to the reader later under the name of Hameeda in Madak Alley …Reery in The Quail and Autumn , and Zahra in Miramar. Whether, Mahfouz intended to use the female characters as a symbol for Egypt in different stages of its life or not it is undoubtedly clear that there is a great deal of similarity among Egypt and those female

characters (105) Thus , Nagib Mahfouz 's Ihsan is a political identity of Egypt at the 30s and later on.

Fathy Ghanem's novel" Bent Men Shubra" or a "A Girl from Shubra" was firstly written in February 1986 after the assassination of El Sadat and the rise of terrorism in Egypt. Fanatic groups in Egypt were spreading all over the country, killing, destroying, burning and causing unrest inside Egypt. In a reaction to this fundamental weave of extremists, many Egyptian writers like Bahaa Taher and Fathy Ghanem tried to analyze the roots and motifs such religious dilemma facing the Egyptian society. Ghanem wrote "A Girl from Shubra" to answer philosophical as well as religious problematic question about the historical identity of Egypt. For many Egyptians, particularly intellectuals and Copts, Egypt is a multicultural and multilayered religious country. No one can describe Egypt as a totally modern Arab country since Egypt is a Pharaohonic, Patlomy, Roman, Arab and African country by geography and history.

Religiously speaking, Egypt was an Orthodox country with the main Easter Orthodox Church in Alexandria before the Arab came and settled in the 6 A.B. establishing one of the greatest Islamic Empires in the world. Most of the Egyptian population became Muslim while still about 20% of it is remained Copts. Eventually, after the death of Sadat, many extremists financed by the western countries, America, and some Arab rulers planned to turn Egypt as Iran an Islamic state, but instead of the Iranian Shia'a, Egypt was supposed to be fanatic Sunni one. Nevertheless, the novel which became a T.V. drama in 2000 received much debate and a lot of arguments. It was indeed a journey of both the female character Maria Sandro and the writer Fathy himself. It is the journey of the whole country back to its origin and roots towards light and tolerance. The realization that Maria encountered twice in her life is religiously revealed in three main scenes.

The first scene is inside the church where Maria Sandro in the twentieth century Egypt is free to practice her religion and express herself as a Roman Italian Catholic. She is living in a country surrounded by Muslims and Egyptians and also Christians, Italians, Jews and Copts at the mid of the twentieth century. This was Egypt a country of tolerance and human acceptance that never practiced discrimination because of ethnicity or creed. People in the mid of the twentieth century were living together in peace and harmony till the Second World War erupted and Hitler with Mussolini formed an alley against most Europe and Britain. So Maria's family had to leave for their homeland after the death of the father and the threats of the Second World War. Maria felt very Egyptian and refused to leave her homeland Egypt as she was born, educated, raised up and befriended with many Egyptians in Shubra Cairo.

The second master scene is when Maria meets Karim Safwan who is a politician and an activist is fighting the British occupation in Egypt at that period. Moreover, there are some references that may correlate Karim to be one of the Islamic groups at that time namely "the Moslem Brothers." However, it is not stated clearly but implied artistically by the author in dialogue and action.

Karim Safwan accepts all Maria's sins and mistakes as long as she is ready to repent and ask God for forgiveness. He did not ask her to change her religion and become a Muslim. On the contrary, he respects her Christianity and leaves her to practice her rituals the way she likes as a true Christian. Furthermore, he has never asked her to abandon her neither

her friend Nina, the Jewish nor father Lorenzo to whom she used to go and confess her mortally sins.

When Karim proposed to marry Maria, she travels in her memories to recall her past life from the King Farouk to Toni the handsome Italian prince, to Kosta the Jewish shop manager, till Karim the Egyptian backward Arab Muslim. Maria's European community brought her up to detest and despise the Egyptians and the Muslims viewing them as inferior and backwards. Surprisingly when she met Karim's mother, the simple Egyptian countryside woman, the latter did not speak about Maria's unveiled face or hair or dress or even religion on the contrary the woman welcomed Maria and praised her name and beauty. Moreover, the countrylady gave her gold and jewelries since she is the bride of her son Karim. In a dialogue between Karim Safwan and Maria Sandro he said:

No, we will marry and you keep your religion. She replied quickly: I will go to church to ask Father Lorenzo. (Ghanem :96)

Karim went to the church to convince father Lorenzo to let him marry Maria, however, the dialogue between Karim and father Lorenzo sums up the whole cultural conflict or clash of cultures that is actually a clash of ignorance between East and West. Each side, either East or West does not see the whole picture from different angles. Yet the Western civilization still liver in superiority whereas the Eastern civilization resorts to the fanatic past in order to assert its identity and recalls its past historical sovereignty.

Father Lorinzo: Marriage of different religions would not bring religions near each other; on the contrary, it would lead to the opposite. I advise you to think before you commit such a serious action.

Karim said: Priest, I am the Muslim father, and this means I believe in Christianity and the Bible. A Muslim's faith is a combination of all heavenly religions; the Old Testament, the Bible, and the Qur'an, as well as all messengers and prophets. The Muslim is the free human individual. Our prophet Mohammed married the Coptic Mary who came from here Egypt… I have nothing to do except to fully respect your creed, your church, and the Catholic woman whom I will marry. (Ghanem: 100) This dialogue and that scene were not dramatized on the T.V drama, due to censorship and the religious tension in the society. It is a narrative scene in the novel but not on the screen, however, the dialogue is very illuminating and revealing of the essence of true Islam not the one those extremists and terrorists are adopting and claiming. Analysing the dialogue is essential to comprehend the motif within the whole artistic production. The last culminating scene is the one between Maria and her grandson Karim before her death. It is said that his grandmother is Christian while her grandson is a member in one of the fundamentalist extremist groups. (Ghanem: 107)

When Maria saw Karim in the hospital, she took him for his grandfather Karim Safwan (the husband) as they both look exactly the same. For Maria, this is the second miracle, the first one was when 'Karim' her husband was not dead often after the air raid in Alexandria. Now it is 'Karim' the grandson who is back to her, after a long severe time of separation. The grandson, who was against his grandmother Maria, calling

her a 'kafraa', or a reneged trying to cut all ties with her, he is now crying in front of her after reading all her diaries. Maria's diaries document her journey towards faith and true religion moving from impurity to repentance and marriage. She asked the boy of 15 'Karim' to pray for her as she has prayed for him to be back to her embracement. Through prayers and tears, the two are reconciled grandmother and grandson or Christianity and Islam.

"Ask your heart, this is Islam, this is faith"….(105)

Those were Maria's last words before her final journey towards rest and peace. In her obituary column in the newspaper El Ahram, there were Muslim names beside Christian ones, as there were Italian names side by side Egyptian ones also. It is God's will and God's judgment but why do people try to judge or decide for themselves. Inside the church the prayers were accompanied and attended by many Muslims who uttered verses from the Qur'an while listening to verses from the Bible.

Ironically the coffin was taken from the church to be buried in the Muslim cemeteries as agreed prior; Maria wanted to be with her husband Karim and son Saad. Maria was an extraordinary woman who knew that God is in the heart of love and chastity.

This is the faith and the religion Egypt has been experiencing all its history like Maria Sandro who is Christian by birth and origin but mother and grandmother to Muslim and Egyptians also by birth and origin. The identity here, is national, cultural and religious since Maria Sandro is a true portrayal of Egypt, the country, with various civilizations and religions, all interwoven in a tapestry of history and culture unmatched and unrivalled.

Despite everything …Maria Sandro will remain forever memorial as the meaning, and the human experience as well. (Ghanem: 109)

Naguib Mahfouz's Ihsan shehata and Fathy Ghanem's Maria Sandro are the feminist identity both writers created, portrayed and presented to assert their national, religious and political identities. The cinema and the T.V. drama communicatively deplored the female identity configured and depicted artistically to the mass audience successfully. Arab feminism is critically appraising the male production hoping to find new grands that might prove that women have always been presented in the literary production not on the secondary domestic level but on the front stage. The female figure is not related simply to domestic or desire issues but rather the female character is the identity many writers pursue consciously or unconsciously. We women do exist playing the primary roles and we will not accept to act secondary.

Similar to black feminism Arab feminists tend to explore the feminist identity rooted in the inherited legacy of male writings that portray the female as a figure of seduction or as one of mystical connotations. Thus, the study analyzes and sheds light on the two female figures of Mahfouz and Ghanem being drawn to represent not simply Egypt, but more deeply to symbolize the feminist identity of the writers themselves. In fact, the feminist identity is one of political rebellious and spiritual doubts. " But we are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since

the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plow or divide them with barriers is futile” (said w. Edward 2012)

After almost a century of struggle and fight, Egyptian women are still in action striving for their freedom and working for their liberation. Conservative voices are now judging women and preventing them from achieving their goals and fulfilling their aspirations as full partners in the process of social development. Women of the 16th of March 1919 who moved out of all constrains and ties that captured Egyptian society as well as woman would shed tears over the retreat of some women and men nowadays. At the moment the call of women’s liberation and movement towards enlightenment and progress is facing a serious blow from the part of those who would hinder women their constitutional rights of equality and citizenship. The relying on some Fatwas which deny women equality with men despite God’s orders are but reluctant and backward practices of religion over women. Fortunately, in the Quran, God equates between men and women in rights, rituals, duties, and punishment. In other words women are addressed as humans in as much as men are. Undoubtedly, gender discrimination is a social and legal problem that stands as an obstacle in the path of women’s movement towards enhancing their role in society. Thus, Arab feminist criticism is a means of explaining the importance and the weight of the female not only in the society but also in politics , religion , and culture. This rereading of literature and culture will shed more light on the role of women in Egypt as an identity and belongingness.

3. Bibliography

Carlassare, Elizabith. “Commentaries, Society and Cultural Ecofeminism; Allies in Renaissance” Ethics and the environment.vol5,issue 2000, p89 Cooke, Miriam.Women claim Islam; Creating Islamic Feminism through literature. New York, Routlege, 2001. Dawara, Foad. The National Feeling in the literature of Nagib Mahfouz. Elhelal periodical, Feb.1970 Fathy, Ibrahim. Naguib Mahfoz: Between the Short Story & the Epic Novel. Family Library, Cairo, 2000 Gerrad , Genette,Trans. Narrative Discourse. Oxford, Basil Blackwell,1980 Ghanim, Fathy. A Girl from Shubra. Dar Elhelal, Cairo, 1986. Mahfuz Nagib. Cairo Modern. Dar Elhelal, Cairo, 1945. Rouhana ,H. Critical Half. “On Feminism and National identity” 2003. Said Edward. “The Clash of Ignorance”, The Nation, 4th Oct.2001 Seymour-Joun, Caroline. “The literary life of Cairo; one hundred years in the heart of the city” (Review) vol. 12, No 2,2012

FEMINISM AND WOMEN’S MAGAZINES: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S IDENTITIES AND (PARTNER) RELATIONSHIPS AS ARTICULATED IN TWO FLEMISH WOMEN’S MAGAZINES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY’S SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

Maaike Van de Voorde Department of Applied Linguistics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. [email protected]

Prof. Dr. Martina Temmerman Department of Applied Linguistics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. [email protected]

Abstract: the popularity of women’s magazines, together with their great impact, warrants an academic interest into the way these media articulate and represent women’s identities and (partner) relationships. As we focus on two Flemish women’s magazines from the years 1963 and 1973, we try to explore a possible correlation between Second Wave Feminism and the way women and their (male) partners are represented in women’s magazines of the sixties and seventies of the previous century. Inspired by the method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we use Halliday’s transitivity analysis to examine the processes through which women are represented in their relationships. That way, we seek to find an answer to the following research questions: what is Second Wave Feminism and how does it relate to the content of these women’s magazines? How and to what extent does the articulation of women’s identity and women’s (partner) relationships in these magazines reflect, complement or contradict evolutions in the societal position of women?

Keywords: applied linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, journalism studies, media discourse, gender studies, representation analysis

1. Introduction Women’s magazines differ in various ways from other mass publications. In explicitly and exclusively addressing a female readership, they stand out against the general informative press that allegedly aims at a mixed audience. Moreover, women’s magazines deal with feminine topics such as beauty, fashion, health and personal relations (Stoll 1998: 547). A third, and perhaps predominant feature of women’s magazines is their purpose to establish a personal, intimate relation with their readers, who are addressed as a single community. In earlier research on women’s magazines, this social group has often been described as a ‘surrogate sisterhood’ (McRobbie 1978; Ferguson 1983; Winship 1987). The term refers to the fact that producers of women’s magazines and their women readers are set up in a ‘sisterly’ relationship (Talbot 1992: 574). Talbot calls this ‘synthetic sisterhood’, based on Fairclough’s synthetic personalization, ‘a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual’ (Fairclough 2001: 52). By establishing such a personal relationship with their female readers, women’s

magazines are the perfect site for the transmission of social notions of femininity or, as Wadia (1991) states:

‘women’s magazines contain a set of values and practices which are used to instruct women what to think about themselves and how to conduct relationships with their parents, their male partners (usually husbands), their children, their bosses and other women; they are all about what women should be and how they should act; they are promoters of the ‘ideology of femininity’. (Wadia 1991: 261)

From the 1930’s, when the first commercial women’s magazines were published, until the 1960’s, this ideology of femininity offered in women’s magazines had remained quite unaltered; the image of women presented was that of the housewife/mother figure. Little attention was paid to women’s education, employment and politics, and topics like reproduction, birth control and sexuality in general were conscientiously avoided (Wadia 1991, Stoll 1998, Hülsken 2010). However, when Second Wave Feminism arose in the 1960’s and 70’s, this image no longer corresponded with social reality, as women began to work outside the home, to strive for equal rights and to think and talk about their personal liberation. Women’s magazines were faced with a huge challenge, as their female readership now had access to a variety of alternative, including feminist, views of women and their roles (Stoll 1998: 547).

In this paper, we will focus on Second-Wave Feminism in Flanders and its possible correlation with the way women are represented in two Flemish women’s magazines of the sixties and seventies of the previous century. As we cannot analyse all roles and relationships of women cited by Wadia (1991) in the quote above in the limited space of this paper, we will concentrate on the relationships with (male) partners .

We seek to find an answer to the following research questions: what is Second Wave Feminism and how does it relate to the content of these women’s magazines? What idealised images of femininity and relationships do we find in the textual imagery of these magazines? How and to what extent does the articulation of women’s identity and women’s (partner) relationships in these magazines reflect, complement or contradict evolutions in the societal position of women?

1.1. Situation of Libelle and Het Rijk der Vrouw The origin of Libelle in Belgium has to be situated in 1938, when the Dutch magazine (which already existed in The Netherlands since 1934) came onto the Flemish market. During the Second World War, the production of the magazine was stopped, but from November 1945 Libelle was published weekly again, this time in a separate Flemish version. With the subtitle ‘Weekly for the Flemish woman’, the magazine was intended for housewives of the middle class, but from the 1960’s it was also oriented towards women who worked outside the home (Flour et al. 1995). In 1970, Libelle merged with another Flemish women’s magazine: Rosita. Until then, Libelle’s profile had been rather conservative. According to Flour (Flour et al. 1995), the image offered in the magazine was that of a woman who, once married, devoted oneself entirely to her husband, her children and her household. However, in the 1970’s, this image no longer corresponded with the spirit of that age. As Second Wave Feminism developed itself, social problems came to the fore and women obtained different roles. As times changed, Libelle/Rosita was forced to adapt its profile. The magazine paid more attention to pioneers, such as women with exceptional

(read: unfeminine) occupations. Labelling these stories as ‘exceptional’, however, still endorsed the traditional sex roles (Flour et al. 1995: 149).

Het Rijk der Vrouw (‘Women’s Realm’) came onto the market in 1925 and was intended for both young women and more experienced housewives. Its motto was ‘advice, service and versatility’. As the name itself suggests, this magazine included fashion for housewives and girls, ideas for fancywork and interior design. It also included several readers’ letters, often with moralizing advice on married life and family life (Flour et al. 1995).

Libelle and Het Rijk der Vrouw competed with each other until 1990, when both magazines merged. This merger was based on the fact that both magazines had a similar target group: the average reader of both magazines was somewhere between 25 and 54 years old . Moreover, family life was of core interest for the readers of these magazines

1.2. Second Wave Feminism in Flanders In the year 1830, when Belgium is still in it’s infancy, Belgian women had almost no rights. Most women depended on the power of their husbands and they had no voice in the political sphere. Therefore, the first wave of feminism (1850’s – 1920’s) consisted of struggles geared towards equality of men and women in the public sphere, including women’s right to education, to vote and to own property. Second Wave Feminism in Flanders was inspired by various women’s organizations that came to existence during the First Wave . A few Belgian women’s organizations were founded around the turn of the century (19th – 20th century). The installation of the Nationale Vrouwenraad (National Women’s Board) (1905) was a direct consequence of First Wave Feminism. In the 1920’s, women of both socio-political groups (a catholic and a socialist one) organized themselves in local catholic women’s associations (such as KAV and KVLV ), on the one hand, and a socialist women’s federation (SVV ), on the other hand. Moreover, the labour union had its own women’s association, and in the 1970’s, the Flemish liberal women also united themselves in their own organization.

All these women’s associations reacted in different ways when Second Wave Feminism made its entry in Flanders during the 1960’s and 70’s. Some of them repudiated feminist thinking and kept on treating traditional feminine themes like home help and childcare. Others, like the catholic women’s organization KAV, were willing to modernize their ideas. In 1968, KAV released a charter entitled ‘De vrouw nu: een nieuw statuut’ (‘Women nowadays: a new status’). In this manifest, traditional feminine roles gave way to a reorganization of the different responsibilities. Moreover, the text pointed to the need of a new legal status for married women, which barely had changed since the Code Napoléon (1804) and which stated that men own the common goods and the properties of their wives. Eventually, women had to wait until 1976 for the amendment of the law treating marital goods. The catholic women’s association KAV was also responsible for another important event in Flemish feminist evolution: it delivered Belgium’s first female minister, Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot (1965-1968). Since women were given the vote in 1949, not one woman had been elected. However, this was not yet a real breakthrough, as Belgium had to wait until 1974 for the next female minister to be appointed .

As protest movement began to grow in the early 1970’s, some new autonomous groups were founded. One of them was ‘Dolle Mina’ (1970), established after the example of the women’s movement of the same name in the Netherlands. On the pretext of ‘women too have right to lung cancer’, one of their first demonstrations was aimed at an insurance company in which men were allowed to smoke, but women weren’t. In general, their (playful) actions were mainly directed to family problems (better childcare, more play areas) and a more controversial theme: abortion. After the arrest of dr. Willy Peers (who was accused of performing hundreds of abortions) in 1973, thousands of people hit the streets to demonstrate for his release and the legalisation of abortion. While socialist women argued in favour of abortion, the catholic women condemned it. Finally, in 1990, abortion was decriminalised in Belgium . In the second half of the 1970’s, the Flemish women’s movement began to realize that not only political enactments were needed, but a total change of attitude. After hearing some testimonies of assaulted women on the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in Brussels (1976), rape became a central theme. In order to be able to provide appropriate assistance, women’s refuge centres were set up in several Flemish cities. These centres provided shelter, direct assistance, recreation and education. Second Wave feminists took ‘the personal is political’ as their motto. Self- determination, also sexually, became more important. The origin of lesbian women organisations can be situated in this context. However, the relationship between these lesbian groups and the autonomous women’s movements turned out to be very complex, as some of the hetero-feminists didn’t want to be identified with their lesbian sisters . After the invention of the pill in the 1960’s, reproduction and sexuality became two different things. Having children was now a deliberate choice. This groundbreaking evolution caused some important changes in the 1970’s: from 1973, it was no longer prohibited to spread information and advertisements about contraception, and in 1974, the law on equal parenthood was enacted, which granted as much authority to the father as to the mother with regard to their children’s upbringing and the management of their goods. During this period, in 1972, the Dutch feminist women’s magazine Opzij came onto the market, together with other women’s magazines specifically aimed at coloured or lesbian women. As we focus on non-specialized women’s magazines, these magazines fall outside the scope of this study.

To conclude, we can say that Second Wave Feminism in Belgium was generated by various women’s associations. In the 1980’s, these organisations give up their autonomy in order to integrate in larger institutions, such as political parties and labour unions. This integration was a crucial factor to finally introduce women in the political world .

After this brief outline of the most important events and evolutions during Second Wave Feminism in Belgium, the general goal of this study is to find out if these developments have had an influence on the image of women offered in Flemish women’s magazines. As such, this paper is part of a larger historical study of Flemish women’s magazines in which we want to compare the articulation of women’s identity and women’s (partner) relationships in different Flemish women’s magazines with feminist ideas and societal reality as it develops over time (1953-2013). Together with a former article on the representation of men in Het Rijk der Vrouw of 1958 and Libelle of 2008 (Temmerman and Van de Voorde, forthc.), the present paper serves as an exploratory study for this large-scale historical research project.

Inspired by the method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we use Halliday’s transitivity analysis to examine the processes through which women are represented in their relationships. In an earlier stage, we also examined which names are used to refer to women and men and how these choices contribute to their representation, but as this extensive lexical analysis doesn’t fit in the scope of this paper, we will shortly refer to the results of this analysis in our general conclusion.

2. Methodological framework 2.1. Critical Discourse Analysis

The tradition of CDA can be found in van Dijk (1993), Fairclough (1999), Wodak and Meyer (2001) and Wodak and Chilton (2005). The framework has often been used to examine representations (Stamou 2001, Pietikäinen 2003, Trioen and Temmerman 2009) and also in the context of women’s magazines, a CDA approach has proven to be fruitful (Wadia 1991, Hyde 2000, Gill 2009, Van de Voorde and Temmerman 2013). According to CDA, language should be considered as discourse, that is a form of social practice: ‘Viewing language as social practice implies, first, that it is a mode of action […]. It also implies that language is a socially and historically situated mode of action, in a dialectical relationship with other facets of the social. What I mean by a dialectical relationship is that it is socially shaped, but is also socially shaping – or socially constitutive. Critical discourse analysis explores the tension between these two sides of language use, the socially shaped and socially constitutive, rather than opting one- sidedly for one or the other’ (Fairclough 1995: 54-55).

In this paper, we use critical discourse analysis as a method to uncover the ‘codes’ of social relations in women’s magazines. More in particular, we want to find out which textual and linguistic resources are used to represent women in their relationship(s) with men and how these choices contribute to their representation in general.

2.2 Transitivity analysis

We use Halliday’s transitivity analysis (Halliday, 1994) to examine the processes through which women are represented in their relationship(s) with their partners. According to Halliday, language has an ideational component, which is ‘a fundamental property of language that enables human beings to build a picture of reality and to make sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them’ (Halliday 1994: 101). The grammatical clause represents this process, which consists of thee basic components: the process itself (the representation of a situation or action), the participants in the process and the circumstances which are related to the process. For English, Halliday described three main types of processes (material, mental and relational). These are easily transferable to Dutch, as English and Dutch are related languages (Trioen and Temmerman 2009: 186). Material processes can roughly be equated to ‘actions’ (the main participant bein the ‘Actor’, e.g. ‘the lion [Actor] caught the tourist’). Mental processes can be equated to ‘feelings’ (with the ‘Sensor’ as main participant, e.g. ‘Mary [Sensor] liked the movie’). Relational processes are typically processes of ‘being’ and ‘having’. A supplementary category is formed by the verbal processes, which refer to processes of linguistic communication with the ‘Sayer’ as main participant (e.g. ‘his face [Sayer] tells stories untold’). Halliday also describes the supplementary categories of behavioural

and existential processes, but these will be left out of the discussion, because they are less relevant for our purposes.

3. Corpus/sample

For a largescale historical study of Flemish women’s magazines, we are compiling a corpus from the 1950ies up to the present day. For this paper, we have selected two Flemish women’s magazines from 1963 and 1973 to investigate if we can find traces of Second Wave Feminism in the content of these magazines. The corpus is limited to randomly chosen (by means of a randomizer ) issues of both magazines from the years 1963 and 1973, twelve for each magazine and for each year. This time span includes the rise of Second Wave feminist activism in Belgium. From this sample all content mentioning female (partner) relationships is selected. Since most texts referring to women in relation to men in both magazines are readers’ letters and the answers of the magazines to these letters, we’ve only analyzed these particular articles, as they contain some sort of sex or relationship advice. That way, we can draw some conclusions about the way women-men relationships are conceptualised by both the women readers and the editors of the magazines and investigate if this conceptualization is related to Second Wave Feminism. Other articles that pertain to the subject of women in their relationship(s) with men are also used to investigate if Second Wave Feminism has made its way through the content of the magazines, but in a more general way.

Taking into account the polyphonic organisation of discourse that enacts different voices (Roulet 2011), the advice articles are subdivided into two categories, according to the main voice speaking. The first is the category ‘women readers’, which contains the reader’s letters. The second category, ‘magazine’, consists of the answers to these readers’ letters, which contain opinions and pieces of advice on relationships given by the editors of the magazines. The articles originate from different columns, as illustrated in table 1:

Year Het Rijk der Vrouw Libelle 1963 Brievenbus, Hartsaangelegenheden, Echtgenoot aan het woord (Mailbox, Heart Affairs, Husband Speaking) Vertel ons uw zorgen

(Tell us your worries) 1973 Psychologische problemen, Hartsaangelegenheden (Psychological Problems, Heat Affairs) Libelle/Rosita weet raad, Vraag en antwoord

(Libelle/Rosita knows what to do, Question and answer) Table 1. Advice columns in Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle (1963 and 1973)

The full corpus contains 78 articles: 54 from Het Rijk der Vrouw and 24 from Libelle. We’ve collected more articles in Het Rijk der Vrouw as these texts are generally much shorter. The difference in the amount of data also reflects in the number of words of both corpora: the corpus of Het Rijk der Vrouw contains 20 667 words, while the corpus of Libelle only consists of 11 195 words.

4. Analysis of the data

A transitivity analysis of the sentences in our corpus allows us to give a systemic- functional explanation of the relationships between women and men as they are represented in the magazines. We only examine those clauses, in which at least one participant role refers to a woman and we focus on the processes having to do with actions, feelings and communication. Relational processes with the verbs zijn (‘to be’) and hebben (‘to have’) will not be included in the discussion, as these verbs need a complement in the form of a noun phrase to express a meaning. As demonstrated before (Trioen and Temmerman 2009, Van de Voorde and Temmerman 2013), a naming analysis is more illuminating than the transitivity analysis in such relational processes.

4.2.. Transitivity in Het Rijk der Vrouw (1963 and 1973)

Text produced by the magazine’s editors Actions (material processes) (50/84) The majority of the processes are material processes. With respect to content, there are few similarities between the verbs used. This is not so surprising, given the fact that these verbs depend to a large extent on the subject of the readers’ letters and the answers to them and thus are very diverse. Nevertheless, there are some verbs that can be grouped together according to their meaning. A first group of verbs has to do with making someone’s acquaintance: (iemand) leren kennen (‘to come to know (someone)’), (iemand) ontmoeten (‘to meet (someone)’) and kennismaken (‘to get to know’). A large group of verbs refers to a certain kind of conflict between a man and a woman: beledigen (‘to insult’), in de steek laten (‘to abandon’), verlaten (‘to leave’), negeren (‘to ignore’), ontwijken (‘to avoid’), wegvluchten (‘to run away from’) and (iemand) pijn doen (‘to hurt (someone)’). Furthermore, marrying is a central process. In all cases, the woman is the Actor, as in examples 1 and 2:

(1) Wat die andere jongeman betreft, mag je gerust zijn: je ouders kunnen je niet verplichten een jongeman te huwen waar je niet van houdt.

With regard to that other young man, you can set your mind at ease: your parents cannot force you to marry a young man whom you don’t love. (RdV 1963/14 – 24)

(2) Alle ouders hebben natuurlijk graag dat hun dochter huwt met een jongen met een mooie betrekking maar één ding wil ik u toch doen opmerken: geld is niet de eerste vereiste voor een gelukkig huwelijk.

All parents would like their daughter to get married with a boy with a nice job, but I would like to point out one thing: money is not a prerequisite for a happy marriage. (RdV 1963/5 - 8)

Feelings (mental processes) (23/84) The verbs houden van, beminnen (‘to love’) and verliefd zijn/worden (‘to fall/be in love’) are by far the most frequently used in this category (15/23). Sensors can be men or women, as illustrated in examples 3 and 4:

(3) Uit wat u schrijft menen we te mogen afleiden dat hij ook verliefd is op u.

We believe that we can derive from what you’ve written that he’s in love with you too. (RdV 1973/38 - 29)

(4) Probeer hem eerder het gevoel te schenken dat u 100 procent van hem houdt en dat u rotsvast in zijn genezing gelooft.

Try to give him the feeling that you love him for 100 percent and that you really believe he’ll recover. (RdV 1973/7 - 21)

Communication (verbal processes) (11/84) Verbal processes encode actions of linguistic communication. These processes include verbs like zeggen (‘to say’), vertellen (‘to tell’), vragen (‘to ask’), beloven (‘to promise’) and verwittigen (‘to inform’).

Text produced by women readers Actions (material processes) (28/59) As in the answers to the readers’ letters, the material processes in this category include a variety of verbs. Simultaneously, we can divide these verbs in different groups, according to their meaning. In the letters too, marrying is a central process. Remarkable in this category is the use of the verb seksuele betrekkingen hebben met (‘to have sexual intercourse with’), as this is the first time that we encounter a woman reader speaking about her sexual life in our corpus:

(5) Ik heb tot voor een jaar seksuele betrekkingen gehad met een man, die onlangs aan kanker overleden is.

Until a year ago, I’ve had sexual intercourse with a man who died from cancer recently. (RdV 1973/7 - 21)

However, we cannot call this groundbreaking yet, as this woman’s letter has nothing to do with her sex life, but is aimed at the question if cancer is contagious or not.

Feelings (mental processes) (26/59) Women readers mainly express feelings of love. The verbs used are beminnen, houden van, liefhebben (all translated in English as ‘to love’), verliefd zijn (‘to be in love’) and iets voelen voor (‘to feel something for’).

Communication (verbal processes) (5/59) Only five processes are verbal. The verbs used are spreken (‘to speak’), bekend maken (‘to , zeggen (‘to say’), bekennen (‘to confess’) en vragen.(‘to ask’). The Sayers are always women.

4.3. Transitivity in Libelle (1963 and 1973)

Text produced by the magazine’s editors Actions (material processes) (15/36) Again, these verbs are very diverse, depending on the topic treated in the readers’ letter and the answer to it. Examples are vergezellen (‘to accompany’), vernederen

(‘to humiliate’), respecteren (‘to respect’) and flirten (‘to flirt’). Here in most cases, men are the Actors, as in example 6:

(6) U hebt haar als studente leren kennen en u hebt toentertijd met haar geflirt, zonder enige bedoelingen overigens.

You got to know her as a student and you’ve flirted with her at the time, without any intentions for that matter. (Lib 1963/4 - 75)

Feelings (mental processes (15/36) The feelings expressed through the mental processes all relate to loving someone: houden van, graag zien and liefhebben (all translated in English as ‘to love’), verliefd worden or verliefd zijn (‘to fall in love’ or ‘to be in love’). Feelings of men and women are expressed, as the following examples show:

(7) Dat uw man van u houdt lijdt geen twijfel: als hij nuchter is, is hij lief en aardig, zegt u zelf.

There is no mistaking that your husband loves you: if he’s sober, he’s sweet and nice, according to what you say. (Lib 1963/4 - 70)

(8) Als je genoeg van die jongeman houdt om zo lang te wachten, dan moet je hem niet loslaten.

If you love that young man enough to wait that long, then you don’t have to let him go. (Lib 1963/48 - 66)

Communication (verbal processes) (6/36) Verbal processes occur six times. The verbs used are vertellen (‘to tell’), zeggen (‘to say’), uitvragen (‘to ask for a date’) en verwijten (‘to reproach’).

Text produced by women readers Actions (material processes) (30/55) The majority of the processes in the readers’ letters are material processes. Although most verbs differ, there are some similarities in content, so it is possible to distinguish some groups of verbs according to their meaning. A first group of verbs has to do with making someone’s acquaintance. Examples are kennismaken (‘to get to know’), (iemand) leren kennen (‘to come to know (someone)’) and ontmoeten (‘to meet’). Another group of verbs refers to the possible relationships between a man and a woman and the act of marrying: verkeren (‘court someone’), in het huwelijk treden (‘to get married to’) or huwen (‘to marry’). Other verbs, on the other hand, have to do with leaving your partner: verlaten (‘to leave’) and ontvluchten (‘to run away from’).

Feelings (mental processes) (11/55) The mental processes include the verbs houden van (‘to love’), dol zijn op (‘to be mad about’), veel voelen voor (‘to feel a lot for’), verliefd zijn (‘to be in love’) and stapelgek zijn op (‘to be crazy about’). In most cases, women are the Sensors.

Communication (verbal processes) (14/55)

The neutral verb zeggen (‘to say’) is used four times. Other verbal processes are vragen (‘to ask’), een woord wisselen (‘to say a few words’), beloven (‘to promise’) and vertellen (‘to tell’).

5. Second Wave Feminism in Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle

If we look at both magazines’ content in general, we can find some traces of Second Wave Feminism.

First of all, the traditional division of roles between men and women does not always hold. Both magazines pay attention to women who leave their houses to work outside the home. In 1973, Het Rijk der Vrouw publishes an interview with Mrs Wybo, manager of a shoe factory. The magazine admits that her appointment is still quite unique, even though women’s emancipation keeps on growing:

(9) Mevrouw Wybo, een kwieke, frisse vrouw van niet te schatten leeftijd [...], verheelt het niet dat zij er gewoon niet bij kan dat ik helemaal naar Izegem kwam rijden om te vernemen hoe zij haar schoenfabriek leidt. Zij doet namelijk naar best vermogen haar werk, en is daar nu iets speciaals aan? Toch wel. Precies omdat een vrouwenhand aan de touwtjes trekt. Het gedaas over emancipatie ten spijt blijft het in ons land een nog wat unieke situatie.

Mrs Wybo, a bright, brisk woman of inestimable age [...], doesn’t conceal that she cannot understand that I came all the way to Izegem to learn how she runs her shoe factory. She does her job to the best of her ability, and what’s so special about that? It is special. Exactly because a woman’s hand pulls the strings. In spite of the blathering about emancipation, this remains a quite unique situation in our country. (RdV 1973/4 - 74)

Another article hands the floor over to Kris Smet, presenter of a popular radio programme. In her show, she proclaims feminist ideas, as she argues in favour of more women in political parties and she breaks taboos in talking about sex education, sterilization of men and contraception. Libelle as well thinks women should be allowed to work outside the home. Answering the letter of a male reader who believes his wife should stay home to look after their family and their household, the magazine argues that women only benefit from working outside the home, financially as well as personally:

(10) In de eerste plaats om het materiële voordeel: in elk gezin kan men weleens een extraatje gebruiken. Ten tweede omdat een of andere activiteit haar vitaal en levendig houdt en in vorm, omdat het werk haar een zekere tucht oplegt: op tijd opstaan, op tijd komen, enzovoort. En, wat vooral voor u, heren, van groot belang is: zij blijft koket!

First of all, because of the material advantage: every family could use a little extra. Secondly, because some kind of activity keeps her vigorous and active and in shape, because the work charges her with a certain discipline: get up on time, be in time, and so on. And, what is certainly important for you, gentlemen: she stays elegant! (Lib 1963/7 - 74)

The editors of Libelle are aware of the fact that times are changing for women and men. When a female reader complains that her husband decides on all their expenses, Libelle indicates that the man in question should be aware of the age they’re living in:

(11) Uw man leeft onbewust nog in de traditie dat alleen de huisvader beslist! Maar dat stamt uit een tijd toen hij alleen een salaris verdiende! Wakker worden en op de kalender kijken: 1973!

Your husband subconsciously still lives according to the tradition where only the father of the family decides! But that descends from a time when only he made money! Time to wake up and look at the calendar: 1973! (Lib 1973/4 – 44)

However, although both magazines try to break with the traditional role division between men and women, many articles are still role-reinforcing. In 1973, Het Rijk der Vrouw publishes an article entitled Mijnheer blijft alleen (‘His lordship stays home alone’). This includes several tips for women to prepare their husbands for staying home alone when their wives and children have left for a holiday. The main concern is how their husbands will run the household, what they’ll eat, if they’ll manage to do the dishes, and so on. That way, this article confirms the traditional role of women as housewives, representing their husbands as complete laymen with regard to the household.

Moreover, both Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle maintain a traditional view on marriage. In their letters, readers often complain about how unhappy they are in their marriage or about romantic feelings they have for another man. If adultery comes up, both magazines recommend their readers to hold on to their marriage, as if it is a straitjacket that can never be removed. Example 20 illustrates this:

(12) Indien u in de toekomst als een plichtsgetrouwe vrouw al uw zorgen aan uw man en kind zult besteden, dan zult u vlug het gevoel van tevredenheid kennen, waar u nu zo naar verlangt.

In the future, if you will take care of your husband and child like a dutiful woman, then soon you will know the feeling of satisfaction that you desire so much at this moment. (RdV 1963/31 - 9)

This focus on married life is also reflected in the naming analysis and the transitivity analysis. Names referring to women and men in both Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle almost always refer to the fact that the named referent is married or is about to get married. Examples are mijn man or vrouw (‘my man’ or ‘my woman’), echtgenoot (‘husband’), echtgenote (‘wife’) and verloofde (‘fiancé’). Moreover, the transitivity analysis has shown that marrying is a central process.

In both magazines, the verbs houden van, beminnen and liefhebben (all translated in English as ‘to love’) have a high frequency within the mental processes (expressing feelings), which shows that love was a central topic. As we’ve seen, love implies sacrifices for women and marriage remains the highest good.

With regard to women’s sexual emancipation, both Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle remain very careful. Neither of these magazines publish any articles about lesbian relationships, birth control or abortion. In the 1963 magazines, no reference to sexual intercourse can be found, in the 1973 magazines only one. In an article about having children in Libelle (1973), the influence of birth control comes up shortly. The magazine declares that family planning has caused women to feel more ill at ease when it comes to getting pregnant, as women now have fewer children than they used to. Moreover, being pregnant is in conflict with women’s liberation, as cited literally in example 21:

(13) En met een zwangerschap begint die onherroepelijke, onvermijdelijke verantwoordelijkheid van het moeder-zijn, die juist voor een geëmancipeerde vrouw, die gewend was volop en vrij in het leven te staan, soms moeilijk te accepteren kan zijn.

And with a pregnancy an irrevocable, inevitable responsibility of being a mother begins, which can be hard to accept for an emancipated woman, who was used to living freely. (Lib 1973/14 - 126)

6. General conclusions

We applied the linguistic framework of systemic-functional transitivity analysis to map out the representation of women in their relationship(s) with men in two Flemish women’s magazines of the twentieth century’s sixties and seventies. In addition to this, we’ve taken a bird’s eye view on the articles in the corpus and the topics they are treating. That way, we wanted to explore if there is a relation between Second Wave Feminism and the way women and their (male) partners are represented in these magazines.

Our analysis has enabled us to draw some general conclusions:

1) Marriage is central in the lives of women in the sixties and seventies As the language in both Het Rijk der Vrouw and Libelle illustrates, marriage is a central and crucial factor in the lives of women in the sixties and seventies. The analysis of the different verbs in the transitivity analysis has shown that marrying is a central process. In addition to this, the naming analysis we carried out (of which the results are not published in this paper) has also shown that women and men are almost always represented as being married or about to get married. Examples of naming practices referring to married women and men: uw/mijn man/vrouw (‘your/my man/woman’), echtgenoot/echtgenote (‘husband/wife’) and verloofde (‘fiancé).

In general, we can distinguish three main phases in women’s relationships with men that are treated in women’s magazines: in a first phase, a woman meets a man she’s interested in and they start dating to get to know each other better. Material processes like (iemand) ontmoeten (‘to meet (someone)’), kennismaken (‘to get to know’) and (iemand) leren kennen (‘to come to know (someone)’) all refer to this first step. In a second phase, they get engaged and eventually married. Names as mijn man or vrouw (‘my man’ or ‘my woman’), echtgenoot (‘husband’) and echtgenote (‘wife’) represent men and women as married. Moreover, verbs like in het huwelijk treden (‘to get married’) or huwen (‘to marry’) also refer to this special occasion.

In a last phase, women are married and face all kind of problems. Verbs that refer to a certain kind of conflict between a man and a woman are beledigen (‘to insult’), in de steek laten (‘to avoid’), wegvluchten (‘to run away from’) and (iemand) pijn doen (‘to hurt (someone)’). In such conflict situations, both magazines recommend their readers to hold on to their marriage, as they consider it to be the highest good and adultery is not accepted.

2) Traditional roles are carefully extended Both magazines make room for articles in which women who work outside their homes are interviewed. In their answers to the readers’ letters, they also support the idea of women working outside and making money. However, many articles are still role- reinforcing. Moreover, in representing men and women almost exclusively as being married, they support the traditional view on marriage.

3) A loving man is important in women’s lives As the transitivity analysis has shown, love is a central theme. The frequency of the verbs beminnen, houden van and liefhebben (all translated in English as ‘to love’) indicates that women in their relationship(s) with men are a central topic in women’s magazines. The negative attitudes of men in relationships are often discussed in the text of our corpus (verbs as beledigen (‘to insult’), in de steek laten (‘to abandon’), verlaten (‘to leave’), wegvluchten (‘to run away from’) and (iemand) pijn doen (‘to hurt (someone)’ illustrate this), but at the same time, there is an idealised (hypothetical) picture of relationships which is being kept alive with verbs like verliefd zijn (‘to be in love’) and liefhebben (‘to love’).

4) Second Wave Feminism is mainly absent ‘Hardcore’ Second Wave Feminist topics like birth control, lesbian relationships and abortion remain mainly absent in both magazines. In general, both magazines can be called feminist in that they point out that women should no longer hold on to their traditional role as housewives, but they should improve themselves financially and personally by working outside their homes. However, as we’ve already demonstrated, neither Het Rijk der Vrouw nor Libelle are consistent in communicating this message, as both magazines in this era still often confirm the traditional division of roles between men and women.

As this study is exploratory, further research on this fascinating topic (combining different methods from the fields of sociology, communication studies and critical (linguistic) discourse analysis) is needed in order to investigate the diachronic evolution of the way women’s (partner) relationships are articulated in Flemish women’s magazines, and in order to explore how these relationships are (re)articulated by their readers.

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WOMEN SPORTS REPORTERS: FEMININITY IN A TRADITIONALLY MALE FIELD

Marilou St-Pierre Department of Communication Studies Concordia University [email protected]

Abstract: sports journalism is one of the last male bastions in the journalistic field. In this area, women are still underrepresented, making up as little as 10-15 per cent on the staff. But in fact, representation is not the only way to measure or explore the operation of gender in this field. This paper is a first exploration, through the lens of gender, of the work of female sport reporters. Research conducted in 2011-2012 in the sports department of the French television station Radio-Canada, a public institution in the province of Quebec, looks at how power relations operate in the field at different levels. Specifically, this research unpacks the professional practices of female sport reporters, their relations with sources, tone used in reports, and the topics covered by women. These results raise further questions about the impacts of gendered power relations on the careers of female sport reporters.

Keywords: women; sport journalism; gender; relations of power; Quebec; Radio-Canada

1. Introduction

For a long time, journalism was a job almost exclusively for men. But, over time, women in Europe and North America have gained access to the field. In the province of Quebec, Canada, women entered the field in the nineteenth century. At that time there was few of them and they lacked the possibilities for upward mobility (Pritchard and Sauvageau, 1996). Gradually, from the 1950s and the 1960s, women began to occupy an increasing position of the journalistic staff (Saint-Jean, 2000); by 2006, of the 4255 journalists in the province, 44.7 per cent were women (OCCQ, 2009). Despite numbers suggesting advancements in the field, media institutions aren’t gender neutral and horizontal segregation is still in place (Damian-Gaillard et al., 2009). Horizontal segregation, or gender typing (Löfgren-Nilsson, 2010), means a repartition of journalistic specialization based on a representation of masculinity and femininity. For example, coverage of fashion, culture or social concerns will be associated to femininity and more women will work on these subfields. These topics are considered extensions of their domestic responsibilities, like care and education (Damian-Gaillard and al,, 2009). Horizontal segregation can also be found in subfields themselves. For example, Neveu (2000) noticed in a study about political journalism in France that women more often cover small political parties than their male colleagues, or are more likely to cover topics that fall within a social scope. A symptom of horizontal segregation is evident in the specialized subfield of sport journalism. In the United States, France and Switzerland (Hardin and Whiteside, 2009; Delorme and Raul, 2010; Schoch and Ohl, 2010), women account for approximately 10- 15 per cent of sports journalists. This low representation of women in sports newsrooms is coupled with a context of work particularly gendered; in sport more

generally, men and women are rarely mixed. Sport is a field of homosocialisation, and a place for the construction of masculinity (Messner, 1992). The underrepresentation of women in the sports newsroom, and the fact that they are working in a traditionally male-dominated field brings me to question the place occupied by these reporters who also work with mostly male colleagues, who have to deal with mostly male athletes, and who, simultaneously, are in a position of being female, of being a sport reporter, and of being a member of a news organization (de Bruin, 2000). How does gender affect the work of these women? How do relations of power constructed by gender affect their professional practices? In this paper, I propose to explore these questions through a 2011-2012 case study of the sports department of the French television station Radio-Canada, a public institution. This study represents a first step to better understanding the place of women in sport journalism.

2. Research questions

Sports journalism is a specialized subfield wherein gender is particularly prominent. Before going further, it is essential to outline a short definition of gender, a system of hierarchy and division of bodies, behaviours, skills, and so on according to two categories: male and female, men and women (Bereni and al., 2008). These categories are not closed, meaning they can be challenged. Also, due to the nature of gender's social construction, we can’t know in advance what, in a certain period, in a specific field, will be associated with masculinity and with femininity. But gender is also “a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (Scott, 1986: 1067). It assigns to the agent a position in relation to other agents (de Lauretis, 1987), and the assignment of this position has consequences that are both symbolic and material. In the case of sport journalism, as I said in the introduction, it’s easy to note the quantitative underrepresentation of women. But, this observation does not tell us how gender operates in this specific sub-field? In this research, I take a first step toward understanding how gender works in sport journalism in the Quebec context. To do this, I eschew a gender-neutral vision of journalism (Neveu, 2000), wherein professional socialisation, or organizational socialisation, are conceptualized as the only way to understand journalists' professional practices. As De Bruin (2000) explains, it is certainly impossible to ignore other parts of the identities of journalists. They are part of an organization with rules and routines. They are also professionals who are part of a larger community with their own ideals and discourses. Despite these considerations, we must take account of gender, because it too is a part of the identity that we bring with us to the different parts of our lives. As well, applying Bourdieu's theories (Bourdieu, 1992), we could say that organizations, the political economy of the media, and the professional community, with its discourse about what is (good) journalism, all contribute to structuring the field. This model offers a way of understanding power relations. But gender crosses different social fields, and the journalistic field is no exception. Gender must be taken into account to comprehend the professional practices of journalists, and it must be questioned. To say it in another way, gender is at the same time a structuring structure and a structured structure (Robinson, 2005). Revealing the underrepresentation of women in sport journalism is important, but my intention is to understand the role of gender in the professional practice of sports journalists, and how femininity is conceived across restrictive structures provided by the organisation and by the profession itself. To better understand this issue and to operationalize my research, I offer three subquestions:

1. Is there horizontal segregation in the field of sports journalism? How does such horizontal segregation operate? 2. Is the use of source is gendered? If so, how? 3. Is the style of coverage gendered? If so, how?

3. Methodology

To answer to these research questions in the Quebec context, I studied the sport department of the French television station Radio-Canada. Radio-Canada is one of the rare media institutions in Quebec, public or private, to have enough female sport reporters to allow a comparison with their male colleagues, and to paint a portrait of newsroom politics. In the province, there are three francophone media institutions that broadcast sports and produce sport journalism. Two of these are private: RDS (and the related channels RDS 2 and RDS Info) and TVA Sports (an affiliate of the generalist channel TVA). There are women working at these private stations, but their tasks are so different from each other that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make a comparison. The contexts of their practises were too different for the questions I wanted to answer. Also, in a majority of cases, they aren’t presented as journalists, but as animator, or co- animator. Comparatively, it’s possible to find more women who have the title of journalist in the sport department of Radio-Canada. Also, in concentrating my attention on a specific media institution, I wanted to avoid differences between media institutions themselves. The position of sport journalism is different in a generalist media institution, like Radio-Canada, than a speciality media channel, like RDS or TVA Sport. It could be interesting, in a future project, to take account of these particular contexts.

3.1. Content analysis

To start, I proceeded with a content analysis of sport news reports of March 2011, broadcast six days per week (Thursday was the exception), and lasting between 10 and 15 minutes. Much like the Téléjournal 22 Heures, a conventional news program that aired before sports news, the Nouvelles du sport follows the same framework as a conventional news program, with an anchor, stories, conversations between reporters and the news anchor, and expert analysis. In the first phase of the content analysis, I segmented each news report to keep only the news reports, the conversations and the analysis. In each of these segments, I detailed the sport covered, the level of sport (amateur, professional) and the sex of the journalist or analyst. Subsequently, I re-segmented each unit to isolate the sequences where a source was quoted. By this, my goal was to count the sources, to categorize the sex of the sources, and to define the occupation of the sources (athletes, coach, etc.) The second phase was less quantitative and more qualitative. Based on observations during the first phase, I focused on coverage angles, for example, the perspective adopted by the journalist to talk about a subject (Le Bohec, 2010: 38-39). I also paid attention to the use of emotion in the stories, and finally, to the transgression in the presentation of news. By this, I mean the way the journalist transgresses the traditional “hard news model”, characterized by an impersonal tone and a focus on the transmission of information (Rowe, 1992), to adopt a more subjective tone in which it is possible to distinguish an editorial style, or what Rowe (1992) calls a "reflexive

analysis." When this boundary is crossed, the journalist is no longer just a professional; he/she is also a sport fan.

3.2. Interviews

After the content analysis, I conducted a series of six semi-structured interviews with sport journalists of Radio-Canada. I chose them because they were the three men and three women most present in the corpus. My questions were based on the results of the content analysis. My goal was to confirm the results, particularly what I observed in the inductive part of the analysis. I also wanted to understand these results, and the relationship these journalists have to gender issues. I wanted to understand what, in my results, was affected by the institutional context, and what was more gender-related, in order to problematize the gender identities of female sport reporters.

4. Results 4.1 Women's presence and horizontal segregation

The first data that I collected was aimed at determining the presence of women sport reporters in the news report, and to categorize their roles.

Table 1 — Type of content according to the sex of the journalist Men Women Total Analyses 14 (100 %) 0 (0 %) 14 Conversation 5 (55.6 %) 4 (44.4 %) 9 Reportage 25 (59.5 %) 17 (40.5 %) 42 Total 44 (67.7 %) 21 (32.3 %) 65

As we see in Table 1, women produced 32.3% of the content, compared to 67.7% produced by their male colleagues. The biggest gap in representation between women and men is in the analysis, where there are no women. Analysis segments account for 21% of the total content. The absence of women in these segments seems due in large part to the topic of these analyses and the fact analysts are predominantly former athletes. The vast majority of analysis segments were about professional hockey, an unattainable sport level for women; the National Hockey League (NHL) is not mixed. Women are thus automatically excluded from these segments. In the March 2011 corpus, there were no analysis segments about female sports. There was one segment about a speed skating competition involving men and women, but the analyst was a male ex-speed skater. Due to the absence of women in analysis, these segments were left out of this study. Excluding analysis, women produced 40% of the news stories, men 60%. In March 2011, 16 different journalists produced at least one story or on-air conversation. Of these 16 journalists, only four were women. Two of these women produced 15 segments of the 21 produced by female sport reporters. In the case of the 12 male reporters, the work was more equally shared. Only one male reporter produced more than four segments in the month, due to his beat: the coverage of the Montreal Canadiens,

the only professional (NHL) hockey team in the province. So, we can observe that women represented 25% of the journalists in the corpus and two of the four women journalists were over-represented by producing 70% of the feminine content. I said in the introduction that the horizontal segregation can be understood as the absence or near-absence of women in certain journalist specialization. But, In sport journalism, previous research tends to have arrived at a similar conclusion: women are relegated to the coverage of secondary sports (Delorme and Raul, 2010). In the case of Radio-Canada, the situation seemed different.

Table 2 — Sport covered according to the sex of the journalist (number of segments, without analyses) Female Male reporters reporters Total Hockey 12 10 22 American football 3 3 6 Boxing 3 1 4 Soccer 2 1 3 Formula 1 2 0 2 Cross-country skiing 1 1 2 Freestyle skiing 1 1 2 Baseball 1 0 1 Cycling 1 0 1 Synchronized swimming 0 1 1 Speed skating 1 0 1 Tennis 0 1 1 Dance 1 0 1 Golf 1 0 1 Other 1 2 3 Total 30 21 51 Hockey dominated the coverage with a total of 22 segments. It’s important to note that in Quebec, and generally in Canada, hockey is the most popular sport. In second place, and far behind, we find the coverage of American football. The sex of the reporter didn’t seem to affect the sport covered. But, if we dig deeper, it was possible to observe a division of labour based not on the sport, but on its level. The sport field, like other social fields, is crossed by tensions. One of these lines of tension is found in the division of the field between amateur and professional sport. This line isn’t always clear. For example, during the Olympic games, there is a mix of professional and amateurs athletes. An amateur, in this sense, doesn’t mean that these athletes aren’t top athletes. It means that these athletes aren’t paid for doing their job. They can be paid by sponsorship or by state programs dedicated to athletes, but this is not the same as professional athletes who are paid by contracts and who have insurance against injury. There are also amateurs of all kinds, including children, teenagers, or adults who are not top athletes, nor are they professionals. To account for these differences in the content analysis coding, I created two different categories for

coverage of amateur sports, one for competitions among top athletes ("high performance sport"), and another for amateur activities ("amateur sport"). Regardless, in both cases, amateur sports do not garner the same media attention in North America (with the exception of the Olympics). In a subfield dominated by an economic logic (van Zoonen, 1998: 126), the coverage of professional sports takes up more media space, and is normally at the beginning of the sports news report. In the case of my study, each time the Montreal Canadiens played, the Nouvelles du sports opened with this news. Coverage of professional sport gives journalists a visibility that amateur sport does not. Certainly, in a public institution like Radio-Canada, the amateur sports are sometimes broadcast as part of the station's mandate. However, Radio-Canada also competes with other channels for audience. In the end, the public station makes more visible the same kind of sport news as other stations.

Figure 1 – Division of content according to the sex of the journalist and the sport level

80%

70%

60%

50%

40% Men 30% Women 20%

10%

0% Amateur Professional High Other sport sport performance sport

The Figure 1 illustrates how coverage of segments (stories and conversations) was divided according to the sex of the journalist and the sport level. Nearly half (47.7 per cent) of the content produced by women was about professional sport. For male reporters, this proportion reached 73.3%. In other words, half of the time, women covered non-professional sport, or non-professional events while their male colleagues spent just a quarter of their time covering non-professional sport. During the interviews, I asked participant journalists how to explain the low presence of women in the coverage of professional sports. First of all, a consensus emerged among the interviewees: unlike at private stations, covering amateur sport isn’t seen as a negative or lesser job at Radio-Canada. One female journalist said, about a private channel:

I’m sorry. It’s sad to say that, but [at this channel], girls are enclosed in the coverage of amateur sport. I say enclose because at this channel, amateur

sport is a secondary topic. Here, it’s not true. Here, the Olympic games have an enormous importance. At Radio-Canada, amateur sport isn’t a secondary topic, and for me, it’s a passion. (F2)8

At Radio-Canada, the difference in the coverage of amateur and professional sport wouldn’t be related to gender, but due to the public mandate of the. Radio-Canada, as a public broadcaster, has the mandate to represent Canadian diversity, which includes amateur sports. Profits are not supposed to guide their choice of coverage.

However, I found a parallel discourse in the interviews with women, and with two of the three male participants. If amateur sport is valued at Radio-Canada, it’s also a milieu more easily accessible to women. "If we want to enter into the world of sport, I think that the easiest way is when you begin by covering amateur sport," said one of the female journalists (F1). Still, ease of access depends on which amateur sport is being covered.

Suddenly, I begin to work in a small newspaper […]. I’m not sure that, as a girl, I have the guts to sit down in front of [the coach of a popular local junior hockey team]. I’m not sure because, firstly...I think he would tell me: “what are you doing here?” (F1) Despite the fact this journalist works for Radio-Canada, she had a hard time feeling comfortable, and being accepted, by some athletes and coaches in amateur sport as well. In a particular case, her access to the practices of a popular hockey team was reduced, with the explanation that a young woman like her was a distraction for the players. It’s important to note that in this case, the situation can’t be explain by the fact that coaches and players are less accustomed to media coverage. Due to the popularity of the team, despite the amateur status, coaches and players have to deal on a daily basis with journalists. Another female journalist interviewed said she never had problems covering amateur sports, but that when she covered professional sports, it was totally different. Sexist jokes and inappropriate behaviour were common. For example, one time, during a live broadcast a football player kissed her on the mouth. She also revealed that one time, a professional hockey player refused to answer her questions, but answered those of male reporters. If these events were more frequent when she was a young reporter, everything is not resolved with time.

It’s still happening. Sometimes, I’m in scrums, I will ask a question, and the guy will look at me one second, after he will look at all the male reporters, and he won’t look at me again. It’s still happening. Is it timidity? Is it…I don’t know. But it’s still happening. A discomfort. It can have a discomfort. It can happen. […] But at the end, I have my quote, it’s just that the guy doesn’t look at my Kodak [my camera] (F2)

A male reporter believed that amateur sport is more easily accessible for women due to its less pretentious character, and the general accessibility of its athletes.

8 The interviews were conducted in French and translated by the author.

At my beginning, I had a colleague who said to me that when she entered in locker rooms, it was really, really macho. Guys made jokes like dropping their towel, just to see her reaction. Can you imagine the discomfort? (M1)

But, in the amateur sport field, athletes “don’t have the vainglory of millionaires », said the same journalist. Two women journalists that I met said they had received offers from their bosses to cover, on a daily beat, a professional sport team. In both cases, they refused. If it’s impossible to conclude that this decision is directly and only related to the sexist attitudes of some players, coaches or executives, it seems relevant to make the hypothesis that these difficulties are factors in the decision they took.

4.2 Sources It’s normal to see and to hear other sources than the journalist in reportage. Sometimes, it’s someone who gives an interview to a journalist; sometimes it’s an excerpt from a press conference, etc. In Table 3, I paint the quantitative portrait of the use of sources.

Table 3 — Appearances of sources according to the sex of the journalist

Male reporters Female reporters Total Male sources 82 (46.9 %) 93 (53.1 %) 175 Female sources 29 (65.9 %) 15 (34.1 %) 44 Total 111 (50.7 %) 108 (49.3 %) 219

Despite the fact that women produced only 41.2% of the segments, their stories contained 50% of the sources counted in this study. But, female sources were definitively underrepresented by women and men sport reporters. They accounted for only 20% of all sources, and they were only in six segments throughout March 2011 (four of these segments were produced by men). When I discussed this with reporters, there were few differences between how male and female participants approached their sources. Certainly, circumstances have an impact on the use of source quotes. Firstly, sources must be able to express themselves clearly. A journalist explained to me that sometimes, he doesn’t use the quote directly because he can summarize in 15 seconds what an athlete will say in 45 seconds. Secondly, there is the relevance of the source's comments. In the world of sport, the use of clichés and stock phrases is commonplace, but such quotes do not carry much weight. Often, journalists prefer to put one or two more facts into their story than include a quote that doesn’t make sense or add much information to the story. Finally, Radio-Canada has rules about the use of sources. One journalist explained: “when I have a conversation of two minutes, generally, I am supposed to have two quotes from it” (H3). Journalists will move away from the institution rules only in specific circumstances. But, in the interviews with women, I discovered a real care to limit their own presence in the stories and to leave space for their sources. “Me, I don’t think I take up space. People don’t want to see me" (F1), said one female journalist when I asked about the place of sources in her work. On the same topic, another journalist said that, if it’s possible, she avoids concluding segments with shots of her standing alone in front of the camera because “in sport, it ruins everything"(F2). She prefers when viewers don’t see

her. Instead, she doesn’t hesitate to put long quotations in her stories. In interviews with male journalists, I did not notice a similar discourse. The biggest difference between men and women sport reporters regarding sources is the occupation of the sources.

Table 4 — Source occupation according to the sex of the journalist9 Women Men Athlete 34 52 Coach 13 8 Team executive 12 4 Fan 4 7 Former athlete 3 4 Family member 4 0 Journalists from other media 2 0 Analyst 1 1 Other 8 5 Total 80 81

Demonstrated in Table 4, sources seen in the stories of male reporters were most often athletes (64.2%). For women, this proportion was only at 42.5%. Female reporters were also the only ones to use family members as sources. They used quotes from coaches and executives twice as often as their male colleagues. Certainly, assignments contribute to these statistics. For example, it would be surprising to have a quote from a player when you cover an executive meeting of a sport league. However, the gap is too wide to be attributed to assignments alone. I noted during the interviews that the relationship between journalists and their sources influenced the place given to the source in the story. Relationships built by journalists are crucial. Journalists must maintain respectful and cordial relationship with their sources while avoiding the trap of over-familiarity, said a journalist. But, with time, some relationships become stronger due to a shared passion for the game. These relationships are particularly interesting for journalists, because they offer access to scoops (sometimes) or to facts that help them “to better understand a situation”. But, as noted before, women sport reporters have to deal with bad jokes and inappropriate behaviour from some of their sources. Under these circumstances, it can be hard, if not impossible, to get a good quote from athletes. It’s easier with coaches and executives because, generally, they are doing press conferences. All journalists have the same access to the same material. I also noticed that women reporters are really careful in their relationships with male athletes. They want to be sure to act as professionally as they can, without any possible ambiguity: “I can’t ask the phone number of a hockey player in the same way that I do with a female hockey player, or a woman skater. The reason behind the request must be clear. We must be careful with that. Me, I’m always careful" (F2). During another interview, a woman journalist doubted that she could ever develop the same relationships with male athletes as her male colleagues had. Familiarity between a woman reporter and a man athlete could be seen as

9 Table 4 doesn’t take account of multiples appearances of the same source in a same segment.

unprofessional. These barriers, due in large part to a heterosexual view of the world wherein men and women can’t have relationships without there being potential for sex, seem to contribute to the use of fewer quotes from athletes in stories covered by female reporters.

4.3 Coverage style

I did not find systematic differences in the work of men and women sport reporters, but found some tendencies which seemed to be informed by gender as well as different visions regarding what constitutes good sport reportage.

4.3.1 Angles

Journalists aren’t the only ones to influence story angles. Each morning, there is an editorial meeting during which assignments and approaches are discussed. Nonetheless, as explained by the journalists I interviewed, reporters express their points of view during these morning meetings, and their personal styles influence their angles and approaches. I noted earlier that men tended to adopt a factual angle, typical of what is called “hard news” (Rowe, 1992). The journalists explained what happened, in chronological order, and sometimes added one or two facts to explain the context. Men appeared to be more focused on the facts, and offered detailed descriptions to support these facts. When they offered context, they most often used technical explanations, or reminders of previous game results. When female journalists adopted a factual angle, they included feelings of the athletes or their family members, emotive impacts or rivalry between competitors. During interviews, women journalists raised the same concern about how to tell a good story. If, in general, the concept of visual narrative is important in audiovisual journalism, women were the only ones to express a direct concern about this topic.

I’m telling a story. It’s important. […] Sometimes, I prefer to drop one or two facts, to privilege continuity, to make it more enjoyable [...]. This is my style. I want to be sure that when people watch my report, at the end, they have the impression that they watch a small story [...]. Each time, I have the impression to sign a work of art. (F2)

Another journalist explained that she loves "the historical component, the human side " (F1). Like their male colleagues, sometimes, they had to choose more factual angles, employing statistics and hard facts to tell their stories. However, the female reporters interviewed in this study were clear this is not their preference. This view of how female reporters might work differently was shared by the male journalists interviewed.

I think that women are more original in their information treatment than guys. My colleagues, they are girls that I really respect, because they have a way to of speaking that I really appreciate. Us, guys, we are more descriptive. It’s okay, but I don’t know, there is a propensity...or maybe it’s the kind of topic they are doing. It is embodied. (H2).

One woman journalist said that she thinks that men are more descriptive than women.

They are “more factual, a little bit more factual. And human stories, for example doing a report in high school with teenagers, it’s not their favorite thing” (F2).

4.3.2 Emotion and transgression

One of the most obvious sources of difference in tone or approach appeared in the way that emotion was used in the reports. Men and women sport reporters used emotion in the work they produced. In fact, as all the journalists said during my interviews, one cannot dissociate sport and emotion. But, in the segments produced by women, I noted that, at certain moments, emotion was used to drive the report. In other words, the actor (athlete, coach, executive, etc.) and his/her entourage were placed as the centre of attention, and their feelings emphasized. For example, when a football player announced his retirement, the reporter didn’t focus her attention on his athletic past, but more on the present, on how he felt, how his teammates responded to this announcement, etc. I didn’t find any of this kind of angle in men’s segments. One of the male reporters interviewed offered this comparison:

I know that women, if I compare their work with mine, have more emotional consideration than me. In my mind, when there is a performance, I will ask the guy, “Hey, you had a great performance. Tell me about your performance.” And he will answer, “The hole was there. I took my golf club, I hit the ball, I saw the ball roll and go in the hole.” The girl will ask: “Hey, you did a great performance. You should be happy.” There is a different twist to generate something else. This is my opinion. (H2)

I also observed that male reporters tended to make more personal comments, words games, or use “I,” or first-person descriptions. All the journalists I met expressed their concern about the ideal of objectivity, trying to make clear both sides of the story. However, the men interviewed admitted to having the habit of personalizing their reports, by saying “a small sentence at the end. Just a little twist, a question” (H2). For them, sport journalism, because it’s a “light” topic, doesn’t require the strict respect of the neutrality norm. In segments produced by women, this personalization of the information wasn’t clearly noticeable. When I questioned them, they were conservative in their answers, arguing the role of journalists, in sport like in other specialities, wasn’t to analyse, or to make comments. A male reporter also observed that his female colleagues were less comfortable expressing their own points of view. According to him, this situation isn’t a question of ability.

Often, they [women] do not dare. I think about one my colleagues, who has an excellent writing style, but who sticks to the script, despite the originality of her reports. She has a remarkable sense of narrative. In two minutes, she will pass the information that someone else could only do in five minutes. But, she’s maintaining a corporate style. I told her my observation. Maybe it’s sexist, but I think that she might dare more if she were a guy. She has the capacity to dare. (M3)

The same journalist mentioned that another female colleague did not hesitate to “fight in the shadow for a topic she thinks is important. But when it’s time to deliver the information, she always takes a “corporate tone”.

When I asked women how they could define their professional style, they insisted on a positive tone, on the importance of building a solid story, of finding “the story behind the story.” Expressing their opinions or adopting a more personal tone was not what they were looking for in their reports.

4.Discussion and conclusion

The results of the content analysis and the interviews provided evidence of the role of gender in the professional practices of sport journalists. If women are underrepresented in the sport department of Radio-Canada, despite the public status of this institution, I also found traces of horizontal segregation. Visibly, the use of sources was different, like the coverage style between men and women reporters. What is interesting, and I think must be developed more fully, are the multiple reasons behind these results. It’s one thing to note that women covered a larger proportion of amateur sports, but the reasons behind this situation are still largely hypothetical. Why did women I interviewed seem so unenthusiastic about covering professional sports? I proposed that near-systemic harassment could be a beginning of answer. Here, we see gendered power relations in action, combined with economic issues. Professional sports are a lucrative industry. In mainstream media, professional sports are generally on the front page of the sports section. Can women who are living through harassment or situations in which they are uncomfortable, express their concerns freely? The three interviews conducted with women suggest not. Or that when they do express themselves, they must be supported by a male colleague. I think that it would also be interesting, and in fact essential, to investigate the use of emotions and the importance accorded to storytelling in the work of female sport journalists. Does this style of coverage emerge from traditional notions of femininity that prize emotions or is it a strategy to differentiate their work from that of their male colleagues? Or is this emphasis on story-telling merely a way to compensate for “less interesting” assignments, or inconsistent access to sources? Are the professional practices of female journalists impacted by the (lack of) legitimacy they felt they had in the field, like a male journalist invoked during an interview, or do the use of a traditional impersonal tone is a strategy of differentiation from their men colleagues? The idea of strategies has already been investigated by some researchers who are interested in the place of women in journalism (Ross, 2001; Djerf-Pierre, 2007; Damian-Gaillard et al., 2009). Women have used different strategies to establish themselves in the field. Djerf-Pierre (2007) identifies three of them: be “one-of-the boys”, which means to act like the men in the newsroom, be “one-of-the-girls”, i.e. “using one’s specifically feminine capital to the full by specializing in subjects and genres that particularly appeal to women” (Djerf-Pierre, 2007; 98) or the expansion strategy, which means creating a new space. Ross (2001) talked about another strategy, the retreat, “where women choose to work as freelancers rather than continue to fight battles in the workplace.” (p. 535). But, are these strategies present in sports journalism? Do women sports journalists consider their use of emotion, or the absence of opinion, as a strategy? In a long term research project, will we find these strategies? As stated previously, heteronormativy seems to affect the choice of sources and the relationship women journalists are allowed to develop with male athletes. For the women reporters I interviewed, this was a big concern and they insisted on the professionalism every women should have in this situation. The results of this

research are consistent with other investigations in the field of sports (Hardin and Shain, 2006), where women sports reporters must be careful of their attitude. But, like the researche of Schoch and Ohl (2010) and Schoch (2013) revealed, women sports reporters can also play with stereotypes, and representations of femininity to obtain information from sources. For example, they can play the role of the seductive women. For this reason, I think that it would be essential to extend the scope of a future research project to different media institutions, in order to see how the relation journalist/source is seen in different contexts (public or private institutions, experimented or young journalist, amateur or professional sport, etc.). In order to answer all of these questions I have proposed a future research project that seeks to investigate the field of sports journalism deeper. I want to understand the way gender has affected the field of sports and specifically the work of women, in that field, in the province of Quebec in the last 40 years. My goal being to highlight the professional career of women who have worked, and those who continue to work, in a male dominated field.

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WOMAN WITHOUT BODY IN TURKISH CINEMA: FETISHISM IN MASS COMMUNICATION

BAYRAM, M. Sami Department of Philosophy Maltepe University, Istanbul [email protected]

ÖNKAL, Güncel Assoc. Prof. Dr. Department of Philosophy Maltepe University, Istanbul [email protected]

Abstract: as a methodology of mass culture the reproduction of reality according to various contents and divisions is a result of some ontological, epistemological, ideological, aesthetic and ethical concerns which are sourced from the relation between subjects and perceived phenomenon. Man, the subject of the reproduction process of mass culture has been transformed an object by the process itself that is a result of late- capitalism’s motivation on desires being directed for meaning production. Spectaculars observe this intention of the predefined and constructed fetishism process as “women- without-body” in Turkey’s cinema samples.

Keywords: female, body, fetish, desire-object

1. Introduction: Communication in Turkish Mass Culture

The difference in art between developed and underdeveloped societies can be grasped through comparing their used role-models as main figures. Rural societies generally are under the influence of unhealthy way of mass communication which is based on ignorance. In this partial and ideologically oriented worldview the values are determined heavily by temperance, emotions and traditions. Mostly industrial societies are principally using cinema to criticize and to enquiry the actual way of capitalist living. The advantage of cinema as an art here stems from its expanded sphere of communication which is based on conversation. The cinema as an art might represent the hidden motives of social history.

Turkey -as a young republican country after its independence war- has been in an economical crisis during Second World War and industrialization has been realized and applied by the help of Marshall the American President. This shift resulted in big relocation movements to the relatively urbanized areas. Due to the unbalanced economic conditions according to the areas they live in, Turkey has faced to a false process of social transformation and urbanization. The values upside and down have many causes on increasing criminal facts as well as violent behaviors in family life. The divided economic line in Turkish society resulted in a hazardous discourse between the genders. Especially the workers in fabrics were the main focus of Turkish art, cinema and literature. “Men work, women should stay at home” is a good sample of this conservative discourse. Additionally after 1961 many Turkish –male- workers

were employed in Deutschland. This second but internationally sourced transformation also had disadvantageous for the feminine side of the society. Women without any life/work experiences started to stay at home and they waste their time by waiting their husbands’ invitation letters for Germany. The solipsism of women in Turkey never lasts in.

The 1960s and 1970s Turkish cinema are full of evidences of this discriminatory discourse and they have a common point to be discussed: The virginity and honesty of women! In this respect, our presentation will also focus on the critique of sexually oriented films of this special era considering the uprising value of traditions, honesty as virginity, overwhelming attitudes against gender and its ideology.

The samples of Turkish cinema illustrate us that there is no communication between men and women in daily life and because of the fact that the mentality between different sexes is based on fetishism. The opposed sex is no longer to someone with full of senses but a thing within body as an object. In this unjust “mutual” recognition all the communication comes from the man-side and woman becomes sole instrument without words. The film Ayrılamam (“I cannot leave”-1986) starts with ethical dilemma of a passionate man whose brother’s wife becomes a temporary guest in their house. The husband works in Germany but the woman is under the close observation of the others. An earlier version of this type of “woman without body films” is Yilmaz Güney’s Baba (“Father”- 1971) which narrates a girl’s tragedy after the imprisoned father. In those films women are being presented such as sex-objects and the focus of camera is put to the legs of women for minutes with a melodrama.

Consequently, the questions about Turkish cinema between the years 1960-1990 are also the political questioning of the classes of society. Woman without body in Turkey is still an instrument for the arabesque emotions of mankind. The men of the society without communication with the opposed sex becomes the disguised actors of surveillance society.

2. The Errant Spectacular in Cinema

The main hypothesis in this research/ case-study might be summarized as the definition of woman without body as res cogitans facing the social perception of feminism; and the relation between imaginary body-theory with the social structure of communication among different sexes in Turkish society. This comparison also requires a reconsidering strategy of phenomenology of body in cinema and intentionally created notion of difference.

“Mass” as a concept in social theory represents a special type of social structure intends to behave according to some pre-described but concealed target. In this sense mass communication is a result of internal and extravagant outer reciprocity of all possible communicative possibilities. The main scope of those probable possibilities is to divert people into more humanitarian conditions and progressive new values. However, mass communication as a communication type of a mass culture essentially based on groups of people under the influence of that sort of culture. Thus, mass culture functions in both ways; one is to spread knowledge and judgments about what’s going on daily life and secondly reproduction of knowledge in terms of values and temporary but current paradigms as well. The reproduction of communicative knowledge in mass

culture is not as in common as it sounds. Philosophically, mass communication is produced by an ideology or worldview and it finds its meaning in its comprehensive influence. Thus as the easy access of knowledge through mass communication is free from time and place, communication becomes an effective and commonly intersubjective production.

Mass communication is a part of social critique researches since its value-creating power is under the shadow of technical trends. The main aim of mass communication is not to create new values or make a progress in them whilst it much more focuses on the technical usage of knowledge. Mass communication is a good sample of social construction of knowledge both in individual and social levels. There is no tight connection between meaning and value in mass communication since its instruments are rather significant than its intrinsic reasons. In this respect spectacular of this communication type are interested in the “action” dimension of it. On the other hand mass communication is not just a mechanical process such as production and consumption of knowledge. Mass communication deals with the usage of this knowledge in terms of behaviorism. Practical issues of mass communication are quite important because mass communication is a reflection of daily life procedure. On the one hand mass communication resumes the daily life on the other hand it reconstructs life perception itself. In short mass communication becomes a inevitable habit for the consumer spectaculars.

Mass communication, for Bandura, might be conceptualized as “symbolic communication” since it’s a voluntary action who are interested in those symbols (2001:265). By the symbols of mass communication, the cognitive processes of the individual spectaculars are directed according to the environmental psychology. Additionally, mass communication is a sort of official gossip in terms of legalizing incomplete deductions and detaching ethical concerns for a period of time (Ibid.266- 268).

2.1 Phenomenal Desire Management: From Desired Object to Desire Subjects

The legalization process of mass communication can be analyzed according to two main approaches; historical revision and systematical comparison. Irving Fang divided mass communication process into six different historical levels (1997:15). First level is the level of scripture, second is the era of print. Printing is the starting point of migration of knowledge from East to West. As a result of meeting paper with printing the reforms process started to root in Middle Ages and after that in the Renaissance period. By the spread of printing opportunities we observe that all the levels of society began to meet the sources of the knowledge without aid. The modern world is remarkably based on the economics and after a while economics determined religion and education which were playing active roles in the social issues (1997:15). In the third step mainstream media revolution is mentioned. Emerging from the first half of the 19th century as Samuel Morse’s telegraph become an effective communication tool for spreading news around with electromagnetic frequencies, it have closed all the remote distances mentioned. In the third step the revolution of “entertainment” takes place. Maybe the much flourishing era of the mass communication bring into reality as fun fact in the market. The fifth step is the developing era of the communication “tools” and lastly the sixth step is called “the highway” of the mass communication which means the communication without

borders with its all fast track in expanded areas. Thus, as Frang told us, there is no longer local authority to control this flowing of knowledge (Ibid.).

The tools of communication in the hands of media patrols who function as social engineers, become capable to move mass into the their own-designed “ought to” area showing that all good/bad is valid under the commonly known definition illustrated on newspapers, radio or TV. This is the point Lazarfeld and American sociologist Robets agree on. These two intellectuals pointed out that the mass media is not a communication indeed to direct people to a better world. The illusion of media does not convert people more sophisticated but more ineffective stable position (Katz, 1957:61- 63).

The most crucial mean of mass communication then, a reproduction of the outer world through its transforming instruments. Manoj Dayal, declares that people are disturbed by the shows of mass communication anytime, anywhere: “…the house, outside the house, the office, all around and no one can escape of it. And active engagement with media in our all particular invasive individual area makes us uncomfortable.”

Audiences as the consumers of mass communication have the feeling of adventure while watching the images; that is why they might be called as errant spectaculars (Klinger, 1989:3). Spectaculars raise themselves in an irreversible illusionary sublime position (i.e. “consumer”) by imposing them a higher position. As expressed in Adorno’s criticism, the inconsistencies of the media knowledge reduced to a “natural” position that consumers feel themselves in a magical world (1991:59). The hunger for adventure is obvious at Cinema and spectaculars satisfy their errant in this visual area. It is appropriate to defend the idea that cinema is a part of culture rather than being a deep art object. The visual influence on cinema is not restricted by that. As cultural phenomena, cinema is a heading subject for social sciences (Mitchell, 2001:166-169). The memory of culture is the memory of films. Due to this connection, in this presentation, two short cases are selected to illustrate the sexist discourse in Turkish cinema.

3. Beyond Good and Evil: Women as an “Object” of…

The historical roots of masculine domination on women are commonly well-known. From the beginning time of the civilization process the difference between men and women become a great factor for identifying social classes and division of labor. The framework of civilization process is not equal to today’s understanding of “society” under the influence of post-modern discrimination. There is a shift from community to family and from family to classes and finally the society itself. The classical understanding of those differences were heavily underdetermined by comparing men and women at-first-glance in physical appearance (body), natural ability, and their various through faiths/cults or in religious discourses coming into social reality. Thus, the historicity of remarkable distance between sexes results in “gender”. There are many samples of the remarkable “distinction” between men and women such as laws, social roles and status. To illustrate the early reforms of Urugakina (B.C. 2400) declares a polygamist marriage prohibition meant for woman; in contrast it allows and promotes polygamy for men. Women's perceptual position today originated from prehistoric sub - communication and miscommunication like a kind of visual trends of that era were from the major features. But no matter whatever the position of women, in Sumerian,

from the influence of religion in the Middle Ages was in a better condition, for example, women were able to defend itself in court. Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages as the woman in the field of unconditional surrender in court to defend herself alone even include a set of challenges. Despite this, all Asian women in Sumerian mythology represented "abundance" (Altındal, 2004). However, we understand that all of these understanding of the social reception of women still commonly referred to as the spiritual greatness which could never be reflected in practical life. For example, women could not put the law and did not have the ruling authority. Women, unfortunately, all desire to be desired and attempted to control for the feeding of live - ownership has been seen as a kind.

The works, theses and discussions on this discrimination cannot proceed anyway; despite undoubtedly the most important factor to one side is that there are attempts for destroying the other side to survive. This is especially observed and a pretty straight forward objectivity with some emerging results. The existing efforts about commodification of feminine increasingly involved that masculinity powers that support the state of being of the other sex, ignoring the rights of women striving to bring to the fore is the product of the same paradox. If we consider the ethical dimensions of the society have to be a party to the destruction of the other side and there is no need to be ignored. By negating, providing as they do not have subsisted, can be transformed by changing the natural dialectic , but people who prefer carrying value of an organism that can think and rethink in terms of being separated from the natural to the cultural dimension.

And women as objects of desire are trying to establish a sense of ownership of the values attributed to the unfolding of going back to Turkey as a society as long as the global/ macro of a problem local/micro area again we can see the reflection . Her intellect, emotions and values as carriers look as well as mentioned human features is a type of object to look as ongoing glance and to the opposite sex as well as their gender equity in terms of understanding undermining reality of the will. In particular, the inequality is in close-classed society and quite low national income per capita when compared to other countries, the gap between rich and poor is turned increasingly perceived as objects of desire in countries like Turkey. Open in the subclass "ownership" of impulses will arise. Thus, the circuit seen in early - civilized form of lives - ownership of counting the contradictions of economic relations reproduced in the mediation will not be an exaggeration. The subject of positioning itself as a poor and a deprived woman for her children in this context as another object in question is to determine.

Class divisions parallel to the wealthy - wealthy class around the fear of losing everything for which they applied, we can say that all phenomena objectification. This has created a woman transforms into objects of desire again. These two classes starting point for women to objectify different, though, women have the perception and in positioning the point where they are unfortunately common. Being (res extensa) and thinking (res cogitans) women , with all assets other breed in communal and social area covering much space and has the right to think about these issues. Women's phenomenology in the context of these two years with the opposite sex has entered into an existential conflict. But to say that a conflict must ensure the same conditions as ontological. So far, we have reviewed the process realized in the situation is this; woman in earlier civilizations was the struggle before to get emergence and

visibility is then captured itself to a conflict without social rights and equal existence but a disadvantageous position.

4. Women-without-Body: Two films about women without-women

Surely, the communication of a society is a result of role – models which come impressive that nurtures mutual contact and social movement, As a sociological determinant, role-models varies from society to society. However, role-models in developing agriculture-based societies, take time to grow and spread on whom can use his/her mind in the face of industrialization critical cases "subject " models that are established on the basis of "the other". In those communities the opportunity to experience the different role-models are so limited and using the tools of mass communication links , are directed to explore and understand the other. Here in this sense and in the context of cinema it functions as on the one hand the analysis of the current situation, but also going into the "other-lives" in terms of image transfer as an effective tool.

As the global economic crisis which began in 1929, and additionally the economic conditions after the Second World War, the impact of agricultural mechanization in Turkey was the main ambition of Marshall’s aid and Turkey’s President Menderes depended on his policies in the first half of the 20th century according to the rural-urban migration. Especially to the big cities of the eastern region of Turkey exported cheap labor functions as a part of the settlement after winning a stacked population, being able to articulate on the issue of housing and urban culture began having face to face with deep sociological problem. Unplanned urbanization, slummy housing , the conditions of factory workers focused more employees resulting from distortions of life and livelihood difficulties encountered other difficulties may be considered. Workers working on the adjective was clear that the mostly male workers. Immigration and working life urban culture, not of village life based on the structure of sociological solidarity models make the poor poorer, the rich richer. Turkey, especially from displaced families has evolved of the understanding that "men works, women sits at house and so honor preserves ". Turkish films of the 1950s, after the dominant theme of workers' families are struggling with the concept of honor. Urban-city life is worse in urban exploitation thereof. If urban migrants are marginalized and "rogue " is innocent enough to be instruments of ambition .

The second turning point in terms of social movements in Turkey in 1961 and signed with Germany is mutual labor migration. In fact, rather than being mutually came to the city from the village in two stages but could not find a job , or a family member have been absent from most of the employees in this way men go abroad to begin with . Here now, "left behind" and the other members of the family entrusted to Allah mere size was evaluated in the way men and women are lonely res-extensa. The remaining female- object , the epitome of honor , pure peasant self-sacrificing mothers , or the size of the person who has longed for but secondary . Not only spouses of workers who , in Istanbul sit in the homes of the rich cannot find work and go to work everyday women are created on the same fiction. Migrating families as a result of the economic aims of the crowd of families based on the business section of the city's various interests can benefit form. They convert their labor into money. '60s and '70s, the Turkish cinema has established authority over women in this melodrama. All have led to the perception of women.

The perception of women in Turkish cinema as an object that evokes women's sexuality is consistent with addressing. Undoubtedly, the commodification of the female body as a result of the dominance of the culture industry is also quite common in world cinema. But conservatives have a tradition, in other words, a society which values of conservatism, not the individuals themselves, virtual screens and try to establish by means of sexual freedom would not be an exaggeration to say that. What is interesting in Turkish cinema only limited areas of the woman's body has been presented to the imagery of men. Men inevitably restricted view presented to the audience the perception and behavioral dimensions in the world of fantasy by the contagion has passed. Mentioned in samples processed in the period of Turkish cinema in the theme charwoman, aunt, daughter of our neighborhood, such as ownership and arabesques ... we can observe that the origin of emotions replicated. The voice in society and the oppression of non- representation of female figures are obtained for both the body has been transformed into objects of desire. The purpose of the scenarios is based on behavioral foundations of men on women is a way to communicate. But the attempted communication "undressed" / words are not based on supply and subconscious is focused purely sexual. Man woman body trying to establish communication leads to a sense of fetishist. Now the opposite sex means of communication, religious feelings, traditions, severe depression years of pent-up emotions in the subconscious of man in the triangle of the request was meant to face the day. This breed has been part of the communication is called. Sociality in the environment outweigh the awareness of individual feeling depressed due to low levels of education who learn through imitation and never on the unthinking man's view of women is a common feature of the audience. Men’s trying to have a body, a portion is a point. The meaning of the feminine in the world of the opposite sex has no place in a customized subject. Men's self is the source of communication and launching their own superiority over women approached their world. Connect masculine self- installing, self into the pipe leading to such trends will lead to the birth of a communication problem (Kule,2002:53).

Connected to masculine urge to live out one-sided men's sexuality in the plane of the emergence of a legitimate, if the woman and always will be redirected to illegitimate restrictions on impulse, under these constraints led to the emergence of emotions can create the fetish . This example creates space can be allocated specifically to stage one of construction Allocate film, shot in 1986, is named “I cannot leave. At the beginning of the film (18 min.) while her worker husband died in Germany, he left behind a woman who was left alone in the house; we see a scene when she is making house- cleaning. Over implied, hair, legs off the ground, but very little has been opened seeing and director has made it the focal point of this camera. If the audience that this woman spied, the brother of her dead husband’s eyes are directed to the “object” . What size are what you desire nor the middle sexuality. There is no woman in the medium. The focus of eyes in front and director of the audience made the object of desire of the transmitted messages does not refer to any property. There is almost a direct instinct is not desirable. Why does Director spend here lots of minutes? There are images of women in the middle, but there is no body. If the body is closed, it is not obvious. It is a silhouette in front of the camera. Women’s femininity is not, the body is not made for shooting is the function attributed to women. The woman behind the camera function that converts an object of desire, there is an ambiguous structure.

Another example that is directed by Yılmaz Güney and who is also starring at

the film: Father (1971). The film is mainly about the workers migration to Germany from Turkey in 1960s and Cemal, the main character cannot pass employment agency medical examinations because of that his tooth are missing. Cemal's drama tells his adventure to rescue his family (one brother is sentenced to be murder and the other is gambler) as well as Cemal attempts to take revenge. The movie clearly emerges by fetishistic imagery. Minute 45: Cleaning woman who are not even visible from the waist to the upper side. She makes cleaning and certain parts of woman's legs in the doorway are being focused for several minutes. What is meant in this case obviously, but no doubt the man watches a woman in the doorway , which is mass media of television, film society is undeniable that followed . Cemal 's fight for minutes with the example of the commodification of the female body are interrupted . Because what the audience with social sub-text nor shall deal with their individual dramas. Important and memorable, which makes cleaning a sexual object is that every woman's essence. Pierre Ancet considered the statement with the object rendered the relative body under "surveillance” value loss inflicted and the subject being is removed almost (2008:17). Thus, women's social solidarity functions defined and completed, but when she become a vehicle of masculine statement of unilateral dreams, woman becomes just an object (res extensa) for the men in the sake of fantasy world.

In both examples, the common experience of the experimental behavioral description of hysterical phenomena can be rendered counterparts. Marleau -Ponty and Schilder uses the "phantom limb" concept at this point is concerned about the description. Unlike the holistic view of social experiment , focusing on the perception of body parts, fetishism, and the imaginary body of the concept of hysteria " other" and thus made subject can be learned by others. In this context, an absolute link between women and femininity can be drawn instead of saying that is a neutral relationship. Differentiated biological based positioned on differences made the process of understanding moved to an area called as the dream body (imaginary body) (Gatens, 2013: 68-69 ). Positioning is psychological as well as sociological and also dominant in both senses of cinema as a mass communication tool which is based on directly observable power.

5. Conclusion

The cultural conservatism, lack of political space required both ontological and ethical studies substantiate that the presence of women as a whole in mass communication is not being represented. In particular in the case of cinema recent examples can be found to mobilize emotions as fetishes. The lack of women in cinema could be considered as masculine dominated communication. Women are parts of proving the heterosexuality of men. The second plan is also being addressed to women by representing the holy labor of men and women is not legitimate itself without men as employees.

The communication between sexes is not solely a subject of alienation, capitalism itself as a cultural structure of living together under an absolute culture based on market is an effort to adopt an increasingly fragmented individual alienation (Sennett,2011:10-11). This communication forms part of the global era and permanent residents find that very moving and creating different perceptions in different perspectives also contains a lot of significances. The gap between practices and values resulted in not to form male and female subjects as the carrier of values according to a kind of idealism (Ibid.). Therefore unusual subjects emerge as the actors of unusual habitants of their unusual lifestyles. Men and women in those societies behave according to temporality of

perception and institutional values since they go between needs and values in the dominant daily-business type lifestyles. Particularly in the case of Turkey, because of the late-modernity, the history of Turkish cinema reflects both the imagination of society and individual ethical dilemmas. The directors of Turkish cinema focus on their own reality with its all historical, ethical, social and individual background and sub- consciousness. And it is clear that they have the power of direct mass according to their ideology. It also presents us, the art of communication in terms of "transition" features as the reality-itself in the focus of a director in films.

The another question to be considered is the perception of reality in the case of male and female bodies as to how the phenomenological prior to conversion into objects of desire. The collective representation of the female body as a "normal" human being becomes instantly "beyond special" and it corresponds to the representation of such a perception. The inner life of the woman is tried to be explained out of her body and in this sense of surveillance set woman-kind to an object of desire. Perceived woman -in terms of Marleau- Ponty's understanding- is formed and re-establishing in terms of her actions and objectives based on a possessive male gaze to the body (Ancet , 2008:22 ) .

6. References

- Adorno, T.W. (1991) The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, (ed. J. M. Bernstein), London: Routledge. - Altındal, A. (2004) Türkiye’de Kadın, İstanbul: Alfa Yayıncılık. - Ancet, P. (2008) Ucube Bedenlerin Fenomenolojisi, (çev. E. Topraktepe), İstanbul:YKY. - Bandura, A. (2001) “Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication”, MediaPyschology, (3), 265-299. - Fang, I. (1997) A History of Mass Communication – Six Information Revolutions Boston, Oxford: Focus Press. - Katz, E. (1957) “The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-to-date Report on an Hypothesis”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Reprinted, Vol:XXII, 61-79. - Klinger, B. (1989) “Digression at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture”, Cinema Journal, 28 (4), 3-19. - Gatens, M. (2013) “Biyolojik Cinsiyet/ Toplumsal Cinsiyet Farkının Kritiği”, (çev. H. Şimga Durudoğan), Özne: Feminizm ve Felsefe, 18. Kitap, ss. 59-73. - Küle, M. (2002) Phenomenology and Culture, Riga: FSI - Mitchell, W.J.T. (2002) “Showing Seeing: A Critique of Mass Culture”, Journal of Visual Culture, (1), 165-181. - Sennett, R. (2011) Yeni Kapitalizm Kültürü, (çev. A. Onocak), 2. Basım, İstanbul: Ayrıntı.

Internet Sources: - Dajall, M. “Mass Communication Lessons”: [http://www.ddegjust.ac.in/studymaterial/mmc-1/mmc-102.pdf] - (Film1) “Ayrılamam”: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIAf8D5Y30] - (Film2) “Baba”: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTjkKKrU0MM]

THE MAGNİFİCİENT CENTURY: RECONSTRUCTİON OF OTTOMAN EMPİRE FAMİLY*

Murat Iri Faculty Of Communication, Radio Television and Cinema Department Istanbul University [email protected]

Abstract: the increased presence of Islamic references in daily life due to the ruling party's conservative policies and thus, the creation of a conservative base are the reasons underlying the increase in the historical narratives in the 2000s in Turkey. Similarly, the production of historical narratives has increased in line with the ruling party's discourse which elevates the past. The Magnificent Century is one of the series that reflect such productions. The aim of this study is to understand how the series represents family in the Sultan Suleiman Era as an Ottoman Empire family. It has been thought that this family is constructed with the conservative bourgeois romanticism, which is dominant in today's Turkey. In line with this, five episodes of the first season form the population of the study. Keywords: historical narratives, Ottoman Empire family, conservatism

1.Introduction With the private television broadcasting that started in Turkey in the 1990s, there was an increase in television series, the series produced for families, especially female audience, became the most watched series. Such series, starting with the 2000s to the present, has always promised a certain "guarantee" in terms of rating. Thus, the presentation of these series was designed in accordance with the structure, hierarchy of the social relationships, the values of the target audience, and the plots were formed by including plenty of intrigue, misunderstanding and being misunderstood, violence, and tear elements. Although these series appealed more to lower/middle class families and women, due to technology, more improved products were offered to this audience, providing advanced expressive language, camera, light, music, and editing techniques. Among the common characters and events in these series are those that cannot come together, others that cannot have a family, divorces, people missing, eavesdropping, those that misunderstand/are being misunderstood, attacks of external forces, exploited national sentiments, and victims of defamation and/or pride. A similar plot is established in almost all the series, no matter what the issue is. On the other hand, for today's "active" audience, the popular series are the ones that are smoothed and that consider aesthetic concerns, turning the extraordinary events into a little unexceptional. In the meantime, it is obvious that there are effects of foreign movies and series on these series.

2.Hypothesis

The increased presence of Islamic references in daily life due to the ruling party's conservative policies and thus, the creation of a conservative base are the reasons underlying the increase in the historical narratives in the 2000s in Turkey. Similarly, the production of historical narratives has increased in line with the ruling party's discourse which elevates the past. The Magnificent Century is one of the series that reflect such productions. The series, which can also be defined as a family series, takes the Ottoman family as the basis. The series centers on family members, relatives, and the

relationships and conflicts experienced in their social circle. The tensions and conflicts in the love, work and community relationships are made use of in the construction of the plot. Violence and sexuality are frequently referred to for the maintenance and rating of the story. The series which is broadcast on a national channel's mainstream line is about Suleiman the Magnificent. Suleiman is depicted in roles and social relationships ascribed to him as an ideal man. The story centers on his dilemmas between the state and harem as an Ottoman Emperor and his preferences. The portrait of an ideal, fair father and manager is presented through the proposed solutions. As a matter of fact, the idealized bourgeois love of today's Turkey's is redrawn.

3.Method

The series' narrative structure follows the exposition, climax, resolution chain in line with the traditional narrative structure. This chain is reproduced during the resolution of a conflict by bringing to the fore a new conflict which gradually emerges. In the present study, it has been understood that the production, progression and resolution of the basic conflict takes place in approximately six weeks. In line with this, five episodes of the first season form the population of the study. The aim of the present study is to understand how the series presents family in the Sultan Suleiman Era as an Ottoman Empire family. It has been thought that this family is constructed with the conservative bourgeois romanticism, which is dominant in today's Turkey. First, the characteristics of the Ottoman family structure are analyzed and the main characters in the series are described while the differences between the female and male characters are underlined. For, the patriarchal and authoritarian thinking structure is reconstructed in the series. 3.1 The Ottoman Empire in the Reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Harem Suleiman is the 10th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning, from 1520 to his death in 1566. Suleiman's father, Selim I becomes not only a veteran Sultan by conquering Syria and Arabia but also the protector of Mecca and Medina and the protector of the pilgrim route. To highlight his superiority over the Islamic rulers, Suleiman uses the title of "The Caliph of Muslims". Ottoman Sultans are veterans; in other words, they are Muslim warrior Sultans fighting for Islam. He uses the term, Gaza (the battle for Islam) to mean the sovereignty of the Islamic World (Inalcık, 2013: 66). To be the Sultan, the Ottoman prince must seize the capital of the Ottoman Empire, the treasury and its archives and have the support of the bureaucracy and palace officials. In fact, the main factor in ascending the throne is the support of the Janissaries after 1421. The princes that lost the fight for the throne generally sought refuge in the enemy territory, leading to the constant threat of civil war in the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror approved the law of fratricide (Sultan’s right to kill his brothers) for the sake of the Empire. However, even this did not prevent civil wars. The main reason for this was the custom that required the Sultan's sons to be sent to Anatolia to serve as the governors when they become 12 years old. The Sultan's sons had a palace and administration similar to the ones in the capital city. These princes serving as governors tried to be a governor in a city close to the capital city and to find support for this. Their impatience sometimes led to civil wars in the Empire. Suleiman's sons, Mustafa and Bayezıt are executed in 1553 and 1561 due to their rebel against Suleiman. 2. Mehmet kills his 19 brothers and ends the custom requiring the princes to serve as governors. He puts the Princes into special room, known as Cages, in the Harem. Thus, Sultans become the symbol of a unitary state and power. Queen Mothers' intrigues begin to play an important role in the fate of the reign.

With the emergence of the institution of Cage, the Janissaries become cat's paws of the Queen mother and the eunuch, while the grand vizier becomes a toy for these two Powers (Inalcık, 2013: 69). The people living in the Harem barely had contact with the world outside. It was a forbidden zone, with no contact with the world. The Ottoman Sultan's private lives are full of obscurities. The main reason for this secrecy is that the palace is surrounded by very thick and high walls and protected by extensive security measures. No man can see the Sultan's women. Harem means the place where entrance is forbidden. It is located between the Sultan's bedroom and the Queen Mother's flat. The princes' room is also included with the system of Cage. The Sultans' marriage to Turkish girls is abolished during the reign of Bayezit II, and it becomes a custom that the Sultans marry Harem women. Harem women are selected mostly from Circassia and Russian girls as they are famous for their beauty. As Harem was the Sultan's home, everyone was required to pray and read the Quran. The Sultan gave an odalisque (a special room) to the woman that he liked and allocated this room to her, with other Harem women under her control. If any Harem woman had a baby of the Sultan, she became a member of the master class. The woman who gave birth to the first boy became the head-woman. The Princes had sexual intercourses with their Harem women but it was forbidden to have babies. During the reign of Fatih, the administration of the empire and Harem are in the hands of devshirmes (Christians conscripted to be brought up for the janissaries). The boys that were converted to Islam and educated for military profession or religious disciplines in Enderun School had the opportunity to ascend to the upper positions in the Ottoman military and administrative facilities. The concubines in the Harem were able to rise to the highest positions of masters/mistresses, favorites, master women, and queen mothers. The Sharia law is not followed in the marriages to the concubines because the concubines are the Sultan's property and benefit from them as he wishes. Starting with the reign of Fatih, it became a custom that the Sultans did not have wedding ceremonies with their women. However, Suleiman got married to Hürrem Sultan after a wedding ceremony and became the first Sultan that did not comply with this custom. The concubines that had babies from the Sultan were called Haseki, meaning the mother of a prince. It was not unusual for the Sultans to have more than one Haseki (Ulucay, 2011: 40). All the concubines of the Sultan that lost his throne were taken from the Harem chamber and sent to the old palace. If they did not have any son that could be a Sultan, they would lead a prison life until their death. In the Ottoman History, the first women to be called Sultan were Yavuz's wife and Suleiman’s mother, Hafsa Sultan. Thus, only the Sultan's mothers and daughters were called Sultans. The mother whose son became the Sultan was immediately named after Sultan. The highest position in the Ottoman Harem is to become a Queen Mother. The second largest chamber after the Sultan's room in the palace is the Queen Mother's. All work in the Harem was done by the orders of the Queen Mothers. Most of the time, they were also involved in affairs of state and attended the Friday divine service. Siblings, especially boys were given great importance in the Ottoman Empire. The children were first required to read the Quran. They also studied Mathematics, history, and geography. Those who got married to the Sultan's daughters were devshirmes. They considered the Sultan as their fathers. Upon marriage, they also became a member of the dynasty, enjoying more value and power. Some became grand viziers, and most were admirals. They always obeyed the Sultan. They did not have the right to divorce their wives. The sultan could only divorce her husband only with the Sultan's

permission. The princes, their sisters, and Queen Mothers visited their holy fathers every Friday (Peirce, 1993). 3.2 The general characteristics of the series in Turkey and The Magnificent Century Within a limited point of view, it can be stated that there are three types of series in Turkey: Ottoman series (The Magnificent Century, The Ottomans years ago-Uprising, Ahmet the Apprentice), detective series (Back Streets, the Naked Truth, Behzat Ç.), and religious series (the Peace Street and The Little Bride). The common thing in all these series is that the plot is based on a family or families. There are 70 series in each season and 45 series are on screen on average each week. Most of these series appear on TV during the prime time (between 20.00 and 23.00). These are most watched by low/middle class people that can also be the characters in these series whose plot is generally based on Istanbul. Male perspective is dominant. Although we classify the series as costume series within the scope of our research, it is due to consider the effects of such series on the low/middle class. According to Vaslidevan (1994: 307), movie/TV industry considers two assumptions while defining audience. The first assumption is that the lower/middle class audience enjoys the act of watching itself, that is, the spectacles that are not ideological or social. The second, on the other hand, is that this audience is sensitive to the religious and moral rhetoric within the interest in mythic films. Therefore, such audience is motivated through action images and moral issues. To marginalize the enemy is achieved by feminizing him symbolically. If there is not female character, then the hero and the viewer's gaze is directed to the physical environment of the plot. Being a "woman" is attributed to this physical environment as the other being desirable by the analogy of "motherland" (Selig, 1993: 120). The metaphor of the nation turning into womanhood or femininity is supported by the display of the hero's authority gained when he freed the nation from the weaknesses experienced. This formation of masculinity links manhood and history. A relationship is established between male sexuality and fighter/warrior ethos (Burgoyne, 1994: 212). The images of masculinity in the series are highlighted through the dialog between the self-admiration authority and the social authority. This dialog is between physical power/control/action and law/order/ nation.

3.2.1The Magnificent Century – Deep Love The series is based on three issues: Harem, the Ottoman Empire's foreign and internal affairs. Basically, the life of Suleiman the Magnificent , the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and that of Hürrem Sultan are recast through Hürrem Sultan's struggle for her sons' throne and the life in the palace. These three elements are connected to each other. The study revealed how the concept of family and other concepts related to family were reconstructed in the series. With this aim in mind, each episode was subject to discourse analysis and the role of the male-dominated and authoritarian ideology in reconstructing the Ottoman Empire family was investigated. Furthermore, a frequency analysis was conducted in each episode on the number of the concepts such as family, dynasty, father, mother, brother/sister, Queen Mother, and prince. The light and color represented in the series is more similar to the work of the French- born artist Jean-Baptise Vanmour than the miniature entitled the Sacking of the Bowls of Levni, the Ottoman miniature master. In the painting, the Janissaries in the background that have not yet reached the bows are drawn together with their underlying tensions and darkness through an understanding of light and perspective. However, this cannot be seen in Levni's miniature. It is so clear, relaxing, and bright (Gundogdu, 2004: 94).

The camera moves so that it portrays the Ottoman army under the control of Suleiman, showing brave actions in the battle scenes. When the Sultan is in the public and during the parades, he is displayed by the lower angle using the camera and thus he is glorified. When the camera portrays the relationships within the family in the palace or the state administration, it rebuilds the hierarchical structure of the family. If Suleiman is on the scene, he is displayed as imposing-looking and in a dominant position in the top position; however, when he is not on the scene, he is replaced, respectively, by the Queen Mother, (sister) Hatice Sultan, Mustafa the Prince and his mother Mahidevran. There comes Pargalı (Ibrahim Pasha of Parga) and Hürrem. The victory is Hürrem's.

4.Results 4.1 Hürrem comes to the palace Suleiman, responsible for the district of Manisa, hears the news from Istanbul. His father, Sultan Yavuz Selim is dead and everyone in the palace and the administration is expecting him to come. Suleiman comes to Istanbul and while kissing his mother's hand, he wishes that "May God allow us to show the world the power of the Ottoman Empire. From that moment, Suleiman becomes the Sultan. The Vatican palace learns that Selim the father is dead and his son, Suleiman becomes the Sultan. The Pope says that "The lion of Islam died; the lion passed away and now the lab arrived"; however, Suleiman does not appear to be a lamb for them as at last all obeys him. Pargalı Ibrahim, Suleiman's devshirme chief falconer (Şahincibaşı) is one of the key roles in the series. Being very close friends since childhood and being companions beyond brotherhood led them to set goals regarding the Ottoman Empire's foreign and internal goals. This relationship based on male friendship is, in fact, allows the series to be analyzed over Suleiman and Ibrahim. Pargalı is now Suleiman's Hasodabaşı (chief of the Sultan’s room). In the first episode, the hierarchical structure of the Ottoman Empire Family starts to be built. The Queen Mother comes after Suleiman and Alexandra/Hürrem Sultan is the property of Suleiman. Suleiman and the Queen Mother decide whether Hürrem Sultan should live or not. The importance of having a family is underlined in the first episode; Suleiman tells Pargalı that "It is time you had a family; even it is a little late." The idea that the family is based on the blood ties is expressed through the Suleiman's words, "If had to select my brothers, Pargalı would be my brother. Suleiman is a poet and jewelry designer as well as being a good statesman. He designs pieces of jewelry and gives them as gifts to his women. Recently, he has been working on an emerald ring which he began to design in Manisa. Mahidevran, the first Haseki that gave birth to his son thinks that he will give this ring to her. Her first quarrel with Hürrem will be due to this ring. While Suleiman is walking in his Harem, Alexandra gets his attention by shouting "Sultan Suleiman" and falls into his arms, pretending to faint, which will the first encounter. In the first council meeting (Divan), Suleiman says that his enemy is not Shah Ismail in the east, but Fransuva, Henry Tudor, V. Karl, and the infidels in the Vatican in the west; his first target is Rhodes. These are the dreams that he and Pargalı have; they have eye contact in love and passion. The male-dominant ideology develops in parallel to religion-oriented ideas. Accordingly, the council meeting starts with the

statement “This empire is not more powerful than God's law; the Quran commands justice and justice will work with law". Mahidevran, together with the Prince Mustafa, comes back from Manisa. Mustafa wants to see his father. He says "I order; take me to my father. Is not this place mine? I am the owner of this place". Mahidevran gets angry and tells him "The only owner of this palace is Sultan Suleiman". An entertainment is organized for Suleiman. Among the girls to dance is a Ruthenia slave named Alexandra. Suleiman is fascinated with her dance. She takes the handkerchief, opening the way for Hasoda (the Privy Chamber). However, Mahidevran enters the chamber instead of Alexandra, through the efforts of the Queen Mother. In this episode, the words of father, son, mother, prince, and mother sultan are uttered, respectively, 15, 11, 9, 7, 7 times. 4.2 I name her Hürrem Suleiman is surprised when he sees Mahidevran instead of Alexandra. They have sexual intercourse; however, Suleiman thinks of the girl from Ruthenia. Following the intercourse, Mahidevran sees the ring and wears it, thinking that it is ready. She wants to take it but it is not finished. Suleiman takes it back and sends her out. He calls out Pargalı; he gets very angry as the Haseki comes instead of the girl from Ruthenia. He, therefore, scolds him angrily. He also tells the Queen mother, "He who wants to rule me, the answer is to fold, my Queen Mother." The Queen Mother gets angry with Mahidevran and asks her why she tells him that she has sent her to Hasoda. Mahidevran says that she does not tell it to him; however, Suleiman knows it since the only one that can dare do it is nobody but the Queen Mother. He is not in Manisa anymore and nothing will be the same. Alexandra understands why she cannot be in Hasoda and who is there instead of her. She gets ready and she will be there soon. The assistant master, Nigar tells her that Thursday night is important to all Muslims. If she gets pregnant at that night, a blessed child will be born into this word. Alexandra enters the room. Everything is so romantic. Pargalı plays the violin soulfully; Suleiman's sister Hatice Sultan watches Pargalı. Love begins to invade these two souls. Alexandra sees the ring. She likes it a lot; while Suleiman asks her “Have you liked it? I have designed it.", his image is shown on the mirror. Suleiman admires his image. Wednesday night is over. The Queen Mother, Hatice, and Mahidevran have breakfast on Thursday morning. Mahidevran is very sorry; the Queen Mother gets angry, rebukes her, and asks if she will meet him like the way she is. Mahidevran is hopeful again. She has to get ready for the Thursday night; however, her helper, Gülşah gives her the bad news. Alexandra is still in the private room with the Sultan. While Mahidevran is feeling sorry since the Sultan wants to be with a Russian slave rather than with her, Hatice interrupts and says, "My brother is a Sultan. We cannot talk about his choices. It is none of our business. Mahidevran, you are Haseki. You are the very woman for him. Do not behave as if you were a concubine." Friday morning. Suleiman changes the name of Alexandra. Her new name is Hürrem. She is given a private room. She is given gold and jewelry as gifts. Mahidevran hears this news. That becomes a source of contention between these two women. However, although both are advised to be smart, calm and not to argue, the prince Mustafa is taught to be tough and use the sword better. He sometimes appears on screen while playing the game of sword and beating the guards. Mahidevran's treasure is Mustafa; her only concern is to work hard towards his happiness and training as a good warrior as well as a good Sultan.

The love and lovers in the plot are portrayed well in this episode. On the one hand, there is the struggle between Hürrem and Mahidevran's love for Suleiman and on the other hand, there is the love between Pargalı and Hatice. Meanwhile, Suleiman and Pargalı talk about politics. They plan to seize Rhodes. Pargalı talks about Aristotle, the advisor of Alexander the Great. He reminds of this advisor's suggestion that even if you cannot beat, cause trouble. They adopted Aristotle's principle, "It is difficult to swallow a big bite. Divide it into pieces and then swallow. Divide and conquer." In fact, the same principle is applied in Harem. Being angry with Hürrem, the Queen Mother puts her into the dungeon. One night, Suleiman hears Hürrem screaming "rescue me" in an epic-style film. He asks Sümbül for Hürrem. However, she is in the dungeon. Suleiman gets very angry with Pargalı not knowing this. Suleiman takes her out the dungeon. The next day, the Queen Mother waits for Suleiman because he comes to kiss her hand every morning. But he does not turn up that morning since he protests the punishment of Hürrem. That night, Hürrem enters Suleiman's room and has the ring on her finger. 4.3 The Ring Hürrem awakens Muhibbi, the poet in Suleiman. They love each other so much. Hürrem has the ring on her finger. She meets Mahidevran, Mustafa, and Gülşah on her way to her room. Mahidevran sees the ring, goes crazy, and wants to take it. She calls Hürrem a thief; Mustafa watches what happens. This little boy witnesses this quarrel and watches her mother going crazy. The camera shows his surprise and the way he watches what happens. Mahidevran feels sick and spends her time on her bed. The Queen Mother names this "Hürrem Illness". Mahidevran is pregnant. Hürrem feels very sorry when she hears the news. The Queen Mother wants to give the good news to Suleiman; however, Suleiman thinks that she knows the victory in Sham. However, the surprise is Mahidevran pregnancy. Suleiman is very happy and wants to give jewelry as a gift to Mahidevran. They all come together in Mahidevran's room. Suleiman hugs his son, Mustafa tightly. Mahidevran and Suleiman are alone. Mahidevran asks him about the ring; the answer is clear: "I felt like it and I approved it." The Prince Mustafa does not want to have a sibling. He tells Suleiman, "You have no sibling. I do not want to have any, either". Suleiman points to Pargalı. However, Mustafa tells the truth, “It is a lie. Ibrahim is not your brother but servant." Mahidevran comments on this, saying “Mustafa does not want to share his love with someone else, as I do. We, mother and son, do not know how to share". In fact, this confirms Mahidevran's (and Hürrem's) desire for monogamy instead of Suleiman's polygamy. In this regard, the series is modernist because modernity is based on monogamous family, and there is call for women seen as the bearer of Turkish modernism. The audience is invited to approve the monogamous family. Nigar, the assistant master is the one that advises Hürrem. Whoever gives birth to many more children to become princes is the winner. Nigar suggests relying on Sümbül Agha (the chief eunuch in Harem). Sümbül first asks her to be a Muslim. Hürrem has the ring stolen in Harlem through the efforts of Gülşah and Mahidevran. It is a must to find the ring. The Queen Mother says that it is a major offence in Harem. Pargalı questions Nigar. Nigar suspects that Gülşah and Ayşe are responsible for the stolen ring. Ayşe confesses everything. The Queen Mother asks Daye to take the ring from Mahidevran's wardrobe. It is said that the ring has been found in one of the concubines' bed. Daye has Hürrem wear the ring and suggests not losing it until her death.

Hürrem tells Suleiman that she wants to be a Muslim and becomes a Muslim after saying the Islamic confession of faith. The Queen Mother gets very angry with Mahidevran as she has the ring stolen. Meanwhile, through some short meetings and sending letters to each other, the love between Pargalı and Hatice continues. While Suleiman is very happy and has everything under his control, Pargalı is not that happy. Something is missing because he is a devshirme. He is not a member of the family. Feeling so sorry, Mahidevran lost her baby. Getting out of bed, Mahidevran wanders around the palace and meets Hürrem. She attacks Hürrem and takes her down. She beats Hürrem and makes her face unrecognizable. "You did this. I lost my baby because of you, murderer ...” 4.4 No room for emotions Gülşah has hard time while trying to stop Mahidevran from attacking Hürrem. Sümbül, Daye, and Nigar come and help Hürrem. Daye tells what happens to the Queen Mother. Suleiman visits Mahidevran, who lost his baby, to express his grief, and goes out to attend the council. The Queen Mother gets angry with Mahidevran again and says, "How can you fight with a concubine? You are Haseki and this is the Topkapı Palace.” Mahidevran blames Hürrem for what has happened, because Hürrem has said bad words to her. The Queen Mother keeps her silent since Suleiman should not hear all these. Suleiman declares war on the King of Hungary, Louis II. Suleiman and Mustafa meet in the garden. When Mustafa wants to go to war, Suleiman says, "It is not possible. If you come with me, who will take care of the palace and your mother?” Men have to take of the palace and to protect his mother. The Queen Mother wants to share with Suleiman the idea that she would like to have Hatice, widowed at a young age, get married. Suleiman tells Pargalı again to "fall in love and be happy; create your own heaven". As Hürrem is in love with Suleiman, she has decided to be a Muslim. Hürrem is on bed, with her face unrecognizable. She goes crazy when she sees her face on the mirror. She wants to see Suleiman. However, she does not go see him as she does not want to show her face. To Pargalı, Suleiman says, "How dare! I order her to come immediately." However, he cannot wait for her to come, enters her room and sees her face. He learns that Mahidevran has done this to Hürrem. Suleiman enters Mahidevran's room and shouts, "How dare you attach my harem, privacy? If you attach her, that means you attach me. I do not want to hear your voice again. What have you done to us? You have killed us". Mahidevran cries a lot. She is not a woman anymore. She should not be emotional, must act with the mind, and think like a man. Like other women. Suleiman visits the Queen Mother and asks her to send Mahidevran to the old palace; however, he wants Mustafa to stay with him in the Topkapı Palace. However, this is not in accordance with the law and custom as she is Haseki. Suleiman's answer is that "She must be thankful as I do not take her head off; I do not want her in my life." Suleiman has a heart-to-heart talk with Pargalı and says that he wants Mahidevran to be sent away. He asks for respect in love. The conflict between Hürrem and Pargalı also becomes obvious. Hürrem comes to see Suleiman. Pargalı tells her to go now as he is working with his Sultan. However, Suleiman hears her voice and takes her into her room. Pargalı feels defeated. The Queen Mother wants Hatice to get married. Daye complains about Hürrem to the Queen Mother. Eavesdropping on what Hürrem says, Daye hears Hürrem saying "I will be the owner of this palace; everyone will be my slaves." While Suleiman is on

the way to war, the Queen Mother will punish her, and Suleiman will not find her in the palace when he comes back. Suleiman talks to Hürrem about his strategy before he goes to war. Hürrem tells Suleiman that wars destroy families and humans land asks Suleiman why he is not afraid of death. Suleiman replies that "If you think in this way, you cannot win a victory. Do not fill your beautiful head with these issues. When you kill people, you can also be killed. I did not invent wars. People survive by fighting; civilization is only possible through wars. I should carry this empire one step further than my father, Sultan Selim". Women represent what is emotional and what is inside, while men represent rationality and what is outside. The last word belongs to men. Men have the only power that cannot be unquestioned. Hürrem does not want Ibrahim to spend more time with Suleiman. However, she should get used to it. Ibrahim is the Sultan's servant, slave, companion, and chief. Hürrem should know her place. Hürrem gets angry and tells Ibrahim that "You will see my place, you, the snake Ibrahim." This is a clear declaration of war. Before going to war, Suleiman enters Harem. He bids farewells to, respectively, this mother, Hatice, (skipping Mahidevran), and Mustafa. He kisses his mother's hand. He has her blessing on him. 4.5 Have many babies Suleiman declares war on the King of Hungary and is at the front. As Suleiman is not in the palace, the Queen Mother tries to have Hürrem get married to Chieftain Batur, the son of Lala (meaning tutor) Kasım Pasha, and in this way, she thinks that she will get rid of Hürrem. Hürrem misses Suleiman a lot and gets Nigar to write a letter. Hürrem's language and style is powerful and knows how to fascinate Suleiman. The Queen Mother hosts an invitation that night. In line with the hierarchy in the invitation, everyone except the Queen Mother and Hatice has sat on the ground. When the night is over, Daye gives the news to Hürrem, saying "You are no longer a slave or concubine. You are now free. You will go to Edirne palace as a bride tomorrow. “Hürrem goes crazy. Suleiman enjoy a great success at the war. When the Queen Mother hears that Hürrem does not want to go, she asks Hürrem to come see her and tells her that she has to obey her. Hürrem tells her that "I am pregnant" in order to prevent this. Then, it becomes indisputable. Sümbül tells Hürrem that "You are now pregnant. Nobody can kill you, especially when you have a boy" and underlines the importance of being male. It is necessary that Hürrem be thoroughly checked by a woman doctor. Meanwhile, Suleiman seizes the Hungarian castle and gets the control of the castle. At the same time, it is acknowledged that Hürrem is really pregnant. Suleiman's political and sexual power has triumphed. He commands his soldier, "Come on, my lions, may God be with you." Louis II, totally unaware that the castle is now under the control of the Ottomans, inspires the young couples in a wedding saying that "In order to defeat the Ottoman, you must have many children for my wars". Hürrem's friend from Ruthenia, Maria sees that it is necessary to be a Muslim in order to do well in the palace and goes to see Sümbül. Mahidevran knows that Gülşah has a poison that can kill people and take it from her. Mahidevran wants to poison Hürrem. Suleiman and Pargalı talk to each other at the word. Suleiman tells Pargalı that he

misses Hürrem a lot and advises Pargalı for the third time to "find a person that will make you happy, Pargalı. Being alone is hard." The Queen Mother warns Hürrem about the baby and tells her that "The baby should be born happy. If anything happens to it, I will kill you. It is not your baby anymore; it belongs to the Ottoman Empire. Keep this in your mind", which shows that women are not valued. From now on, Hürrem carries a life of Suleiman's. 5.Conclusion

The series is based on the Ottoman Empire's foreign, internal affairs and Harem. All the non-Islam characters that are not related to the Ottoman citizens are considered enemy, traitor, and bad. On the other hand, Harem and the Ottoman citizens are both good and bad. They are not completely bad; the conditions require them to be bad. In this regard, being good/bad cannot be determined exactly. The relations in Harem are composed of a combination of envy and ambition. Slandering and lying are permitted in order to lead a love of happiness. The only power is the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and the largest palace is Topkapı. Topkapı is the place where Suleiman gains and refreshes his political and sexual power. Suleiman and Mother Sultan represent the mind. This mind also determines emotionality and patriarchy. Women should avoid emotionality, be respectful, agree, and should not talk too much. They are asked to be wise within the limits of Suleiman's and Mother Sultan’s mind. This Mother is going to be Hurrem in the future. The audience is invited to agree on this. Patriarchal and authoritarian ideology is approved and reconstructed. That is why the names of masculinity are told 78 times, while those of femininity are told 61 times.

6.References

Burgoyne, R. (1994), “National Identity, Gender Identity and the Rescue Fantasy in Born on the Fourth of July”, Screen 3 (35): 211-234. Gundogdu, M. (2004), “Lale Devri ve Ötesi” (The Tulip Era and Beyond) , İGDAŞ’la 4 Mevsim İstanbul, İstanbul: Dünya Yayıncılık, Sayı 02: 92-97. Inalcık, H. (2013) (18. Basım), Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Klasik Çağ (1300-1600) (The Ottoman Empire Classical Era 1300-1600), Çev Ruşen Sezer, İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Iri, M. (2013), “What’s goin on in the back streets?: Reconstruction of Patriarchal and Authoritarian Mentality in Contemporary Turkish Cinema”, The IAFOR: Journal of Media, Communication and Film, Ed. By James Rowlins, Volume 1 Issue 1: 29-41, Japan: IAFOR Pub. Peirce, L. P., (1993), The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, NewYork: Oxford University Press Selig, M. (1993), “Genre, Gender and the Discourse of War: the A/historical and Vietnam Films”, Screen 1 (34): 118-140. Ulucay, M. C. (2011) (4. Basım), Harem, İstanbul: Ötüken Vaslidevan, R. S. (1995), “Adressing the spectator of a third World National Cinema: the Bombay Socail film of the 1940s and 1950s”, Screen 4 (36): 305-324

"I was there. How did I become invisible?"

OVERT SEXISM IN MEDIA: A LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS OF ANDROCENTRICITY IN EGYPTIAN PRINT MEDIA

Heba Nayef Humanities dept., school of Language and Communication Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport [email protected]

1. Introduction

Over the past three years, Egypt has witnessed sweeping changes in all facets of life. The political events have reshaped the social fabrics of the society. Social relations that govern the ruler and the ruled, parents and children, women and men, teachers and students, etc. have started to take a new form. Women divorced the role of the observer in public matters, and shifted to that of the active participant. In the first wave of the revolution on the 25th of January, 2011, women joined men in the struggle for freedom, but in the second wave of the revolution on the 30th of June, 2013, women were at the forefront. For eight months, since the November 2012 Constitutional Declaration which spurred demonstrations that eventually led to the 30th of June revolution, it was women who took the lead. This leading role was acknowledged by a number of public figures in their speeches, most notably that of Egypt's Defense Minister, General Abdelfattah El-Sissi who, addressing Egyptian women, admitted that it was the woman who "took her children, all of them, and her husband with her and took to the streets." In his speech, he also requested the Egyptian woman to "take them again and go down again to say (their) opinion of the (amended) constitution." (T.V. speech broadcast on January 11, 2014). This speech represented the first official recognition of women's leading role as 'Actors' not 'Goals' in a matter that belongs to the male-dominant public sphere. This role was not exclusive to liberal women but extended to Islamist women as well. The latter, even if they did not take the lead, played a prominent role in organizing marches and rallies supporting the 'legitimate' president. This pivotal role should have been foregrounded in the media. This study explores whether media representation of women's engagement in the events during the period of investigation offers an accurate reflection of their contribution. It also investigates the influence of the Arabic language, with its androcentric nature, in directing and shaping gender ideology in the Egyptian print media. The current research thus addresses three focal points of research both qualitatively and quantitatively: language, media and sexism. All three have particularly undergone significant changes over the past three years. In the following section, the study deals with those three areas of research. Any observer of the events that have occurred in Egypt over the past year will realize that media has stood out as the most salient and effective factor in shaping these events. Media persons enjoy direct access to the public in a way that few groups do. This advantage makes them among the society’s most powerful social actors when it comes to moulding the social reality (Tuchman, 1978: 208). It is through media that the "public mind" (Navasky, cited in Saleem, 2005:130) forms the 'mental models' that control actions (van Dijk, 1995:31) drives agendas and create polarization. Yet media is not only about producing ideologies and moulding the public thought. Media is

also the product of the society's ideologies as well as that of cultural and social beliefs. Media "is not merely a mirror of society, but it does present to society a mirror of its concerns and interests," (Froneman, 1997:11). It is this power of media persons to serve simultaneously as the producers, distributors and re-producers of public discourse (Hall, 1997), the power to direct the 'public mind', that has been in play in shaping and fixing ideologies in the Egyptian society especially since 2011. Yet if media enjoys this kind of substantial power and influence on the 'public mind', a sweeping power to reflect, influence and direct, it is through language that this is largely achieved. It is through language that one forms the mental models, acquires the social knowledge, and attitudes, and obtains the ideologies that control their actions (van Dijk, 1997:31). Language not only reflects the way we think but moulds it as well. It functions as a transmitter of ideologies, traditions and beliefs from one generation to the other (Miller and Swift, 2000:55).As van Dijk puts it,"we learn our prejudices largely through text and talk, first from our parents and friends, then from textbooks, television, and the newspaper, that is, from the symbolic elites: teachers, journalists, writers and politicians" (van Dijk, 2006:60) It is also through language that various types of discrimination and social injustices are reinforced and become fixated in a society. Discourse plays a part in producing and reproducing social inequalities (Gee, 1999:173). One of the salient forms of social inequality is gender inequality. In one of the most expansive study of sexism that covered 57 societies, Brandt (2011) proved the temporal precedence of sexism in enhancing gender inequality. The study made it clear that "sexism not only legitimizes gender inequality, but actively makes it worse." (Brandt, 2011:1413). Gender is culturally constructed and not biologically constructed (Vargus, 2002:13), and one means of inflicting, supporting and retaining such inequality has been done through linguistic sexism. Linguistic sexism is one type of sexism that is based on the use of language. For it is the language that discriminates against women by representing them negatively or which seems to implicitly assume that activities primarily associated with women are necessarily trivial (Vetterling-Braggin, 1981:81). Linguistic sexism has been the subject of many studies and debate for the past forty years. Since Lakoff (1975) and Spender (1980) published their pioneering works on sexism and gender bias in English language, there has come a surge of academic interest in this field (See Cameron, Holmes, Lakoff, Mills, Mullany,Spender, Sunderland, Swift, Miller, among others). Researchers in the field went on a mission of compiling what they regarded as sexist items and called upon institutions and individuals to avoid using them (Doyle, 1994; Graham,1975,2006; Kramarae and Treichler, 1985; Mills,J.,1989; Miller and Swift, 1982, 2000; Schultz, 1990; Vetterling-Braggin, 1986). The field of linguistic sexism in Arabic-speaking communities is still a burgeoning area of research. With the pioneering works of Sadiqi (Sadiqi 2003, 2006) and Ennaji (Sadiqi and Ennaji, 2006)in Moroccan Arabic, Abd-El-Jawad ( Abd-El-Jawad, 1986, 1989) and Abudalbuh(Abudalbuh, 2012) in Jordanian Arabic and Nayef (forthcoming) in Colloquial Cairene Arabic. Yet to the best of the researcher's knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyse linguistic sexism in Egyptian print media. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) - the variation of Arabic that is being used mostly in Egyptian print media - is the language subject of this research. Like many gendered languages, it displays a grammatical and semantic gender bias that led some researchers to describe it as "androcentric" in nature. The reason behind this androcentric nature, be it an inherent androcentricity (Sadiqi 2003; Sadiqi, 2006) or only sociolinguistic in nature (Abudalbuh, 2012) is beyond the scope of this study. The aim of this paper is to

investigate the effect of this androcentricity on the media representation of Egyptian women in the public sphere.

2. Hypothesis

This study employs qualitative and quantitative methods ofanalysis of various types of overt sexism in the front page news in the period of investigation. The aim of these analyses is to explore the effect of the androcentric nature of MSA on the media representation of women and their visibility in the male-dominated area of politics. The hypothesis proposed by the researcher is: H: The research expects that due to the androcentric nature of MSA, women's visibility will be very low in both the HL and FP reports of Al-ahram newspaper, despite the fact that women at the period subject to investigation were very active in their participation in the political arena. In other words, the linguistic invisibility of women will lead to their media invisibility even at a time when women were key 'actors' in politics.

3. Methods 3.1 Data collection and sampling

The data used for the research are taken from one of the Egyptian media outlets; namely, Al-ahram newspaper. The corpus of the present study has been collected from front page news reports published in Al-ahram during the period between 25th of June and 30th of July 2013. Al-ahram Online Index has been used to retrieve the front page items of this period. Data collection consisted of retrieving news reports that appear on the front page of Al-ahead during the period of analysis. Both the headlines (HL) and front page (FP) reports were analyzed separately. The researcher chose Al-ahram because it is Egypt’s oldest newspaper with the largest circulation. The newspaper is published in Arabic, and is the best known and leading newspaper in the Arab world today. Front page reports were chosen for more than one reason. Firstly, they usually cover the most important political events. Secondly, they are usually the most read by newspapers consumers. (Pasha, 2011: 132) As for the period subject to investigation, it was chosen due to the fact that Egyptian women during this period played a significant role in the political stage, participating, and sometimes leading, political events. The period has witnessed two major events in which women were in the lead. These were on the 30th June, 2013, when millions of Egyptians took to the streets in massive protests calling for early presidential election and the ousting of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Events culminated on the 3rd of July when Defence Minister Sissi announced the overthrow of Morsi and appointment of the head of the Constitutional Court as interim President. The second major event was on the 26th of July when again Egyptians – with women in the lead – took to the streets of Egypt to delegate the Egyptian military to fight terrorism. In the process of data collection, the researcher used Al-ahram Online Index to retrieve any front page item pertaining to any of the lexical entries shown in the following table:

Table (3.1) List of Entries Retrieved from Al-Ahram Online Index

Arabic Transliteration Translation

Nisaa' women نساء

sayyidaat ladies, women سيدات

mozaharaat demonstrations مظاهرات

motazahiroon (male) demonstrators متظاهرون

motazahiraat (female) demonstrators متظاهرات

I'tisaam sit-in' اعتصام

Mo'tasimoon (male) sit-inners معتصمون

Mo'tasimaat (female) sit-inners معتصمات

mohtaggoon protesters محتجون

tahrir Tahrir تحرير

mayadeen squares مياديين

thawrah revolution ثوره

misry Egyptian مصري

misriyyoon (male) Egyptians مصريون

misriyyah female Egyptian مصرية

misriyyaat female Egyptians مصريات

al-gaysh he army الجيش

al-mar'ah woman مرأة

maseerah march مسيرة

hawaa' Eve حواء

Rab'a Rab'a رابعه

(al-nahda Al-Nahda (square النهضه

shaxS a person شخص

The lexical items used in the research were chosen in what the researcher deemed a way to facilitate locating front page news.

The items were then examined manually to make sure they are related to the search topics. Retrieved items were then compared to avoid the occurrence of the same report in more than one entry.

3.2 Tools of Analysis

The data are examined in terms of a qualitative analysis where they are analyzed in terms of the overt linguistic sexism, and a quantitative one that tested the linguistic visibility of women both in the HL and the FP. The aim was to find out whether media reports on political events offer an accurate reflection of the times or if they are trapped in the androcentric nature of MSA as well as the androcentric perspectives and notions about women. This study adopts Mills' taxonomy of linguistic sexismdifferentiating 'overt' forms of sexism from the 'indirect' sexism form, focusing on the former (Mills 2008, Mills and Mullany, 2011). Yet the researcher chose to employ different subcategories under this term. This was done to best suit the nature and purpose of the research. (For the subcategories used by Mills, see Mills, 2008) This study observes four types of overt sexism that were employed to test the data subject to analysis. These are: generic words, naming and lexical choices, coordinate pairs and grammatical androcentricity.The following section briefly introduces these categories.

3.2.1 Overt Sexism

The overt category of linguistic sexism includes any utterance that contains clear and unambiguous language that refers to women in any negative way (Mills, 2008:10). It is characterised by being institutionalised in nature. By institutionalised sexism we mean well-established sedimented sexist language found in grammar books, government papers, laws and regulations (Mills, 2008:42). As will be shown in a later section, MSA with its androcentric nature has clear forms of such institutionalized form of linguistic sexism in the grammar and semantics of the language. The most salient of these are generic words.

3.2.1.1 Generic Words

The use of generic pronouns and nouns has been the subject of strong objection and criticism of feminist linguists and other scholars for the past forty years. Scholars have strongly condemned the use of generic words like 'he', and 'man' "in which man, but one of two sexes, becomes all of humanity." (Stimpson, in Forward of Miller and Swift, 2000). Adopting a Sapir-Whorfian approach, even in its slight form, they claimed that these lexical items, tend to make women linguistically invisible, as they often show the tendency of a male bias even in contexts intended to be gender neutral (Wilson & Ng, 1988:160). Scholars embarked on studies to prove that such generic words are rarely interpreted in a gender-neutral sense (e.g. Abudalbuh, 2012; Bern & Bern, 1973; Khosroshahi, 1989; and Wilson & Ng, 1988). In Arabic, generic words are said to be always in the masculine, that is, when a generic word is used, only the masculine gender marker forms appear on verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, determiners, and quantifiers in the sentence (Sadiqi, 2003, 2006; Abudalbuh, 2012). Yet scholars have overlooked the fact that certain female nouns are used in the same generic sense without having a masculine counterpart. And

when these words are used, only the feminine gender marker forms appear on verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, determiners, and quantifiers in the sentence In order to .(بوشش (sho'oob (peoples , دوشح (Houshoud (crowds , ةمأ (e.g.umah (nation) include this generic category in the analysis, the researcher adopts new analytical approach of generic nouns. It recognizes two types of generics; false generics (borrowing Sabatini's term) and true generics.

3.2.1.1.1 False Generics

These fall in the masculine category and they have both a generic meaning and a .'shaxs) 'person)بخش ,'mar?' 'man' مرم :masculine specific one. Example

3.2.1.1.2 True Generics

True generic nouns do not have a gender-specific meaning and are used only in a generic sense. They fall into two subcategories: female generics and male generics. Examples of female generics were mentioned above, while examples of true male .'gomhoor 'audience روهشج ;'sha'ab 'peopleبوش :generics are A point worth noting here is that in the majority of cases of plural female generics, the singular form is a true masculine generic. This is shown in the following table:

Table (3.2) Plural Female Generics & Their Singular True Male Generics

Plural Female Generics Corresponding Singular True Male Generics

'sha'ab 'people شعب 'sho'oob 'peoples شعوب

'gomhoor 'mass جمهور 'gamaheer 'massesجماهير

'hashd 'crowd حشد 'hoshood 'crowds حشود

'gom' 'congregation جمع 'gomoo' 'congregations جموع

,'ummah/'umam 'nation/nations' ةمأ /ةمأ The only exception noted in this study was where both the singular and plural forms are female generic.

3.2.1.2 Naming and Lexical Choices

Names and lexical items of the collected data are examined and analysed in order to discern the ideologies behind their selection, and the ideologies they reproduce. For the act of choosing one lexical option over the other reflects the ideology of the chooser. It is a process that is neither random nor accidental (Fowler, 2007:4). These lexical choices are both the product of group ideologies and a tool to reproduce them. Using these labels and lexical choices leads to setting up mental models that "constitute the personal, episodic memory of individual people," (van Dijk, 2001:16). These mental

models will over time become an inalienable attribute that ultimately becomes part of the culture and ideology of a group (Pasha, 2011).

3.2.1.3 Coordinate Pairs

The data are examined to see the order of the coordinate pairs. It has been observed that MSA displays a regular precedence of masculine lexical items over feminine items as in arrajul wal mar'ah' 'man' لاورةا ء لاررا ;'arrijaalwannisaa' 'men and women' 'ءلانللم لاررلا' and woman'. This lexicalprecedence of masculine lexical items reflects and enhances female subordination to men in the Arab-Islamic patriarchal social system. In this social structure, masculine needed to always precede and dominate even lexically. The data are closely analysed to see if this masculine precedence is retained in the reporting of events in which women played a leading active role not a subordinate one. This lexical precedence and domination of masculine lexical items is tested further in the following point of analysis.

3.2.1.4 Grammatical Androcentricity

By grammatical androcentricity the researcher means these cases in which masculine forms are used as a reference to mixed sex groups. Another type of grammatical androcentricity occurs when masculine markers appear on verbs, quantifiers, pronouns and determiners that refer to feminine nouns. This later case constitutes a violation to the grammatical rule of gender marking agreement. Yet, ungrammatical as they may be, they tend to occur in the news reports of Egyptian print media. Ex. Masculine forms used in reference to mixed sex groups لاوولجمشا ءلانللم لاررلا 'arrijaal wan nisaa' 'al-musharikoon (Lit.: The men[+Masculine] and women[+Feminine] the participants[+Masculine] ) Trans.: The men and women participating … Ex. Masculine forms referring to feminine nouns 'annisaa' 'al-musharikoon'' لاوولجمشا لانللم (Lit.: The women[+Feminine] the participants[+Masculine] Trans.: The women participating … Instead of 'annisaa' 'al-musharikaat''لاوولجملا لانللم (Lit. The women[+Feminine] the participants[+Feminine] Trans.: The women participating …

4. Results

There were 130 headlines and reports analysed in the front page section of this study. The total number of words covered by the analysis was 29,100 words. A qualitative and quantitative analysis was performed. The former dealt with the various types of overt linguistic sexism as defined by the researcher, while the latter was used to test the visibility of women in the public sphere at times of active participation. In the following section, the results yielded by the two types of analyses are discussed.

4.1 Overt Sexism 4.1.1 Generic words

The researcher recognizes two types of generic lexical items that appeared in the data: true generics (with their subcategories of female generics and male generics), and false generics (which lie in the masculine category). The data analysed in terms of the generic items yielded 105 generics used in HL. True generics were used 17 times (16.19%) against 88 times (83.80%) for false generic lexical items (See Figure (1) below).

True & False Generics in HL

0,1619

False Generics True Generics

0,838

Figure (1) Percentage of True and False Generics in HL

Examining the FP reports using the same tool of analysis rendered an almost similar result with true generics scoring 24.74% against 75.25% for false generics (See Figure (2) below)

True & False Generics in FP

0,2474

False Generics True Generics

0,7525

Figure (2) Percentage of True and False Generics in FP

The high percentage of false generics, with their existing masculine-specific meaning, produces the effect of creating a mental image of masculine rather than feminine entities, especially when used in a male-dominant field. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 below show the lexical entries of true and false generics in HL and FP respectively. Table (4.1) False Generics

Entry # of occurrence in # of occurrence in HL FP

mo'aarid' 'oppositionist' 8 26' معارض

mohtag' 'protester' - 3' محتج

thuwwaar' (revolutionaries) - 12' ثوار

ahraar' (Free men) - 6?'' أحرار

ansaar' (supporters) 11 37'' أنصار

mo'ayyid' (backers) 8 53' مؤيد

motazahir' (demonstrator) 31 233' متظاهر

misri' (Egyptian) 9 63' مصري

mo'tasim' (sit-inner) 19 71' معتصم

mo'atin' (citizen) 2 58' مواطن

mosharik' (participant) - 34' مشارك

Table (4.2) True Generics

Entry # of occurrence in # of occurrence in HL FP

malayeen' (millions) 5 9' ماليين

hoshood' (crowds) 1 10' حشود

gamaheer' (masses) - 4' جماهير

shaxs' (a person) 2 26' شخص

- - (unaas' (people'' أناس

- - (mar'' (one' مرء

sha'ab' (people) 8 134' شعب

gomoo'' (crowds) 1 13' جموع

4.1.2 Naming and Lexical Choices

In terms of the pattern of lexical choices used to refer to women in both HL and FP, the data reveals a striking tendency to refer to women as 'women', 'girls' or 'ladies'. Such words were favoured to denotations such as 'female demonstrators', 'female participants' and 'female supporters', etc. In all the six times of reference to women in HL, women were referred to as 'women'. On the other hand, out of a total of 37 times in FP reports, there were eight times (21.62%) in which women were referred to using lexical items that denote their political activity, while in 29 times they were referred to either as 'women' or 'girls' (78.37%). Table (4.3) shows the lexical items used to refer to women in HL and FP. Table (4.3) Feminine Nouns Entry HL FP

sayyidah/sayyidaat' (woman/women) 2 10' سيده / سيدات

nisaa'' (women) - 9' نساء

nisaa'iyyah' (feminist) 4 7' نسائية

mutazaahirat' (female demonstrators) - 2' متظاهرات

muwatinnah/muwatinaat' (feminist - 2' مواطنات /مواطنة citizen/citizens)

mu'ayyidah/mu'ayyidaat' (female - 1' موءيدات/موءيده backer/backers)

nisaa'iyyah' (feminist) - 3' مشاركات /مشاركة

- - (akhawaat' (sisters'' أخوات

fataah/fatayaat' (a girl/girls) - 2' فتيات/فتاه mar'ah' (woman) - 1' مرأة

latoT 6 37 The data also shows that these were not the same lexical choices made to refer to men. Male participants were referred to in almost all the cases (98.83%) in terms of the political activity or process in which they were involved (e.g. demonstrators/ sit- inners/supporters, etc.). Only in seven times (1.16%) were they referred to as 'men', six of which were in coordinate pair with 'women', and in only one case as 'men'. Such preponderant lexical choice reflects the idea that the biological distinction, even in the middle of an activity in which neither gender nor sex plays any role, is foregrounded as the most salient feature of the female participants. This linguistic sexist preference reproduces the ideology that public space belongs to men and that women are primarily women, while men are many things before being men.

4.1.3 Coordinate pairs

In MSA, like many other languages, there is usually a masculine precedence in cases of coordinate pairs that involve masculine and feminine nouns. The usually men and women'. The analysis revealed a few' ءلانللم لاررلا expected order would be number of cases that involved coordinate pairs of 'women and men'. There were eight cases involving nominal coordination that involved women, three of which involved the nouns 'men' and ' women'. In all these three cases, 'men' had precedence, as illustrated in examples (1&2) below.

Example (1) July 3rd Demonstrators flock to Tahrir square and the Presidential Palace demanding early elections and carrying red cards for the president as well as anti-MB slogans.

The number of demonstrators rose around Ittihadiya Palace, after the arrival of a march of men and women from a nearby area. The protestors gathered before the main stage in front of Heliopolis club reiterating slogans such as 'the people want the downfall of the regime', 'the people want the downfall of Muslim Brothers' and (Leave .... Leave). Example (2) July 17th Military alert in Suez, Morsi's supporters organize a march The march started from El-Shohadaa street which is famous for having been a centre of resistance during past wars, criss-crossing the streets of the governorate. It passed through Tahrir commercial street, the Armed Forces street and El-Arba'een street to reach Hamza mosque with the participation of men and women chanting: "O! Martyr. Rejoice. We're waiting for you at the gate of Paradise." Example (1) is an excerpt of a news report that appeared in the front page of Al-Ahram on the 3rd of July. The report was a description of the anti-Morsi demonstrations. The headline described how demonstrators were flocking to Tahrir Square and the presidential Palace, waving red cards and demanding the ouster of the president. In the report, there was a description of how they 'gathered' in front of the main stage chanting 'leave' and other slogans. Nothing in the process described involved anything that can justify the advantage given to men when the noun 'men' was given precedence to the noun 'women' in' men and women'. The reporter followed the androcentric rule of masculine precedence. Women were described as doing the same things as men, yet they had a second position, a reflection and an endorsement of women status in a patriarchal society in which women play second fiddle to men. This same precedence can be seen in example (2), which describes a march organized by the other camp. That included demonstrators of both sexes. As it is shown in the excerpt, the 'women' were equal participants in the event as 'men'. They both 'participated in the march' 'criss-crossing' the streets of the governorate, 'chanting' slogans and protesting. Yet the androcentric usage of the nominal coordination rule that assigns precedence to whatever masculine gives an unjustified superiority to men. As it was shown in both examples, there was not a single non-androcentric reason to justify giving superiority and precedence to men. Such precedence and advantage, when repeated, creates an image in the reader's mind that supports masculine hegemony and strengthens the ideology that men dominate the public sphere.

As mentioned above in the 130 Front Page reports analysed, there were eight cases of nominal coordination that involved women, three of which included the noun 'men' while in the other five the noun 'women' was coordinated with the noun phrase 'old people' as well as the nouns 'girls' and 'children' as illustrated in example 3 below. The significance of such association will be discussed below. Example (3) July 8th Massive marches amid chants "People want to put MB to trial"

Large numbers of girls, women and old people took part in this march, carrying Egypt's flag, and reiterating "They said women's voice is shameful; (While) Women's voice IS the revolution." Some young men encircled the feminist march to protect girls and women. In this example the linguistic androcentricity draws a picture in which the world is divided into two groups; one that includes 'girls, women and old people' who gather to chant angry protests denouncing the Islamists' description of women's voice as 'shameful', while the other depicts 'women' and 'girls' as encircled by 'young men' who are guarding them. Thus women are always being controlled even when expressing anger against unequal sexist treatment of the ousted regime. Thus, as mentioned above, the data revealed significantly few number of masculine precedence and mixed sex coordinates. This can be superficially interpreted as a more equal linguistic treatment of feminine and masculine nouns. But a closer look at all the results reveals two points that are worth noting. First, women, in the majority of cases, were mentioned in coordination with the words, 'elderly', 'girls', 'children', as illustrated in example (3) above. So it looks as if there were two classes of individuals: one of 'men' and the other including 'everyone else'. The second point here is that associating women with the 'elderly', 'children' and 'girls' supports the stereotypical mental image that women belong to the class of the weak, the helpless, and those who belong to the private sphere. Examining the data in light of what Irigaray said that due to the binary division and dualism in the way we see the world, women are seen as 'the other', as what men are not ( Irigaray 1985, cited in Baker 2008). It can be seen that this dualism was taken even much further in the coverage of June 30th events. The overt linguistic sexism in the language of these reports can be argued to be one that depicts men as one group and everyone else – to wit, women, children, the elderly – as the other.

4.1.4 Grammatical Androcentricity

Analysing the data revealed that one form of androcentricity that rendered women almost completely invisible in the events of June 30th was the use of masculine grammatical forms to refer to events in which women took part. This was, in the majority of cases, a subsequent result of using false generic nouns to refer to women and men. That is because false generics involved grammatical androcentricity in the forms of verbs, adjectives, pronouns, modifiers, determiners and quantifiers. The usage of the masculine false generic nouns in the subject or object positions entailed using masculine gender marking which led to the complete invisibility of women from the scene in some of the reports. The following examples illustrate cases of grammatical androcentricity in various syntactic forms.

Example (4) July 1st

Tahrir demonstrators[+masculine]announce[+masculine]they[+masculine]will remain[+masculine] in Square till end of armed forces' ultimatum amid anti-regime chants

Thousands of demonstrators[+masculine]in Tahrir Square welcomed[+masculine]a statement by the armed forces in which they warned that if people's demands were not met within 48 hours, the armed forces would declare a road map.

The demonstrators[+masculine]announced[+masculine]that they[+masculine would not leave[+masculine]the Square before the end of the 48-hour respite, announced by the armed forces in a statement on Monday, till the regime is overthrown. After the announcement of the armed forces' statement, their[+masculine]chants reverberated through the Square, reiterating[+masculine]'Free[+masculine] revolutionaries[+masculine], we[+masculine] shall complete[+masculine the march," and "the people have already ousted the regime."They[+masculine] also sang[+masculine] the national anthem while raising[+masculine]Egyptian flags.

Example (4) is one of the numerous cases of grammatical androcentricity resulting from the use of false generics. It is an excerpt of a report that appeared on Al-Ahram front page on the 1st of July. The report describes the reaction of the demonstrators in Tahrir after the armed forces' statement. Tahrir was full of demonstrators from both sexes, yet the reporters chose to use the false generic masculine nouns. The false generic noun 'demonstrators' and its nominative and genitive variations (almutazahiroon, almotazahireen) respectively, as well as 'revolutionaries' appeared on both the FPand HL in the masculine form. This resulted in the use of the masculine forms of various grammatical categories: verb (announced, remain, welcomed, leave, complete, sang); subject pronoun (they) ; adjective (free); gerund (waving, raising) and possessive (their). Contrary to reality, this created the image that only men took part in these events, resulting in the subsequent linguistic and virtual invisibility of women in the report.

Example (5) July 3rd

Number of protestors [+masculine]rises in Tahrir; feminist march reaches Square coming from El-Darb El-Ahmar

The number of protestors[+masculine]rose significantly in Tahrir after marches from El- Sayyidah Zeihab and Mostafa Mahmoud districts flocked in, bringing the total number to tens of thousands who cannot enter the already-congested Square. The marches involved all ages, including old men, women, men and children. They[+masculine] were[+masculine]all[+masculine]keen on[+masculine] chanting[+masculine]one slogan "Egypt … Egypt," while hoisting[+masculine]Egyptian flags , some others[+masculine] were raising[+masculine]pictures of the glorious January 25th revolution.

The protestors[+masculine]demanded[+masculine]the departure of President Morsi and conduct of early presidential elections. Example (5) shows another type of grammatical androcentricity; that is, usage of masculine forms in the presence of an explicit feminine noun in cases of

mixed sex groups. In such cases of mixed sex coordinate nouns, masculine gender markers appeared on other grammatical items in the sentence. The passage in example (5) is an excerpt of a Front Page report that appeared on July 3rd. The report was a description of the protests on Tahrir that day explicitly referring to women participants. Yet the reporter used the masculine forms of nouns (protestors, participants, others); verbs (cannot, were, demanded, raised) ; pronouns (they) and the masculine forms in the gerund (hoisting, raising), again marginalizing any participation of women in the events. The data also revealed a strange case of grammatical androcentricity that violates the grammatical rules of the Arabic language. In this case, the masculine gender markers were used in relation to processes that involved only female participants. Example (6) illustrates this case.

Example (6) July 26th Feminist march arrives at Tahrir Square, human shields set up to protect it

A feminist march encompassing hundreds of women reached Tahrir Square, coming from Bab El-Khalq district, to participate in the 'No to terrorism' Million-strong march to mandate the army and police to confront terrorism. Th participants[+masculine]chanted[+masculine]"Free[+masculine revolutionaries[+masculine] ,we shall complete the way', raising[+masculine]Egyptian flags , pictures of Gen. Sisi as well as banners reading 'Thank you to the army and police', 'Muslim, Christian – one hand'. A number of protestors formed human shields to protect and secure the march.

In this example which appeared in Al-Ahram on the 26th of July the whole report was a description of a march of female participants heading to Tahrir to delegate the army to fight terrorism. The reporter used the feminine form of the noun (the participants, almusharekat) yet used the masculine forms in the rest of the syntactic items that appeared afterwards. Thus the masculine form of the verb 'chanted' and the gerund 'raising' was used. A point worthy of notice here is that the female participants themselves used the masculine forms of the words 'revolutionaries' not the feminine form and the masculine form of the adjective 'free' and not the feminine form to refer to themselves. Yet it can be argued here that the female demonstrators were using a well- known slogan that happened to be, like the rest of political slogans, in the masculine form. Thus they did not intend to refer to themselves using feminine lexical items.

The data also showed that in some cases women were referred to using masculine nouns. Example (7) illustrates this case.

Example (7) July 21 Army prevents feminist MB march from reaching Defence Ministry The Armed forces sealed off a street leading to the Ministry of Defence to bar Muslim Brotherhood women from reaching it to protest. The march started from a nearby mosque after the arrival of another feminist march from Rabie El-Adawiya square where supporters of ousted President Mohamed

Morsi are staging a sit-in to protest the killing of 3 MB women in Al-Mansoura, an eastern governorate, two days ago.

The participants[+masculine]raised[+masculine] pictures of the deposed president, demanding[+masculine] his reinstatement ... There were clashes between the participants[+masculine, +plural] and the residents of Al-Abasiyya district.

The report, which appeared on July 21st, dealt with a march of MB women protesting the killing of three MB women earlier. Though the report did not include any male participants, yet the reporter used the masculine form of the noun 'the participants' (almusharikoon) instead of the female variant (almusharekat) to refer to women participants. The fact that masculine markers appeared later on the verb 'raised' and the gerund 'demanding' as well as the use of the noun 'the participants' in its masculine form for the second time, makes it unlikely that these cases and similar ones were typos. Such cases, which occurred six times in the data, are flagrant examples of linguistic androcentricity as there were no male participants involved. Such recurrent usage of masculine grammatical forms to refer to events which women were part of, or, in some cases, the only participants in leaves the reader with the image that it was only men who participated in the events. This jars with the fact that women were there either to demand deposition of Morsi or to call for his reinstatement. 5. Conclusions Richardson argued that "journalism exists to enable citizens to better understand their lives and their position(s) in the world" (Richardson, 2007:7). This study is an attempt to employ journalism to serve this purpose. Through the analysis of linguistic sexism in HL and FP reports the researcher aims at showing that certain linguistic behaviors which are misjudged as normal and accepted as part of our everyday life can be very 'damaging' (Sunderland, 2006:97). Only when scholars come and point at them, as has been done for the last forty years in English and other European languages, that one can undo the damage. The paper has shown that the androcentric nature of MSA has imposed a linguistic limitation that led to a linguistic invisibility of women in the news coverage of June 30th events. This linguistic invisibility was evident in the various types of overt linguistic sexism discussed above. The study has shown the linguistic injustice inflicted upon women though using false masculine generics to report events that included women. The analysis has also shown the tendency to use sexist lexical items that create the mental image that women are first and foremost 'women' while men can be many other things than being just 'men', e.g. 'protesters', 'demonstrators', 'supporters'. It was also shown that coordination of nominals used in the news reports enhanced the already existing stereotypical image of male superiority. Not only did men enjoy the grammatical masculine precedence in the very few cases that grouped them with women, but they also appeared as if they stand in a class of their own. The world is divided into two groups, one of the powerful men and the other included all the weaker humans: women, girls, children and old people. It was also shown that the androcentricity of the Arabic language facilitates for the 'symbolic elites', in this case front page news reporters, to ignore the significant role of women in the public space and renders them virtually invisible, even though they were clearly visible in the streets of Egypt during the events. As shown in the paper, women in the Arab world are subject to many forms of linguistic injustice, which reflects and reproduces gender inequality. In order to redress such inequality, a lot needs to be done and many points of research need to be further investigated.

5. List of references

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Baker, P.(2008). Sexed Texts : Language, Gender and Sexuality. Equinox Publishing Ltd, .

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Doyle, M. (1994), The A–Z of Non-sexist Language. London, Women’s Press.

Fowler, R. (1991), Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.

Froneman, J.D. (1997), "Towards a Christian model for journalism", Koers (Potchefstroom, South Africa), vol., 62 (1), pp. 1-17.

Gee, J. P. (1999), An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Routledge.

Goldstein, J. (2001), War and gender: How gender shapes the war system and vice versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Graham, A. (1975/2006) ‘The making of a non-sexist dictionary’, pp. 135–7, in Sunderland, J. (2006), Language and Gender: An Advanced Resource Book. London, Routledge.

Hall, S. (1997), 'The rediscovery of “ideology”: Return of the repressed in media studies'. In Boyd-Barrett, O. & Newbold, C. (eds.), Approaches to Media. pp. 354- 364, London: St. Martin's Press.

Kramarae, C. and Treichler, P. (1985), A Feminist Dictionary. London, Pandora.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1994), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.

Haslanger, S. (2003), "Gender, patriotism and the events of 9/11", Peace Review, vol., 15(4), pp. 457-461.

Khosroshahi, Fatemeh. (1989), "Penguins Don't Care but Women Do: a Social Identity Analysis of a Whorfian Problem", Language in Society, vol., 18, pp. 505-25.

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McQuail, D. (1994), Mass communication theory: An introduction. London, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Miller, C. and Swift, K. (1982/2000), The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing. London, Women’s Press.

Mills, J. (1989), Womanwords. Harlow, Longman.

Mills, S. (2008), Language and Sexism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Mills, S. and Mullany, L. (2011), Language, Gender and Feminism: Theory, Methodology and Practice. London, Routledge

Nayef, H. (forthcoming). Abstract dominance: Linguistic Investigation of gender orientation in vernacular Cairene Arabic, IGALA 8, conference proceedings.

Richardson, J. E. (2007), Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Scheufele, D.A. (1999), "Framing as a theory of media effect", Journal of Communication, 103-122.

Schultz, M. (1990), 'The semantic derogation of women’, , in Cameron, D.(ed). (1990), The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader, pp. 134–48, 1st edition, London, Routledge.

Sunderland, J. (ed.). (2006), Language and Gender: An Advanced Resource Book, London, Routledge.

Hollingsworth, S.B. (2006), The impact of gender on the use of metaphors in media reports covering the 2003 gulf war in Iraq, M.A. thesis, Missouri University.

Sabatini, A. (1993), Il sessismo nella lingua italiana, cited in Martello, C. (2008) A linguistic and cultural study of female visibility in two Italian media genres, Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State University.

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Sadiqi, F. (2006). Gender in Arabic, Brill Encyclopedia of linguistics.

Sadiqi, F. and Ennaji, M. (2006), "The feminization of public space: women’s activism, the family Law, and social change in Morocco", Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS), vol., 2(2). pp. 86-114.

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Tuchman, G. (1978), Making News: A study in the construction of reality. New York, Free Press. van Dijk, T.A. (1995), "The mass media today. Discourses of domination or diversity?" Javnost/The Public (Ljubljana), vol., 2 (2), pp. 27-45. van Dijk, T.A. (1997), 'Political discourse and racism: describing others in Western Parliaments'. In Riggins, S.H. (ed.), The language and politics of exclusion, pp. 31-64. London, Sage.

Van Dijk, T.A. (2001), 'Critical Discourse Analysis'. In Tannen, D., Schiffrin, D. & Hamilton, H. (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford, Blackwell. van Dijk, T.A. (2006), 'Racism and the Press in Spain'. In Blas, J., Casanova, M., Velando, M. & Vellón, J. (Eds.), Discurso y Sociedad II. Nuevas contribuciones al estudio de la lengua en un contexto social, pp. 59-99. Castelló de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I.

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OLD-FASHIONED WOMEN. THE REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE IMAGE IN THE ITALIAN TELEVISION ADVERTISING

Paola Panarese Department of Communication and Social Research La Sapienza, University of Rome [email protected]

Abstract: in Italy, the relationship between women and advertising has always been close. Commercials, posters and print ads have hosted several female figures from the beginning of commercial communication. Despite the differences of times and contexts, the Italian women representation matches with many results deriving from the Erving Goffman’s studies. So, considering the findings of the Canadian sociologist as a theoretical basis, this paper analyzes the image of gender in the Italian television commercials, with the intention of assessing whether the old female identities have been replaced by new, empowered and more modern figures. The research reveals that the female figures are still quite traditional. However, their apparent stiff frames reflect a dynamic image. The new representations do not constitute a trend, but they prove that the topic is more complex than what it seems and the issues are much more nuanced than in the past.

Keywords: gender studies, advertising, representation, women, role portrayals, Italian television

1. Introduction

«Probably, we are consumers, more than anything else, more than just students, professors, managers, milkmen or greengrocers» (Dalli, Romani, 2003: 5). We are consumers because everything we do involves the use of goods and services, and because the purchasing choices and the consumption practices play an important role in the lives of the modern western societies. We are all consumers, but we consume in a different way in relation to the contexts, the moments, the moods, the economic opportunities, and our different social identities. In fact, when we buy or use any product, we refer to cultural patterns that derive from our place in the society and reproduce our class and education differences (Bourdieu, 1979), but also our gender and sexuality ones (Edgell, Hetherington, Warde, 1996). It is known that there are “masculine” and “feminine” objects, different purchasing practices among men and women, and ways to use products that confer masculinity or femininity (Kirkham, 1996; Ames, Martinez, 1996). The toys, for example, are ancient tools of socialization to gender roles (Gunter, Furnham, 1998). Food preferences reflect gender differences: in the western society the meat consumption is associated primarily to males (and to hunting, strength, virility), and salads or light products to females (Sassatelli, 2005). Moreover, men and women are partly responsible for buying different goods (Commuri, Gentry, 2000) and they have various attitudes towards shopping: women consider it as a pleasant occupation, men as a purely functional one (Dholakia, 1999). Therefore, many studies indicate that the purchase and consumption of goods and services help to express – and to generate - masculinity and femininity. This also depends on the social representations, historically and culturally situated and in part shaped by advertising. In the Italian Fifties, for example, the need to market

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food, ways of living and new appliances helped to popularize a certain woman image, distinct and independent, but also tied to the traditional role of housekeeper, mother and wife (Passerini 1992). In the same years, advertising showed less virile male images, proposing the purchase of specific goods as necessary to acquire the status of modern man (Bellassai, 2003). In the last three decades, the visual codes of fashion communication spread a new male identity (Bovone, Ruggerone 2006), more feminine in appearance, manners and role (Sassatelli, 2010). Thus, advertising seems a useful and interesting field of observation of the media discourse about the gender dimension of social life.

2. Women and Advertising

In the gender studies, the focus of attention is often unbalanced towards one of the poles of the male-female dichotomy, the women, probably because the topic is often related to the development of equal opportunities policies for the “weaker” sex. This happens also in the study of gender and advertising. However, in this field, the prominence of the women does not depend only on the surplus of protection (or the lack of attention for men), but also on the special relationship between female characters and commercial communication. In Italy, spots, posters and print ads have hosted different women portrayals since the beginning of advertising, articulating two main figures. The first is the housewife, a figure with a discreet beauty and a loving attitude, devoted to taking care of the family and housekeeping (such as in Barilla or Ferrero commercials). The other icon is the sensual woman, associated with various products and often “objectified” (as in the classic Peroni Beer commercials, whose claim was Call me Peroni. I’ll Be your beer), used as a communicative bait or a decorative element. The portrayals of the housewife and the sensual woman/object are both examples of a partial and stiffened representation of femininity, viewed from a male perspective, according to a classic western tradition in which «men act and women appear, men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at» (Berger, 1972: 47). These images are the product of a process that Erving Goffman ,over thirty years ago (1977), defined hyper-ritualization, a sometimes ironic, sometimes serious exaggeration of the ritual forms of the gender difference that constitutes our daily experience. «If anything, advertisers conventionalize our conventions, stylize what is already a stylization, make frivolous use of what is already something considerably cut off from contextual controls. Their hype is hyper-ritualization» (Goffman, 1979: 82). According to Goffman, the gender representations in advertisements are meaningful to us because they are ideal gender representations and because advertising is a very powerful form of communication that offers the most sustained and concentrated set of images in the media system. The consequences are not irrelevant if, as the Canadian sociologist pointed out, in the advertisements there are many images that portray women in poses and attitudes indicating their social inferiority. With a widespread but not systematic analysis of 827 commercial photos, Goffman noticed that women appear more often in a subordinate position, while men are depicted in poses that indicate superiority or protection, depending on the social bond - familiar, professional, affective - with their partners (this is a sign of the so-called hierarchical function). In particular, women are literally placed below men, and can often be found lying on the floor or on a bed, while men are standing upright. These positions are an obvious expression of sexual availability.

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Goffman also found the estrangement and the feminine touch phenomena. The first refers to the depiction of women as distracted by the situation and entrusted to men’s supervision and control. The second refers to the women’s tendency to touch her body or to caress an object, whereas men firmly grasp things. In advertising, this is considered a sign indicating that men control their life, while women are merely there. Anyway, the analysis revealed strong and protective male characters, and docile, emotional and childish female images. The only partial (but apparent) reversal of roles is in the representation of family space, in which the woman is portrayed as the protagonist and the man as a secondary figure. The consequence of Goffman findings is a non-neutral representation of gender in advertising; an issue that requires social and moral considerations and more detailed and updated scientific analysis.

3. Feminization of Advertising?

In the past societies, characterized by a strong male hegemony, it’s not surprising the presence of simplified female figures and ritual imbalances in advertising. Today, the current situation should be different, considering the social processes of the emancipation of women and the feminization of society (Fabris, 2003). Although these thirty-year trends do not involve a radical change in the balance of power between men and women, it is evident that some of the qualities, once associated only with the feminine sphere, are now also shared by men. This is the case of the emotion's role enhancement, the downsizing of work primacy in the definition of the identity, the intuition value compared to deduction, sweetness in respect to aggression, lightness versus strength, attention to the body against its instrumental use. The consequences in the commercial market are evident: male’s entry in the fashion system, his attention to aesthetics, male cosmetics’ take-off, sharing of tasks and purchase of household goods, preparation of children and meals. In addition, there is a certain feminization of the goods, such as in the primacy of healthiness in food, the success of soft clothes, the spread of cars with rounded shapes, the diffusion of colors in the furnishing, and the attention to design for the technology. Also, the representation of gender in advertising has slightly changed: men express feelings, once considered feminine, more often, such as joy or reflexivity, moving away from the model of the Marlboro cowboy; their naked bodies have been displayed more frequently; space for nuanced gender figures (androgynous women, effeminate men and transgender figures) has increased. On this basis, we carried out a new research of the representation of gender in the Italian television advertising. The study is a part of a larger analysis conducted by the GEMMA Observatory of La Sapienza University of Rome, whose general task is to investigate the ways in which television accepts and encourages the change in the processes of construction of identities and gender relations (Buonanno, 2014). In this regard, one might ask, how Liesbet Van Zoonen did: «Moreover, we did not know all there was to know about these old media already? What more could we find about the stereotypes of women in advertising?» (Van Zoonen, 2011: 3). Actually, we do not know everything there is to know, not only because, in Italy, the research on gender and media has had an episodic character and did not give rise to a consistent trend of studies, but also because both terms of the dyad have gone through processes of redefinition and reconfiguration and they are still changing (Buonanno, 2014). Furthermore, with regard to the relationship between women and advertising, the Italian scientific studies are few and have been largely dominated by the reflection on

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the sexualisation and objectification of the female body. Therefore, while not wishing to underestimate the phenomenon, this research mainly focuses on the analysis of women’s social roles in the Italian commercials, trying to update the past researches and to answer the question "what else is there to say?" (Johnson, 2007: 14). Thus, the specific aims are: to update Goffman’s analysis and test it in a different country, time and medium; to encompass whether and to what extent the traditional representations of gender exist and are widespread; to look for any “new” richer and more modern gender representation in advertising; to provide a new basis for the future Italian researches on this topic, that may go beyond the study of the representation of gender, the focus on female figures, and the use of a traditional and rigid methodology as the content analysis.

4. Methods and First Results

The research analyzed the contents of the six main Italian television networks (RAI 1, RAI-2, RAI-3, Rete 4, Canale 5 and Italia 1), recorded for a week, from Monday to Sunday (every day was chosen in a different week, between February and April, to collect a greater variety of spots), between eight in the morning and two at night. Our sample was composed by all the unique broadcasted commercials (815), excluding their repetitions (9979). The survey methodology was the content analysis, considered as a mix between the "classical" approach of Berelson (1952) and the analysis as investigation. Since we are aware of the limitations of this method, we integrated it with a subsequent qualitative analysis of some case studies. For the content analysis, we built a search tool containing an ordered sequence of questions with which the television commercials have been interrogated. Each entry of the survey corresponded to a variable that constituted the operational definition of a property. The questions were included in the following thematic areas: – General features of the TV channel (network, time slot, date of registration) – General features of the spot (advertiser, product category) – Formal features of the spot (duration, presence of music, sounds or noises, text, slogan, speaker, etc.) – Features of the spot’s content (spatial and temporal setting, characters’ number and type) – The characters’ census and features (socio-demographic and aesthetic attributes) – Presence of cases linked to Goffman’s study (hierarchical function, estrangement, feminine touch, etc.) – Additional information (presence of female empowerment cases or the feminization of male roles, presence of transgender figures, presence of cases to be analyzed in depth). The analysis allowed us to collect a big corpus, also because the sample was quite large. We recorded 9979 commercials, then isolated the 815 unique ones and analyzed them and their 1798 characters. The content analysis provided interesting results, but not entirely unexpected. The findings of the qualitative analysis were rather most remarkable. Some first general data, seemingly distant from the theme of the gender iconography in advertising, can help in the reading of the research specific results. For example, it could be useful to consider that in our sample there are mostly 30-seconds spots (2 of 5), broadcasted in the morning (43%) and promoting food products (over a

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quarter). Their setting refers especially to current or indefinite places and times, with an essentially realistic connotation, in particular in the food or the cleaning products commercials. Other data are closest to the topic of gender in advertising. For example, in more than 90% of the sample, there is a voiceover and it is male in more than two cases out of three. This result is related to the traditional guarantee function of the advertising voice, confirmed by the age of the speaker (an adult in 8 cases out of 10). In this regard, the association between the gender of the voice and the advertised product is interesting. Men dominate not only in the commercials for men's goods, such as technology, cars, banking, or insurance services, but also in the promotion of food and cleaning products, in which the male voices are two times as much as the female ones, but the target is generally feminine. This is partially explained by the fact that the detergents must be strong and vigorous and these characteristics are considered typically male. So, when the detergents “speak” they have a male voice. Only in the soft drinks and personal care products’ spots , women voices are twice as much as men ones (but in the alcohol commercials there are only male voice-overs). Anyway, the association between the gender of the voice and the product category is interesting if connected to other results, such as the correlation between the presence of a male voice-over and the presence of female characters.

5. One-dimensional Woman

Over half of the 1798 figures of our sample are women. They usually appear first, with the function to introduce the story, and they are more numerous among the protagonists (see Figure 1) and the endorsers (see Figure 2), while men apparently have secondary roles. At first glance, these findings may suggest a female figure empowerment. Actually, a closer look shows that the ladies of advertising are still quite traditional and subordinated to the male figures. They appear more likely to in the spots of those products (for personal care, house cleaning, furniture, food, etc.) where they are the main target, in the role of housewives. Sometimes they are used as a decorative element of the scene, especially when their presence is associated with men products. However, the fact that they are more numerous and have a leading role in the commercials should be read together with the fact that they are driven - as we have seen - by men voices. Moreover, if it is true that women are more numerous among the endorsers, they are also diffused among the common figures (buyers and housewives in which the target of the spots can be identified), but not among the experts or the professionals (doctors, dentists or scientists). By relating the gender of the characters with some socio-demographic features, and physical and aesthetic properties, more interesting results emerge. Women, for example, are younger than men: in the sample, there are more girls than boys, more adult women than men, but older men than women. This result is probably due to the widespread appreciation of the beauty in advertising, more perceptible in young or juvenile women. Also the link between gender and the setting of the spots is quite significant. Women dominate in domestic spaces, while they are a minority in public spaces, in business contexts and in workplaces. This confirms the old relationship between woman and “housewifeness”, and man and career. Not surprisingly, 100% of the housewives are females, and the total of the workers is male. This is a result that suggests some oversimplification. In addition, there are less women among the categories of professionals or entrepreneurs, managers or teachers (See Figure 3). There is the same number

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of the men and women only among the category of retired people, in a representation that depicts them more as housewives or at rest (in each case at home) rather than workers.

Fig. 1. Role of male and female characters (percentages)

100%

90%

80% 41,6% 44,7% 70% 57,0%

60%

50% female 40% male

30% 58,4% 55,3% 20% 43,0%

10%

0% protagonist relevant, but not secondary protagonist

Database: 1798

Fig. 2. Type of male and female characters (percentages)

100%

90%

80% 37,7%

70% 60,7% 56,4% 60%

50%

40%

30% 62,3%

20% 39,3% 43,6% 10%

0% common famous competent female male

Database: 1798

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Fig. 3. Work of the male and female characters (percentages)

100% 90% 29,0% 33,1% 30,8% 80% 45,0% 70% 60%

50% 100,0% 100,0% 40% 71,0% 66,9% 69,2% 30% 55,0% 20% 10% 0% freelancer manager/teacher employee worker housewife retired

female male

Database: 1798

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Moreover, the data relating to the physical or aesthetic features confirm the old equation between beauty and femininity. The beautiful faces are feminine in four cases out of five. Over 80% of the skinny figures is a female. The less conventional (and probably more attractive for the Italian male) eyes or hair colors are the prerogative of the female figures (all the red haired people, for example, are women, as just as the 80% of the blond ones). Most of the grey, black or white hair-colored people are men. Women also dominate among those with blue or green eyes, respectively in three cases out of four and in two out of three. If this apparently irrelevant information is read together, it confirms the spread in the Italian TV advertising of young, skinny, and exotic beauties. In addition, the female figures are shooting especially in close-ups, while medium shots or long shots predominate for men. This is a clear sign of the differences in the gaze on gender: the camera focuses on the face, the eyes, but also on the shoulders, the legs or the breast, probably to exaltate women’s beauty (especially in the cosmetics commercials) (See Figure 4). However, one of the consequences of these shots is the emphasis on the female emotions. Not surprisingly, over 70% of the cases of a marked display of feelings refer to women. Therefore, in our sample there is a preponderance of female characters whose young and beautiful faces reveal their emotions. They are depicted as spontaneous and uncontrolled and, perhaps, in need of a constant male presence in the background.

Fig. 4. Shots of the male and female characters (percentages)

100%

90% 27,2% 80% 40,7% 47,0% 50,5% 70% 66,5% 70,8% 60% 91,7% 50%

40% 72,8% 30% 59,3% 53,0% 49,5% 20% 33,5% 29,2% 10% 8,3% 0% Extreme long Medium shot Two shot Medium-close Close-up Extreme Detail shot shot, long shot close-up shot, medium- long shot female male

Database: 1798

6. Old-fashioned images

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Apparently, it looks like very little has changed since the time of the Goffman’s analysis. His search is not entirely comparable with ours, because it refers to different times, contexts, and media, but the majority of the detected representations have more than one point in common with the survey of the Canadian sociologist. In particular, Goffman’s role function, often related to women with housekeeping and the family care, is also found in most of our sample, populated by many housewives and few female workers. Our data also confirms Goffman’s description of man as “naturally” placed in a working place, well dressed, and master of his emotions (he looks cold and controlled in the 65,2% of the cases). Even the widespread presence of detailed shoots of the female body, typical of the ritualization of subordination, can be traced in the sample of GEMMA: more than 90% of the close-ups are feminine. Many of the women figures analyzed, seem to be a crystallization of the traditional advertising models. The image of the wife and the mother prevails over the others. She appears as a simple and loving woman, with a reassuring middle-class beauty. Her model is well represented not only in the many detergent commercials, but also in the food ones, such as in the children’s snacks or family pasta spots. An interesting example of this portrayal comes from the Findus spot of the Quattro salti in padella ready-to-eat meals. It uses the typical registers and scenarios used for the Italian réclame of the Sixties, where a voice talks to a woman who is primarily defined as “mother” and “wife”. Its slogans are: “Attention wife! Do you want to go out for dinner? Do not propose this meal to your husband!”, “Attention wife! Your husband does not say a word during the dinner? Remove the dish from the table!”, “Attention moms! This meal keeps children at home beyond age 40”. According to its creators, this is an ironic campaign, because it refers to a far past and invites mothers and wives to not defrost the ready-to-eat meals, while having the intent to get it done. However, despite the intention, it reminds old stereotypes not completely outdated in the Italian culture and too common in the television advertising to seem really ironic. Despite the expectations and the concerns spread in the Italian debate on gender and media, the sensual woman/object is not a very popular figure in our sample. If anything, she is an element, sometimes discreet, sometimes gaudy, who serves to embellish the scene or to attract the gaze. However, this portrayal often appears in the spot of products more or less related to seduction, like underwear. A commercial of the brand Intimissimi, for example, consists in only close-ups and extreme close-ups of the model Irina Shaykhlislamova’s body, wearing panties and bra and staging the feminine touch well depicted by Goffman. This is also that type of woman found in the commercials with female endorsers chosen more for their beauty than for their skills or knowledge. In the sample, for example, the presence of models or actresses like Eva Longoria, Rachel Weisz, Laetitia Casta and Milla Yovovich (L'Oreal), Reese Witherspoon (Avon), Uma Thurman (Schweppes), and Philippa Lagerback (Daygum) is quite common. On the other hand, there are few endorsers not selected for their look. They are generally beauties from another times (such as the show girl Raffaella Carrà), involved in the promotion of food for mature women, or women athletes, such as the swimmer Federica Pellegrini (Pavesini), chosen not for her abilities, but for her fame and her fit appearance, widely displayed in extreme close-ups. Thus, it seems that the main attribute of women in the Italian television advertising is the visibility, because they occupy the scene, attract the eyes, and decorate the setting.

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5. Sui generis figures

If the whole sample shows mostly women from another time, between the frames of the analyzed spots we have seen some glimmer of novelty. The qualitative analysis revealed, in fact, a few alternative and more realistic gender portrayals. These new features include women appearance in only one case, the Dove’s commercials, populated by less young, skinny and perfect women than in the rest of advertising. These spots are part of an original campaign, born in the 2004, dedicated to the protection and enhancement of the real beauty and the feminine self-esteem. A notable case is the Real Beauty Sketches spot, an interesting experiment to prove that women are much more beautiful than what they think. The video shows Gil Zamora, a FBI forensics sketch artist, drawing two different sketches for seven different women. The first sketch is based on the personal description of each woman, the second is based on a description given by a stranger she has just met. By comparing the portraits it is evident that women perceive and describe themselves as less beautiful than they are. If the novelties related to a more realistic appearance of women in advertising are just a few, the cases of enrichment of their role representation are more numerous. For example, they are depicted sometimes as professionals and ambitious workers. Inserted in different workplaces and not confined at home. Flanked to the men and not accompanied by them. They are that kind of women who appear in a couple of Calzedonia’s commercials, with claims like “Let's hope it's a girl” or “Sisters of Italy”. The second case, for example (discussed for the use of a female version of the Italian hymn), shows the images of different women, in different moments of their lives, followed by the dedication: “To Italia, Vittoria, Laura and all the others”. This is not a real new case, because the prevalent perspective is still masculine: it displays beautiful and emotive women with many close-ups of their charming faces and shapely legs. However, it has the merit of showing the richest and most various female identities, depicted in different contexts and not only at home. A more original figure can be found with the multitasking mother in a Fastweb spot. She is able to manage, with some difficulty, both family and career. This case shows the woman as a heroine with an extraordinary normality and a great courage. The dual role of worker and housewife, together with the rare function of guarantor, appears in an advertisement for Mellin milk for children, with the slogan “I study it as a researcher, I choose it as a mom”. The figure of the scientist woman who guarantees the quality of the product also occurs in the long-lived spot for Lines è tampons that shows a team of female researchers and uses the slogan “Designed by women for you”. These cases are only partly innovative. Their novelty is limited by the fact that the researchers are presented as guarantors of feminine or childish products, competent not only for their profession, but also for their role of woman and mother. However, an interesting case in the sample is the spot of the feminine perfume Chanel No. 5, that uses a male endorser. During the time, the brand has chosen ultra-feminine endorsers, such as Marilyn Monroe, Nicole Kidman and Audrey Tautou, but in a recent campaign it prefers a man: Brad Pitt. In the spot, the actor plays a long monologue in which the woman is celebrated, admired, loved and desired. The case is unusual not only because a male figure is involved in the promotion of a female product (focusing on attraction and not on identification), but also because the woman disappears from the scene, she is deprived from her typical feature of visibility, and is evoked, as in a poem of another time. Even in the representation of men we note the prevalence of conventional portrayals, and, with a closer look, the presence of some small opening signs. The novelties concern those spots where the man takes care of the family, prepares meals or

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gives advice about house cleaning products. It happens in ads showing men while doing their shopping (Conad), advertising laundry detergents (Bio Presto and Dash), or food products (Knorr). Even in these cases, however, the limited signs of originality are restricted by the context. The two cases in which men are the guarantors of food products, for example, involve two chefs, who appear in a domestic space and suggest products to prepare meals, as professionals, rather than as home keepers. However, another small sign of change comes from the figure of the father, who appears with a slightly higher frequency than expected. He is certainly not a new character of the television advertising, but it seems more widespread and has a more active role in the child’s education, mainly because he appears more often alone at home with his children (in the Batticuori commercial, for example). It’s not only apparently original, however, the portrayal of the man as a seducer or an object. It appears in a limited number of spots and repeats many of the clichés of the representation of the bait woman. This is the case of a commercial for the Lavazza espresso machines, or a spot of the men's perfume by Dolce and Gabbana, that both show the sculptural bodies of beautiful models with those extreme close-ups typical of the shooting of women. However, beyond the noted exceptions, male and female continue to occupy different areas of expertise and still reveal few points of contact. Not surprisingly, the hybrid or transgender figures are almost entirely absent from the sample. The only case is in a Mercedes spot,that shows a gay bar, connoting it as ambiguous and threatening and describing its frequenters as abnormal and vaguely disturbing. Apart from the questionable content, which has aroused much controversy, the gay identities are present only in this case and appear as bizarre and threatening. Thus, there is no truly balanced perspective on masculinity and femininity in the Italian television advertising, and no representation of the plurality of existing genres and sexual orientations (Leccardi, 2002; Butler, 2006; Arfini, 2007; Ruspini, Inghilleri, 2008).

7. Conclusion

Italian women and men are characters in motion. A plot of more and more widespread transformations, aspirations and behavior has contributed to redefine their biographical, educational, occupational and emotional trajectories in the last decades (Istat, 2004). Women, in particular, live and promote a radical and rapid change. They are probably the most dynamic component of the society, the ones that are changing more quickly their social, cultural and economic coordinates, helping to influence the development of the country. In detail, because they are varied and in constant motion, the female and male reality is difficult to represent with just a few seconds of a spot. Thus, no wonder that at first sight the research returns a general static image of gender identity, mostly crystallized on old clichés and replicating the results of studies of nearly forty years ago. At a closer look, however, the apparently fixed and rigid frame of male and female figures reflect together a moving image. A slow movement, still far from the most current settings and rhythms, that hides small elements of novelty. We note, for example, images of women depicted in activities different from the house cleaning or cooking. Competent professionals who try to combine work and family life and who promote products different from detergents. Women with a more realistic beauty, who appear not only in domestic spaces, but also on the public scene and in workplaces. Even men are more often represented in the domestic space, exhibiting consumption behavior, as well as the productive ones, assuming the role of fathers, and sometimes deviating from the strenuous and constant display of manly attitudes.

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Thus, there is a timid transgression or evolution of gender boundaries. However, the new openings are too few to permit generalizations and they show male and female identities still divided, in which the possible approach occurs not through the reduction of their differences, but through their representation in a new and more subtle form. In fact, on the one hand, the images of the Italian advertising reassure traditional identities, while they push them towards consumptions that destabilize the gender order, as in the case of the spot for ready-to-eat meals, promoted by an old-fashioned housewife; on the other hand, they promote a new awareness and attention, anchoring them to consumption related to traditional roles, such as in the case of professional women endorsing feminine or childish products. Moreover, when advertising attempts to grapple with “different” images, it does it in a too cautious or hyperbolic way. This happens in the commercials that focus on a flashy and unrealistic women's empowerment, as in the case of the vengeful women of the old Campari spots or of those obsessed by a car, in a masculine instrumental logic. This is also what occurs in commercials that objectify men’s bodies. Furthermore, the space for gender ambiguity of sexual orientation diversity is almost imperceptible in our sample and has a weak consistency. Beyond the only case reported, in the rare Italian commercials of the past, the transgender figures appear as anomalies and disguises, useful to attract attention, rather than as representations of fluid and unconventional sexual identities. In general, the movement of women and men in the Italian advertising is slower than in the society which the advertising is addressed to. This is understandable if we consider the channel and the form of communication analyzed and the methodology used. The channel is the Italian TV, which has a mature audience, and it is used to achieve a wide target in a short time, giving above all space to the commercials of convenience goods. Hence the tendency towards caution and the preference for tradition. The analyzed form of communication is the advertising that in a few moments must be able to capture the attention of an elusive target and convey a message that should be understandable and memorable, despite the information overload. No wonder if it uses stereotypes, clichés or hyperboles. For what concerns the method, the content analysis is limited to frequency counts of role portrayals that yield rather superficial and somewhat self-evident inferences (Ferguson, Kreshel and Tinkham, 1990). Thus, this first analysis reveals that the few partially new advertising images are exceptions that tend, as often happens, to prove the rule. It is not a surprising or innovative result, but it is necessary as a basis for updating the Italian research on this topic and to build new, more refined and profound analysis. Hence, the intention to move beyond the study of the sex-role stereotypes framework and the focus on the female figures, to use different methods to overcome the limitations of content analysis, to examine the persuasive implications of gender representation, to evaluate the intra- gender and inter-gender dynamics, the social-structural issues, the power relationships between gender categories, but also to study the advertising production processes that lead to the constructions of a certain gender representation in a “naturalistic settings”, so that advertising practices are studied with a comprehensive analysis of the commercials, the people, and the media. For this reason, these results should be considered only as the beginning of a work that needs to continue and develop, to expand the scope and enhance the quality of the Italian research on gender in advertising, because we agree with Horace Newcomb and Paul Hirsch, when they said: «We are more concerned with the ways in which television

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contributes to change than with mapping the obvious ways in which it maintains dominant viewpoints» (Newcomb and Hirsch 1984, p. 70).

8. References

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Goffman E. (1976), “Gender Advertisements”, in Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, n. 3, pp. 69-154. Goffman E. (1977), “The Arrangement between the Sexes”, in Theory and Society, Vol. 4, n. 3, Autumn, pp. 301-331. Goffman E. (1979), Gender Advertisements, Harper and Row, New York. Goffman E. (1977), “La ritualisation de la féminité”, in Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, n. 14, pp. 34-50. Grossi G., Ruspini E. (2007), Ofelia e Parsifal. Modelli e differenze di genere nel mondo dei media, Cortina, Milano. Istat (2004), Come cambia la vita delle donne, url: http://www.pariopportunita.provincia.tn.it/filesroot/Documents/allegati/ISTAT%20S abbadini-donne.pdf Kirkham P. (ed.) (1996), The Gendered Object, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Leccardi C. (ed.) (2002), Tra i generi. Rileggendo le differenze di genere, di generazione, di orientamento sessuale, Guerini, Milano. Lundstrom J., Siglimplaglia D. (1977), "Sex Role Portrayals in Advertising," Journal of Marketing, Vol. 14, July, pp.72-79. Lysonski S. (1985), “Role Portrayals in British Magazine Advertisements"” European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 19, n. 7, pp. 37-55. Meyers-Levy J., Durairaj M. (1991), “Exploring Males' and Females' Processing Strategies: When and Why Do Differences Occur in Consumers' Processing of Ad Claims”, in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 18, June, pp. 63-70. Newcomb H., Hirsch P.M. (1984) “Television as Cultural Forum”, in Rowland W.R., Watkins B., Interpreting television, Sage, London, pp. 58-72. Passerini L. (1992), “Donne, consumi e cultura di massa”, in G. Duby e M. Perrot (a cura di), Storia delle donne in Occidente, vol. V, Novecento, Laterza, Bari, pp. 373- 392. Pignotti L., Mucci E. (1978), Marchio & femmina. La donna inventata dalla pubblicità, Vallecchi, Firenze. Ruspini E., Inghilleri M. (2008), Transessualità e scienze sociali: identità di genere nella postmodernità, Liguori, Napoli. Sassatelli R (2005), “Genere e consumi”, in Scarpellini E., Cavazza S. (a cura di), Il secolo dei consumi, Carocci, Roma, pp. 172-200. Sassatelli R. (2010), “La ritualizzazione della femminilità”, in Studi Culturali, Vol. 1, pp. 37-70. Sassatelli R. (2006), “Corpi Ibridi. Sesso, genere, sessualità”, in Aut Aut, Vol. 330, n. 2, pp. 29-57. Schneider K.C., Schneider S.B. (1979) “Trends in sex roles in television commercials”, Journal of Marketing, 43, Summer, pp. 79-84. Sciglimpaglia D., Lundstrom W.J., Vanier D.J. (1979) “Women's role orientation and their attitudes toward sex role portrayals in advertising”, in Leigh J.H., Martin C.R. Jr. (eds.), Current Issues and Research in Advertising, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp.163-175. Sexton D.E., Haberman P. (1974), “Women in magazine advertisements”, Journal of Advertising Research, 14, August, pp. 41-46. Soley L., Reid L. (1988), “Taking it off: Are models in magazine ads wearing less?” Journalism Quarterly, 65, Winter, pp. 960-966. Tota A. (ed.) (2008), Gender e media. Verso un immaginario sostenibile, Meltemi, Roma.

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Van Zoonen L. (2011), “Preface”, in Krunen T., Alvares C., Van Bauwel S. (eds.), Gendered Transformation. Theories and Practices on Gender and Media, Intellect, Bristol, p. 3. Venkatesan, M., Losco J. (1975), “Women in Magazine Ads: 1959-71”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 15, October, p. 51. Wagner L., Banos J.B. (1973), “A Woman's Place: Follow-up Analysis of the Roles Portrayed by Women in Magazine Advertisements”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 10, May, pp. 213-214. Wardlow D.L. (1996), Gay, Lesbians and Consumer Behaviour, Haworth Press, New York. Zatta S. (2004), “Foto di gruppo con signora. Iconografie e stereotipi del femminile“, in Canova G., Dreams. I sogni degli italiani in 50 anni di pubblicità televisiva, Mondadori, Milano, pp. 191-196.

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PART 2. Analysis of discourses on gender identities in the media and other communicative contexts (social networks, education systems)

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ACADEMIC FEMALE SUBJECT AMIDST BOURDIEU’S “HABITUS” AND BUTLER’S “PERFORMATIVITY”

Dr. Gokcesu Aksit

Department of Sociology, Faculty Member

Maltepe University, Turkey

[email protected]

Berfin Varisli

Department of Sociology, PhD Student

Maltepe University, Turkey

[email protected]

Abstract: in the context of a highly competitive and knowledge-intensive academic life, the role of the “performativity” of the academics in their success has become an increasingly important issue. Pierre Bourdieu, in his 1988 dated work Homo Academicus seeks sui generis characteristics of academics in 1950’s French intellectual arena. In that book, he proposes the notion of “academic habitus”, which emphasizes the scholar’s family origin, gender, class and religion possesses a reflexive impact on his/her intellectual research and everyday life. On the other hand, as feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler brings the very notion of “performativity” forward, which she believes is internalizing the “ritualized” repetition of cultural acts, empiercing outer space of the body and personality. This paper is an attempt to find out a common ground of Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” and Judith Butler’s “performativity”. We aim to achieve this attempt through a brief investigation on four academic texts on the notion of female academics in Turkey in order to understand the floating role of women in scientific community with a special interest in the universities in Turkey.

Keywords: Turkish academic female subject, “academic habitus”, “performativity”

1. Introduction

The notion of “habitus” is highlighted by Pierre Bourdieu in his works between 1958 and 2002, and the notion itself has a long-standing legacy. Briefly, habitus is a process that an individual ritually internalizes the social reality that s/he was born and become an adult. The ‘ritualization’ process of habitus (yet Bourdieu himself never stated) starts with the birth of an individual, continues to enlarge while the individual grows up, shapens in accordance with the experiences, and follows the individual until the end of life. The individual as a subject is under pressure of the norms and values, which

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mostly generate from culture, and those norms and values construct and reconstruct the self of the subject. The concept of “habitus” is used by many scholars in many academic resources in order to understand the power of norms and values on individuals. It is not an easy goal to examine Bourdieu’s general theory in this brief sketch.

We must assert that we are only trying to understand the connection of Bourdieu’s habitus with Butler’s notion of performativity as she mainly stated in Psychic Life of Power (1997) for the scope of this presentation. It can be noticed that for example in The Masculine Domination (2001), Bourdieu reflected views about masculinity parallel to Freudian conception but it is beyond the narrow scope of this paper either. In this paper we are trying to examine three academic articles and a PhD thesis, written on the subject of Turkish female academics.

The reason that we have chosen that topic came out from the idea that Pierre Bourdieu’s book Homo Academicus can be read as a harsh critic towards academia from inside (Bourdieu, 1984). Bourdieu, describes the “academia” in Homo Academicus as “a tribe he joined as a result of his upward social climb” which has continually turned the instruments of his science upon himself” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 36). What Bourdieu believes and complaints from academia is, in his opinion, academia as a struggle arena in which there is a flow of outer ethical interests of academics which predominates over scientific aims. According to Bourdieu, there are various kinds of outer ethical interests of academics, such as establishing “good” relations with the chiefs and/or the political authority of the state etc. In this presentation, we aim to offer a different kind of interest that we believe most of the female academics face in Turkish academia; trying to escape from psychological discrimination that the junior female academics face from their seniors. The details of this discrimination will be discussed later in this presentation. By stating female academics, we are limiting our sample with female academics that finished their doctoral thesis.

2. Performativity as a ritualized process

Judith Butler in her re-formulation of the material body, formulated “performativity” as follows: “the reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that regulates and constraints” (Butler, 1993, p. 2). Butler attributes a specific role to the

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language and emphasizes the importance of speech in most of her works. According to Butler, speech is more than a combination of vocals and has a power. In her famous study, Excitable Speech: A Politics of Performative, she starts her arguments about the power of language and linguistic vulnerability by asking the following question: “When we claim to have been injured by language, what kind of claim do we make” (Butler, 1997, p. 1)? The reason that she illustrates the linkage between the linguistic vulnerability and emotions is to show that we, individuals are “all linguistic beings who are formed in language” (Butler, 1997, p. 2). According to Butler, language has the power to form the individual. Nonetheless, this formation occurs through certain norms, which this study embarks upon establishing a connection between. Precisely, Judith Butler underlines the relation between speech and norms through the notion of ‘performativity’.

Although the author does not prefer to give a direct definition of performativity, she provides the reader some hints in order to see the big picture of performativity in many of her works. Briefly one can explain performativity, as a certain level of power accumulating by ritualistic acts (mainly of speech), under the pressure of norms, values and laws. Therefore, the lives of the individuals are formed through these repetitions of performative acts. Butler herself names the condition of repetition as ritualization. And the process of the ritualization starts within the family and more specifically it starts immediately when the relation between the sibling and parents endures. For instance, gender roles of individuals are started to be configured by the determined choices of the parents. These choices vary from the colour of the baby’s clothes (i.e. blue for boys and pink for girls) to the kind of the toys such as dolls for girls and toy guns to the boys. Butler notes “the young boy and young girl who enter into the certain period in growing up are already being subjected to heterosexual aims by prohibitions which disposed them in distinct sexual distinctions (Butler, 1999, p. 82).

Butler, in her book Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection states that there is a relation between ‘performativity’ and ‘habitus’ and it has something to do with the process of ritualization. (Butler, 1997, p. 210). As she noted down:

Pierre Bourdieu elaborates the concept of the habitus in The Logic of Practice, he analyses the embodied rituals of everydayness by which a given culture produces and sustains belief in its own “obviousness”. Bourdieu underscores the place of the body, its gestures, its

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stylistics, its unconscious “ knowingness” as the sight for the reconstitution of a practical sense without which social reality could not be constituted.

Having said that, as an outstanding Bourdian scholar and a student of Pierre Bourdieu J. D. Loic Wacquant explains “habitus” in the book called Invitation to Reflexive Sociology as follows: a system of lasting and transposable disposition which, integrating past-experiences, functions at every moment as a matrix of infinitely diversified perceptions, appreciations and actions (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, p. 18). Therefore, “habitus” is a process that an individual ritually internalizes the social reality that s/he was born and become an adult. To say that the subject performs according a set of skills is, as it were, to take grammar at its word: there is a subject who encounters a set of skills to be learned, learns them or fails to learn them and then and only then can it be said either to have mastered those skills or not. To master a set of skills is not simply to accept a set of skills, but to reproduce them in and as one’s own activity. This is not simply to act according to a set of rules but to embody rules in the course of action and to reproduce those rules in embodies rituals of action (Butler, 1997, p. 119).

When these two statements first by Butler and second by Bourdieu and Wacquant are analysed, we can conclude that a body is a kind of matrix, which has its own perceptions and dispositions, which are shaped through a repetitive and unconscious knowingness, and this knowingness is appreciable within its own obviousness. When those perceptions clash with the norms and values of society, the individual uses censorship as a defence mechanism in order not to be a victim of symbolic violence. In the same book, Butler illustrates the arguments of Bourdieu, which French sociologist points out in his Language and Symbolic Power that even “all symbolic domination presupposes, on the part of those who submit to it, a form of complicity which is neither passive submission to external constraint for a free adherence to values” (as cited in Butler, 1997). Therefore, Bourdieu suggests that the rules of the norms are embodied and we are aware of those norms such that we sometimes apply an implicit censorship to our language for the sake of not cutting across the norms. Butler tries to figure out how to understand the bodily operation of such a linguistic understanding if the censorship is that implicit and what is its relation with politics? She answers her question with the notions of “force” and “performativity”. The notion of “force” is

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coming from Bourdieu’s theory as he believes, according to Butler that “ the force of the performative is the effect of social power, and as a social power is to be understood through established context of authority and their instrument of censorship” (Butler, 1997, p. 141). In Excitable Speech: A Politics of Performative, Butler brings out the very notion of ‘bodily act’, an act that emerges from a person’s body within the limits and the force of performative, i.e., gestures, mimics, body language etc. Hence, she affirms that the speech act is a kind of bodily act and “is never fully separable from bodily force” (Butler, 1997, p. 141).

However Butler, in contrast to Bourdieu, states that non-intentional norms also takes place and a person with the performativity can confront the very norms that it reinforced. This is a kind of construction and reconstruction process. The norms somehow create a bodily speech, which is an outcome of habitus, the norms force the bodily speech in order to obey the rules and at one point the bodily speech also find a way to resist the norms from which it is produced. This is one of the most readable conflicting point of Bourdieu and Butler’s thinking. Butler goes so far to comment, “it is what Bourdieu fails to understand” (Butler, 1997, p. 142).

Butler almost touches upon Bourdieu’s understanding through the use of “modalities of practice”. Butler explains this as follows:

Bourdieu states that “modalities of Practices are powerful and hard to resist precisely because they are silent and insidious” in any of his works but especially in "Censorship and the Imposition of Form:' There he writes of specialized languages, indeed, the specialized languages of the academy, and suggests that they are not only based on censorship, but also on a sedimentation and skewing of everyday linguistic usage -strategies of euphemization, to use his phrase” (Butler, 1997, p. 142).

Butler touches upon the censorship phenomenon in a much broader sense than Bourdieu and suggests ordinary language, which she believes, “records and preserves social oppositions, and yet it does so in a way that is not readily transparent” (Butler, 1997, p. 143).

3. Being a Turkish female academic

The common purpose of the academic studies that we examined is to elucidate the place and situation of Turkish female academics and more specifically what it means

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to be a woman in Turkish academia. As noted above, we tried to underline the commonalities of the positive, if any, and negative sides of being a Turkish female subject. Moreover, we believe that those are outcomes of the interference and also the convergence of Judith Butler’s performativity and Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus.

The role of gender norms is visible in the studies as feminization of field of research. According to findings, in Turkey female academics tend to choose to be in the fields of education, literature, humanities and social sciences which are believed to be much more suitable for women. Other fields such as engineering, medicine and fields about agriculture are highly masculinized which means the proportion of female academics is much lower than the male academics in those areas of research. This fact can be counted as the ritualization of everydayness because the female academics even at the beginning at their career follows the routes that their parents and may be more broadly speaking the society and choose a feminized topic to research.

In her PhD thesis, Dilek Er underlines this problematic guidance by stating that the career ambitions of parents for their sons are much higher than the career ambitions for their daughters. Parents wish their sons to be a well-educated person with a good career, on the other hand, the situation for the daughters are much worse, such that they wish their daughters to have a job which is related to motherhood and they also wish the amount of time that she spends on her career will not exceed the time that she supposed to spend for her children and housework (Er, 2008, p. 113). According to her, this belief is the continuation of the gendered division of labour at home (p. 202). The gendered division of labour at home can be characterized as the tasks that require much bodily and mental power are expected to be done by men and women who are believed to be more delicate, less powerful and more emotional than man are expected to be caring mothers, good cooks and impassionate and loyal wives.

On the other hand, as an Ankara University faculty member herself Ozlem Ozkanli (2007) approaches to the issue of role of gender norms from a different but still from a close perspective. Ozkanli in her article titled as The Situation of Academic Woman in Turkey attaches importance to the role conflict that most of the Turkish female academics face. The notion of role conflict is very parallel to the role of gender norms and means “the conflict between the academic career and family roles”. According to Ozkanli, majority of female academics try to find a solution for this dividedness

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either by becoming distant from the traditional family roles or taking both the academic and domestic “workload” (Ozkanli, 2007, p. 68). However the result is either an unhappy family life or a decrease on academic performance. Ozkanli defines the latter as abandoning administrative tasks such as dean’s office, presidency of the university, thesis supervising; conduction less research and as a result a decrease in the number of scholarly work for publishing in order to be able to spend more time for family. Ozkanli explains the relative highness of the number of male academics in the administrative positions and their success in the academic performance by the role conflict.

Judith Butler states that “codes of legitimacy are established precisely through the invocation of non-ordinary words in ways that appear to have a systematic relation to one another” (Butler, 1997, p. 142). Starting from this point of view, we tried to understand the role of speech act upon the female academics in Turkey. The result that we conclude is very interesting because none of the female academics that are interviewed by each of the authors mention any performances, which are related to speech. We will try to discuss such occurrences (or none occurrences more preferably) in the conclusion part accordingly.

The idea of role of norms, on the other hand, exists in all of the scholarly works, which are examined throughout this study. The existences of norms, gender norms in Butler’s words, were highlighted above, in the beginning of this section. As it is stated gender bounded preferences, this is reflected upon the feminization/masculinization of some special fields of research or gender division of labour in the household. Thus the lower percentage rates of women working in high level administrative positions in Turkey, mentioned above, as such roles contradict with the role of women in the household, as mother, or wife (Ozkanli, 2006).

The absence of women in the political era is also a reflection of such contradiction. Although such finding cannot be traced in all of the academic writings we reviewed, it is a social problem Turkey deals for decades (Er, 2008, p. 179). This problem goes hand in hand with the problem of the women’s low levels of participation in politics and the quote system of Turkey for women. It wouldn’t be nonsense if we tell here that the percentage of woman engaging in political arena is very low in Turkey, without

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exception of any political days until the new political era of today.

Nonetheless, the problem of feminization/masculinization of some special fields of research, as mentioned above, brings forth another, yet equally important problem of the role of women in the chief positions within the universities in Turkey. There is an uncodified tendency in Turkish universities that throughout time, the academics selected to be in a senior positions such as being a rector and/or vice rector are mostly from masculinized fields of research (Ozkanli, 2010). Nonetheless, the percentage of female academics being in a senior position i.e. Presidency of the university is relatively low, compared to the universities worldwide.

Finally, one other important aspect driven from the academic writings reviewed, a certain level of violence exists between the female senior academics and other female scholars not in the form of physicality but in terms of psychology. We presume such occurrence can be found in Butler’s thought provoking book Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. We took our cue from this book that the construction and reconstruction of female subject in Turkish academic circles. The fact that Ozkanli’s claim of non-existence of gender discrimination itself, we argue, is a reflection of such violence.

Turkish female academic lying midst performativity and habitus subjected under psychological violence, which Bourdieu covered as “symbolic violence” in determining habitus. Bourdieu in Language and Symbolic Power illustrates the existence of censorship and in Bourdieu’s understanding and what Butler criticizes is living according to norms without opposing it, is a kind of rational action. Therefore according to Bourdieu, if keeping steps with norms is in the interest of an individual, individual uses censorship very conveniently in speech, acts, choices etc. (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 128). Bourdieu correspondingly seeks to expand the “ritual sense of convention” by symbolic violence and “he contextualizes ritual within the social field of the "marketplace of ideas” (Butler, 1997, p. 151) Therefore, the Turkish female subject is under the pressure of such ritualization of symbolic violence affects her performativity in academic market.

4. Conclusion

In this paper, we briefly examine the female academic subject in Turkey with the

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motivation provided by Judith Butler, who admits that there is a linkage between her very notion of performativity and Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus. Butler believes that both performativity and habitus are processes of repetitive acts, in her words “rituals”, which shapes the life of individual’s life, preferences and positions. Starting with this point of view, we have chosen four recent academic writings, which explore the situation of female academics in Turkish academia.

Interestingly, although those studies were conducted in different parts of Turkey and with distinctive samples because one of them investigates woman academics in senior positions i.e. rectors and vice rectors (Ozkanli, 2010), while the others look at the general situation of Turkish academics (Ozkanli, 2007; Naymansoy, 2010). The result driven from those studies are pretty much similar. All of the studies assert that the gender roles emerge within the family have an impact on woman’s academics performances and those roles manifest themselves in the choice of fields of research by feminization/masculinization.

We believe that the masculinization/feminization issue also exists in politics. Although a reasonable number of female academics express their tendency for political issues (Ozkanli, 2007) and state their motivation to defend the rights of women and adopt the issue of female identity into the society. They either do not prefer to engage directly into the politics or they are being left out of the political sphere in order not to lose their position at the university. The other very crucial reason of the absence of female academics in politics is related to the fact that political arena is highly masculinized and there is not much room for females within (Er, 2008, p. 113). Hence politics and academy reflects as both conflicts with the roles of being a wife and/or a mother. We bear in mind that this problem is another crucial area that requires further investigation. In this paper, we solely examine the identity issue through the identity phenomenon in Butler’s theory of subject. There are a reasonable number of sound researches done in very recent times but we did not include those outstanding researches in our paper.

On the other hand, the gender roles that fiercely imposed by society, which is pointed out in the introduction part of this study, as colour choices of parents, or toys, are transtivise into a gender conflict that most of the female academics face through their academic life. This gender conflict is the situation of straddle between the household work and academic work (Er, 2010). Therefore this situation has a negative

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reflection on the academic performances of woman. Those performances, in Butler’s terms performativity, are continually forced by opposing directions; one through the roles of femininity like motherhood and wife and other forcing the subject to the direction of administrative (political) roles, which are considered to be masculine. There is another crucial finding from Ozkanli’s article (2007) The Situation Of Academic Women in Turkey, which we think is open for a discussion. Ozkanli found that the female academics prefers to reject the administrative positions such as dean’s office, chief of department and even rectorate because of the role conflict that exists between family roles and academic workload. However, we assume that there is a very crucial nuance in this argument and suggest that there are very common occasions that especially relatively less “powerful” female academics who are thought to reject those positions with their free will, but the underlying reason might be quite different. The senior academics sometimes put an implicit pressure on the female academics for rejecting such positions for their interest.

Therefore, the last but not the least fact driven from the above-mentioned academic writings, is the infamous psychological violence. The authors of those writings states that there is a symbolic violence conducted by mostly senior female academics onto young scholars. More clearly most of the female academics struggle with psychological violence both from their male and female superiors in academic arena. In respect to this, we believe that the subject matter of symbolic violence is highly crucial with many aspects and should be researched from many different perspectives.

While touching upon all these problems by the light of the striking relation of the female subject amidst performativity and habitus, we draw the scope of this presentation very narrowly and solely on academic female subject. We believe that this relation deserves further attention which can be conducted on many distinctive areas. Moreover, the two theorists, both are very influential and eye opening academics, Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu, deserves significant researches which are already conducted, but still there is a room for more further research about those two theorists in terms of their key concepts. On the other hand, the junction of the key concepts, performativity and habitus, leads us to foresee many meritorious researches would be conducted.

An explanatory outcome of this study illustrates that the issue of speech and norms remains a taboo in female academics. The interviewed female academics does

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not give any clue about either speech acts or ordinary language, that are conceptualized by Butler, as it stated throughout this study in the section “Performativity as a ritualized process”. Therefore it was a hard task for both of us to subtract a comment about the role of norms over speech acts and the language used by academics among their colleagues. We believe that this silence is an unspoken act and has a reason. The female academics tend not to speak about the suppressive speech act, which leads to linguistic vulnerability with a high degree of probability, shaped by a range of heterosexual norms and values. Furthermore, while commenting that the academia in general becomes over-masculinized, it won’t be bizarre to state that there is a high level of heterosexual suppression over the female academics and “codes of legitimacy”. In Butler’s terms, those are established precisely through the invocation of non-ordinary words in ways that appear to have a systematic relation to one another. We believe that this unspoken act itself constitutes a very substantial finding and enables a valuable platform for further research.

5. Bibliography

Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant L. J. D. (1992) Invitation to Reflexive Sociology Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Bourdieu, P. (2001) Masculine Domination. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Butler, J. (1997) Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of Performative. New York and London: Routledge.

Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity New York and London: Routledge.

Er, D. (2008) A Sociological Approach to the Situation and Problems of the Academic Women in the Modern Turkey, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Firat University, Elazig, Turkey.

Naymansoy, G. (2010) ‘Turkish Female Academicians and their Contributions to

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Science’ Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences 9(1): 203-232.

Ozkanli, O. (2007) ‘The Situation of Academic Women’ Education and Science, 32 (144): 59-70.

Ozkanli, O. (2010) ‘Structural and Cultural Barriers For Women in Senior Management in Turkish Universities’ Mülkiye 36(268): 267-281.

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AUDIENCE RECEPTION IN MOROCCAN WOMEN’S MAGAZINES10

Aicha Bouchara School of Arts and Humanities, Sais-Fès University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah [email protected]

Abstract: audiences have been perceived as passive media consumers. However, recent research disproves this belief by showing that audiences receive media productions critically. In accordance with this kind of research, this paper investigates female audiences’ various interpretations of Moroccan women’s magazines and studies the implications of which category of readers these women belong to. In order to answer this thesis, a specific methodology is adopted. While questionnaires form the quantitative methodology which provides statistical findings about the reading activity of Moroccan female readers, the qualitative methodology is undertaken by the study of two Moroccan women’s magazines: Femmes du Maroc and Lalla Fatema.

Keywords: female audiences, commercial culture, pleasure, hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional readings.

1. Introduction

The media are political and cultural vehicles through which representations of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and gender are displayed. These representations have been analyzed by many cultural and media critics as well as feminists. These latter have been the ones to shed light on a subject often marginalized in media research. In fact, the study of gender politics in the media has revealed diverse and contradictory discourses. In Morocco, however, most of the analysis of media texts contended that a pejorative image of women is delivered. This image limits the roles of women in traditional roles such as mother and/or wife. Another derogatory portrayal is the sexualization of the image of women in different media. Thus, such depictions do not reflect the ‘real’ situation of Moroccan women, and do not deliver a good model and other alternatives to these women. Nevertheless, the analysis done on the level of production politics is inconsistent due to the lack of audience research. Until recent years, audience reception research has been a feature of cultural studies. Indeed, since texts can be interpreted in different ways, cultural studies contends that gender, race, class, sexual preferences, and different ideologies all influence the way an individual interprets a text. Hence, ethnographic cultural research has been conducted in the field of media in order to determine how media audiences explain media texts and whether these have any positive or negative effects on them. Moreover, it was discovered that the audience sometimes subverts the meaning which producers of texts want to convey. In order to give a voice to female audiences and investigate the way they interpret media texts, this paper focuses on the reception politics of a very popular women’s

10 This communication paper results from my PhD research project entitled “Reception Politics in Moroccan Women’s Magazines: Femmes du Maroc and Lalla Fatema as Case Studies” 2012-2013.

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genre which is women’s magazines in Morocco. This investigation comes to research and test whether Moroccan women are active readers of media materials and whether the media directed to them contributes in any way in the progress of women’s call for equal rights. At this point, many crucial questions about the politics of production and reception should be asked: Do WM provide any kind of knowledge to their readers? What kind of representations and identities do they present female individuals with? Do they challenge patriarchal media representations of women? Can WM be considered hegemonic media texts? What kind of feminist discourses are promoted in case they are included in these magazines? Many other questions concerning female audiences are crucial to the main thesis question: Are readers satisfied with WM’s contents? Do their readers consider them an authority or do they read them as a form of entertainment? Are these audiences conscious of the various identities promoted in WM? And, if the answer to this question is positive, do these readers adopt, reject, adapt, or are totally indifferent to those identities?

1.1 Adjusting Production to Reception: New Visions

This research is based on the analysis of two dimensions of WM which are the politics of production and reception. When we speak about WM as a genre, it is compulsory to refer to the theories of popular culture and feminist analyses since these two areas of research have come to deconstruct dominant discourses which marginalize minorities in order to achieve hegemonic intentions. The study of ideology is one of these theories. According to Marx, those who rule possess people’s consciousness because they are the ones who think, who produce knowledge through which the ruled are governed. Thus, social subjects are not free to choose to adopt a certain ideology. Althusser explains that ideology has the capacity to ‘interpellate’ individuals as subjects, i.e. it entices individuals to believe in a specific form of social reality, hence turning them into subjects dependent on a distinct existence. However, for ideology to be effective, it takes shape in a discourse. This is what Foucault explains by showing that the focus of discourse is not on meaning production but is rather on the relations between power and knowledge. In other words, discourse is formed in the interests of those social structures which have authority and power. For Foucault, those who own the means of communication, such as the mass media, are the ones most likely to control our knowledge; hence making us inside a certain ideology and outside another. In this way, however, discourse would seem an imposed ideology unless this latter is presented as being true, ethical, and meaningful. This manipulation creates a subordinate individual. This is what Adorno and Horkheimer believe by explaining that the capitalist system encourages the duplication of cultural aspects leaving no room for variation, hence shaping people’s minds in the same manner. This culture industry hinders the mind from thinking creatively and so the individual becomes passive to the ideologies and discourses produced by the ruling classes. Nevertheless, this idea that audiences are nothing but ‘cultural dupes’ has been criticized and proved to be wrong. Cultural and Feminist studies of audience research have shown that audiences have a more critical view on ideas/ products they receive on the media. Cultural studies have focused on a neglected angle of media consumption which is audience reception.

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In his article “Encoding, Decoding”, Stuart Hall contends that the decoding of a message can be different from the encoded message. This means that the interpretation of a discourse may not have the same meanings of the production stage. Hence, readers can produce their own meanings. Therefore, Hall presents three types of reading: First, the “dominant-hegemonic position” is when the reader re-produces the discourses of the production level, thus entering the scope of the preferred reading where she/ he is under the hegemony of the encoded text. Second, the “negotiated position” is where decoding joins both an acceptance of the dominant ideologies and an adaptation of that discourse to one’s cultural and social situations. The last type of reading for Hall is the “oppositional” one. This reading goes completely against the grain and refuses to adapt. Instead, it creates its own interpretation which defies hegemonic discourses. Hall’s reading positions are similar to Elaine Showalter’s identity processes. The first identity is the “feminine stage” which refers to the internalization and reproduction of the patriarchal ideologies of one’s society. Second, the “feminist stage” is an opposition and revolt against those standards which keep woman as a second class citizen. Finally, the “female stage” refers to the phase in which there is a search for an autonomous identity detached from the dominant standards. Following the progress which cultural studies has achieved at the level of reception, some feminist critics have criticized the exaggerated interest of feminist studies in the production level of media texts on the expense of the reception level. Ang and Hermes explain that feminist researches have been reductionist of female readers. This means that feminists considered women as passive audiences, as victims absorbed by the hegemonic and sexist contents of the media. Moreover, Ang and Hermes contend that texts are polysemic and can be understood in many ways according to the cultural and personal experiences of an individual. For this reason, the authors strongly defend ethnographic research which seeks to investigate what the audience makes of media texts. Moreover, this type of research bridges the gap between the feminist and female audiences. Liesbet van Zoonen explains that the feminist focus on the production level silences women’s voices and pretends to know “what is best for women” (van Zoonen, 1996:42). There are some theories which present new visions about the relationship between a media text and the audience. One of these theories is Eric Landowski’s “general theory of interaction” in which he explains how meaning is produced and how it is related to power. For Landowski, meaning is produced through interactions. He refers to two kinds of regimes of interaction to show the different power relations between producer and receiver of a specific discourse. The first regime of interaction is the “manipulation regime” which refers to the way exploitation takes place in order to exert power by arising curiosity using temptation, provocation, order, politeness, and coaxing. Such attempts to intrigue create the desire to seize what is offered. Moreover, politically speaking, manipulation is manifested when someone pretends to speak for the people and claims to know what the people want. This is what Landowski calls faire faire or to “make-do”. The other kind of regime is called “adjustment”. In this interaction there are no economic ends but the main aim is to know what the other feels. Contact with this other reveals her/ his feelings. This interaction is not supposed to be understood as being a calculated plan. On the contrary, it is a spontaneous act and encourages respect of the other’s autonomy. This means that it is an affective investment that may result in many types of emotional creation. Nevertheless, adjustment can be a controlling tool to faire sentir or to “make-feel” which makes of sensitive subjects the main target of this regime. Emotionally vulnerable individuals are addressed through the interaction of adjustment in order to make them feel a specific feeling. Sometimes, however,

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the adjustment regime of interaction is used for economic ends to achieve the manipulation regime. It can be deduced that Landowski’s manipulation and adjustment regimes of interaction are interchangeable. Another important theory which tries to explain why the audience enjoys or loathes a media text is the theory of pleasure. Laura Mulvey was the first to examine this theory in film studies through the concept of scopophilia, or the pleasure felt while looking at someone or something. For Mulvey, since the male character in a movie is the bearer of the look of the spectator, then this latter identifies with the hero and sees the image of woman as an object of desire to be gazed at. However, Mulvey failed to apply her theory on women spectators. Rosalind Gill examines the kind of pleasure women viewers feel when seeing the female body being exhibited in advertisements. In fact, she contends that female pleasure resides in choosing to become sexual subjects in order to gain power. This means that women audiences appreciate images where women’s sexual appearances seem to grant them with power. Gill is deeply concerned about this new idea of pleasure through media and points out that “On one hand, it constitutes a recognition that gender power relations are partially lived out at the level of appearances; more disturbingly, though, it represents a shift from an external judging male gaze to a self-policing narcissistic gaze” (Gill, 2007: 90). What is most important in this quote is the phrase “self-policing narcissistic gaze.” In fact, while Mulvey showed long ago that the gaze is produced by man towards woman; Gill asserts that the gaze is nowadays produced by women towards themselves. Thus, the female spectator derives pleasure from objectifying herself and seeing herself as a subject of desire and envy. Pleasure has also been explained through Janice Radway’s female audience research on the reading of the romance. Radway uncovers the fact that romance readers feel pleasure when there is a process of identification with the heroine because there is a real desire to be emotionally cared for by men; feelings missed in the real world for these women, which makes them fulfill this desire at least in the fictional world of romance. Another reason for identification is that the heroine expresses a strong personality in the story. Women’s desire to “dissociate themselves from the stereotype of women as weak, passive, and foolish individuals” makes them turn to fiction where they feel they can live an experience of a courageous and bold woman who stands up to any kind of sexist behaviors towards her (Radway,1983: 69). Other kinds of pleasure felt by romance readers is that this type of literature enables them to escape from the real world and devote some time to themselves. On the other hand, Ien Ang’s study of Dallas’ female viewers reveals that pleasure is felt in resisting the ideologies in the soap opera. In fact, female viewers find pleasure in mockery and irony. For Ang, irony creates distance between the viewer and Dallas and imposes a ‘protection’ from the promoted ideologies in such series. “Irony then comes to lead its own life and this viewing attitude becomes a necessary condition for experiencing pleasure in the first place. […] creating a distance between oneself and Dallas as ‘bad object’, is the way in which one likes Dallas” (Ang, 1993: 409, emphasis in original). The notion of pleasure is surely a problematic question, especially when it is studied in relation to media. It has been given ambivalent meanings ranging from feeling pleasure in objectifying the other or in being objectified, to pleasure in escaping the real world and finding refuge and satisfaction in the imaginary world of media, to pleasure in resisting different media discourses. Studying pleasure in media studies will not only help in understanding how media promote their ideologies and discourses but will also reveal how audiences feel about such media materials.

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1.2 Research Methodology 1.2.1 Questionnaires

Since this research focuses on female audience reception of women’s magazines in Morocco, the survey technique used for data gathering is that of questionnaires. The population of this investigation belongs to the upper and lower middle class, literate and educated women, and residents of Meknes city, Morocco. The choice of this specific population is based on many reasons. Firstly, the selection of upper and lower middle class individuals ensures that many of them, if not all, are able to buy a WM, and, as a result, have had a reading experience with this medium. Secondly, researching the reception of WM automatically means that its readership is literate and may also have a certain capacity of critical reading and thinking. Moreover, being a city in central Morocco, Meknes is characterized by a conservative population on the opposite of more liberal cities, such as Casablanca or Rabat. This is an essential factor to this research for it sheds light on a population often ignored in numerous surveys of media use in Morocco. The sample for this population is non-random. Respondents were selected carefully according to some heterogeneous criteria including different age groups (20s and above), different marital statuses and different occupations which influence the respondents’ answer choices. The total number of 250 responses were collected through a direct administration of questionnaires (in three different languages: Arabic, French, and English) and through e-mails. The results were analyzed using the SPSS software.

1.3 Moroccan Women’s Magazines: An Overview

By the end of the eighties, the number of printed press for female readers in Morocco was very limited. Magazines such as Lamalif (1960) and Kalima (1986) were aimed not only at women but to men as well. Both of them discussed social, cultural, and economic issues from a political point of view. Unfortunately, these magazines and others suffered much censorship which led to their closure in 1988 and 1989 respectively. It is in 1996, that one Moroccan magazine in French appeared and has continued to exist 15 years later: Femmes du Maroc, which has been subsequently followed by a huge number of WM (in French and Arabic) in the 21st century when the press has acquired more freedom of expression. Unlike the previous generation of WM, which formed a threat to the then political regime, modern magazines directed to women have different agendas and are considered to be part of popular culture. In order to understand their mechanisms, two very different WM, namely Femmes du Maroc (FDM) and Lalla Fatema (LF) are analyzed. Each magazine has its own editorial line which is noticeable in the choice of images, advertisements, topics, and perspectives. One important difference between the two is language. The former is in French and the latter is in Arabic. The language of a WM limits the type of audience. For instance, French speaking WM are elitist and are not accessible to all Moroccan female readers since the most spoken and/ or read languages in Morocco are Arabic and Tamazight. LF claims to be directed to women and to the Moroccan family. The Moroccan family, however, is a description which is difficult to determine since there are numerous examples of Moroccan families. In fact, it can either be a nuclear family including only the couple, or the couple and the children, or one parent with their child(ren), or a more extended family including the in-laws/ grandparents. In this sense, the magazine is supposed to treat all kinds of families and tackle their problems.

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FDM claims following a feminist editorial line by discussing women’s social issues and by the call for equal rights between men and women. Along with tackling issues that concern Moroccan women, the magazine also claims to be concerned with the woman as an individual, hence recalling an individualist society in a feminist-community mold. The publication director stresses the fact that the magazine extends its interests to topics which give pleasure and entertainment to female readers. Hence, the blend between a feminist and a consumerist discourse makes of FDM a magazine that speaks about and for women although it remains to examine whether it speaks to them.

2. Analysis of the Results 2.1 The Commercial Dimension

Trusting WM’s evaluations of products and feeling gratified and/ or frustrated are two essential observations which have been drawn from the respondents’ reactions concerning the commercial dimension. Half of the respondents trust WM in spite of being completely conscious of WM’s commercial side but do not mind pages including evaluations of products. They describe these pages as presenting various options for women especially that there are instructions for each product such as for whom it most suits or for what reasons it can be used. By including such information, WM gain trust from their female readers who consider them a friend and an adviser. The language employed in WM makes female readers consider themselves members of the same club and so belonging to a unique group. For example, WM would address readers through the pronoun of the first person plural “we” (“Nous” and “On” in French) or include articles entitled as “Confidences” which give the impression that secrets among women are shared. In this sense, the reading of a WM seems like reading a diary or enjoying a gathering between friends. Therefore, since a friend is supposed to guide you towards what is beneficial for you, then WM can ‘only’ tell the truth especially that it provides its readers with a multitude of products to choose from and does not provide them with one option according to this category of readers. The other half of the respondents questioned the objective of WM stating that their main goal is to make material profit and, more deceivingly according to them, such magazines become a tool in the hands of advertisers in order to promote their products. These respondents bare hard feelings towards any commercial nature in WM and towards products in general. It is important to define the nature of these respondents in order to understand the reason behind this distrust of WM. In fact, it is the youngest category (between 20 and 30 years old) which rejects WM’s evaluation of a product. This rejection can be explained by either the fact that these young women lack the financial resources to be able to buy those products or because of a feeling of confidence and self-assertion. In fact, a consumerist culture of beauty products delivers the opposite discourse of accepting one’s self and celebrating it included in the same WM. Therefore, this commercial discourse is unaccepted by these readers because, for them, it is neither ethical nor meaningful: two necessary aspects for discourse to be freely accepted according to Foucault. Consequently, this distrustful reaction confutes the definition of popular culture as being directed to an uncritical and stoic audience as the Frankfurt school examines. After reading a WM, some respondents feel either gratified while others are frustrated. The need to buy the products advertised may cause these emotions. In order to understand this, a comprehension of what the act of buying represents for these

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women is essential. Buying provides pleasure for respondents which can be explained by two aspects. First, some women seek gratification through buying products in the hope of fulfilling a certain emotional void. Second, these women’s financial independence permits them to buy which provides pleasure and self-worth. This explains why some respondents become frustrated when they cannot afford buying those products especially that they are claimed to provide satisfaction. This power of WM to proliferate the commercial culture as giving gratification is what Louis Althusser explains through his idea of interpellation, which is based on the fact that ideology entices individuals to believe in a specific form of social reality. Also, regarding Landowski’s concepts of the adjustment and manipulation regimes, these respondents are the perfect target for WM. Indeed, the emotionally vulnerable people are made to feel some specific emotions in order to create the desire to seize what is offered. Hence, in this sense, to make-feel in order to make-do can be translated into: make female audiences feel imperfect and having flaws in order to make them seek perfection through using the advertised products. It is neither possible, however, to pretend that the need to buy those products is false and that it does not emerge from women themselves without being enticed nor assert that these needs are real. Consequently, it is this uncertainty and confusion on whether that need is false or real that make WM promise satisfaction and gratification when using a product. Female audiences, however, are not all able to gratify that need and so consumer anxiety and frustration are likely to follow the act of reading a WM.

2.2 On Providing Pleasure

The act of reading a WM makes respondents feel pleasure which resides in three aspects: empowerment, space for women’s experiences, and discussion over emotional problems. 22,4% of female readers show interest in editorial articles which empowers them, such as a criticism of gender representations. Indeed, some WM present a de-constructed patriarchal image of a woman’s role in Moroccan society by including the woman in historical, economic, political, cultural, and sociological contexts. This variety encourages women readers to understand that their position in their society does not have to be limited in the family context but it can be unbounded. Respondents express immense pleasure when they encounter pages introducing female personalities who have succeeded in their responsibilities. Another empowering aspect in WM is the discourse of loving one’s self and celebrating it. FDM, however, takes this idea to an extreme point of view by making women readers form a narcissistic gaze which promotes gaining power over men as it has been suggested by Gill. On the opposite of this magazines’ intentions, although respondents manifest the desire to read all articles which empower them and make them feel good about their appearances and personalities, they defend this pleasure in order to gain control over their bodies and accept themselves the way they are. The second aspect of pleasure which women readers find in WM is the fact that these magazines provide a space for women’s everyday experiences. When asked about what type of editorial they are interested in, 68,1% respondents agree on useful advice articles (cooking recipes and tips, religious pages, health pages and child care, and solutions to everyday problems) as sources of entertainment and helpfulness. For many readers of WM, sharing anxieties lets them know that they are not alone in a given situation which lightens their burden in carrying a problem. For others, the pleasure felt

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when reading useful advice may return to the possibility of being previously knowledgeable of how to react to some situations. The last source of pleasure is the section dedicated to emotional problems in relation to heterosexual love. Women readers send mails to WM about their emotional and/ or sexual problems with men and seek solutions to their sentimental troubles. LF answers their calls by constantly reminding readers that advice is offered for married women since the traditional Moroccan society does not conceive of heterosexual love outside the bonds of marriage. However, FDM offers a clandestine pleasure and dissolves the bonds with those traditions and brings about different conceptions of heterosexual relations by providing women (married or single) with the advice they need.

2.3 Feminist Concerns

After analyzing the questionnaires’ results and WM, it can be deduced that respondents and Moroccan WM manifest the three identities presented by Elaine Showalter which coincide with Stuart Hall’s reading positions. Moreover, there is a constant clash between the values of tradition and those of modernity.  The Feminine Identity: The feminine ideologies promoted by this discourse are themes dealing with beauty, consumption, fragility, docility, and foolishness attributed to women. This femininity leads women to think of beauty the way WM present it, which is that women have imperfect bodies that need betterment through consumption of products in order to resemble the perfect model of beauty. However, the questionnaire results show that low percentages represent women who enjoy looking at fashion models and wish to resemble them, hence positioning themselves in the dominant-hegemonic reading:

Age: - 20s: 9,5% - 30s: 10% - 40s: 13,8% - 50s: 12% Marital Status: - Single: 9,4% - Married: 9,4% - Divorced: 25%

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It is tentative to suppose that as women undergo complicated psychological or physical periods in their lives, they tend to yield to the dominant standards about beauty and body image in WM. Hence, commercial culture plays on audience insecurities and doubts about themselves and make[s] them feel pleasure to fill in an emotional void.  The Feminist Identity: Few respondents adopt the feminist position regarding WM’s editorials and fashion images. To illustrate this: - 10,4% of the total respondents contend that they don’t read WM, justifying their rejection by either the futility of the magazines or the lack of time to read them. - 5,6% adopted the “revolted and offended” position when asked about the way they feel when reading a WM. - 2,6% of the total respondents don’t like watching fashion model images because they don’t feel any affinity with them These low percentages show that female respondents rarely assume Hall’s oppositional reading in order to achieve a feminist identity which is a defensive and antagonistic stand towards WM and their discourses.  The Female Identity: An autonomous identity is demonstrated occasionally in the magazine FDM but not in LF. The reason for the absence of this criterion in LF is that it focuses on the woman individual as part of a family and so bound by the dominant discourses of the Moroccan society. FDM, however, offers women some autonomous identities which do not mime the dominant and traditional discourses. For instance, the magazine discusses the financial emancipation of women inside the marital institution since, in a patriarchal frame of thought, they are dependent on a male figure in their families in order to sustain them. Another example is the single woman identity which is unacceptable and rejected by traditional Moroccan society since the only status acceptable for a woman is to be married once she reaches the appropriate age. Female respondents, on the other hand, are aware of this incompatibility which justifies their negotiating position. Although WM may present identities related to the female stage, it is not possible for many women readers to adopt those identities since most of them are contrary to the traditional Moroccan context. Their negotiated reading, as Hall contends, permits them to adapt the hegemonic discourse to their socio-cultural conditions, hence creating other meanings. The only category of respondents which shows an autonomous identity is the one which is indifferent towards WM. Expressing an indifferent response shows that the female reader detaches her personal identity from WM’s contents and so her act of reading can be either a dis-identification or dis-interestedness. Thus, we can say that these respondents are either satisfied with their own identity and do not wish to change it or that they aren’t satisfied with the identities presented.  Feminist/ Traditional and Modern Discourses The relationship between the Moroccan feminist and female audiences is characterized by a big void because these latter’s opinions are ignored and considered incapable to know what is best for them. This unstable condition can be witnessed in the relationship between FDM and its readers. In spite of the informal tone which this WM adopts to take the role of a friend to the female reader, there are other contents where feminist and /or modern ideologies are promoted while traditional values and the opinions of many female audiences are thwarted. FDM, for example, adopts some forms of European

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feminism. There is no presence whatsoever of African, Islamic, or Arab feminism. The aim of this magazine is to call for a modern, liberal, and secular society. The inside sphere, that is the home, is discussed in terms of the couple relationship in FDM. Contrary to what a religious and traditional society expects, this relationship does not always recall the marriage institution. Hence, woman and man are seen as individuals, each having her/ his own desires and ways of thinking. The family institution is only mentioned when there is an article about children and their education. Moreover, FDM presents many modern identities especially those related to women being in the outside sphere. For example, modern identities related to a woman’s profession determine many aspects of her life and the way people see her. Another example is how fashion may give a woman different identities such as a vintage (revisited), avant-garde (post-modern), nude (skin colors), tribal (primitive African tribes), or androgynous (tomboy) styles. Thus, by presenting modern and sometimes post-modern identities, FDM focuses on individualism and presents women as entirely autonomous citizens. The celebration of the female self in this WM, a break from traditional standards, results in the opposite of what feminism calls for which is sisterhood and unity. FDM’s approach to these subjects is without any discomfort which, in a society where tradition is still very present, creates, in the readers, confusion, annoyance and a sense of not belonging. However, not all WM in Morocco can be considered to express feminist thought. In fact, this is the case of LF which makes use of traditional and modern discourses in order to reach as many readers as possible (women or men). The family institution forms the pillar theme around which most of the magazine’s articles revolve. The emotional relationship and the possible problems between man and woman are discussed as far as the marital institution is concerned. This community spirit is celebrated through enhancing traditional values especially those related to religious practices (family traditions during Ramadan and the Aid). Moreover, LF transmits a conservative ideology by the intentional omission of taboo subjects because it is a belief that the typical Moroccan family does not discuss taboo subjects as they are considered a source of embarrassment and a lack of respect inside that specific family. However, even if LF adopts this traditional and conservative view, it tries to show a modern image of Morocco by calling on the importance for women to acquire rights without opening a serious debate. Another modern perspective is the one related to consumerism. LF introduces women readers to discover other identity forms through modern styles of dressing and make-up products. Therefore, LF’s suturing of traditional and modern aspects of women’s lives is not achieved in a fluid and careful manner. Respondents have expressed their disapproval of LF because of either superficial readings of a subject or because of the exclusion of topics which they consider more important to be put into debate. In fact, there is an imbalance in portraying tradition and modernity which complicates their inclusion in female audiences’ daily lives.

3.Conclusion

Most respondents are against the editorial line of most/ all WM in Morocco. They also show that they are eager to read media contents to which they can relate. They need to know about instructive subjects which would either help them in their lives or make them understand their society better. Moreover, they are totally against the objectification of the woman’s body when it comes to advertising products in WM.

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Nevertheless, other respondents expressed their approval and reasons behind reading WM. These respondents are very satisfied that WM exist since they provide them with useful advice, keeps them informed about new events, and suggests to them the latest fashion and products. They also like the fact that WM introduces positive role models of women who have succeeded in their lives despite their societies’ gender prejudices. It is worth to note that WM receive two contradictory reactions. Some are against them for different reasons which can be summarized in the fact that they do not satisfy these readers’ aspirations. Hence, these audiences distance themselves from WM either by boycotting them or by undervaluing the act of reading and turning it into a mere action of leafing through them. Others value WM for they represent the only medium which speaks personally to women and through which they have a space to express and share their opinions, worries, and hopes. Despite their opposite views and feelings towards WM, the common point observed between both parties is that there is an obvious thirst of acquiring knowledge and of bettering one’s self and life.

4.Bibliography

Adorno, T. & Horkheimer, M. (1976), “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”, Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, pp.120-167.

Althusser, L. (1981), “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, Untying the Text. Ed. Young, R. London: Routledge, pp. 1-60.

Ang, I. & Joke H. (1996), “Gender and/in Media Consumption”, Mass Media and Society. Eds. Curran J. & Gurevitch, M. London: Arnold, pp. 325- 347.

Ang, I. (1993), “Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture”, The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. During, S. London: Routledge, pp. 403-420.

Foucault, M. (1981), “The Order of Discourse”, Untying the Text. Ed. Young, R. London: Routledge, pp. 48-78.

Gill, R. (2007), Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hall, S. (1993) “Encoding, Decoding”, The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. During, S.. London: Routledge, pp. 90-103.

Landowski, E. Oral Presentation: “Communication Politique: Analyse Sémiotique des Pratiques et des Discours Politiques.” University of Moulay Ismail, School of Arts and Humanities, Meknes. Morocco. 28th April 2010.

Marx, K. & Engels, F. (2001), The German Ideology. New York: International Publishers.

Mulvey, L. (2009) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Visual and Other Pleasures. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 14-30.

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Radway, J. (1983), “Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context.” Feminist Studies, 9.1, pp. 53-78.

Showalter, E. (1982), A Literature of their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë To Lessing. London: Virago Press.

Zoonen, V. L. (1996) “Feminist Perspectives on the Media”, Mass Media and Society. Eds. Curran J. & Gurevitch, M. London: Arnold, pp. 31-52.

Case Studies:

Lalla Fatema: N° 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35.

Femmes du Maroc: N° 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171.

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A READING OF MASCULINITY IN CRISES: BEHZAT Ç

Merve Ayşe Köseoğlu Hacettepe University Communication Science Department MA Student [email protected]

Abstract: we can assume television as a basin, has cultural products that shows humanities in intense just like novel in 19th century and cinema in 20th century (Atay, 2014). Popular cinema –so now serials- shows breakages –and also ghosts who can fix them- of the so-called perfect, complete world of ideology. So also enables to see and interpret symptoms of social sphere, how different political discourses penetrates in social desires and leads them (Arslan, 2004). Masculinity is one of the topics in our daily lives that offers itself as natural, normal and ordinary. Hegemonic masculinity is a term to show and understand how some man groups hold power & prosperity and reproducing it both on women and men (Carrigan, Connell, & Lee, 1985) .Today, basic intention is to consider masculinity as total crises. Chancing economic and social situations leads chancing gender roles and compulsory redefinition; according to Selek always having confusing ‘hesitation’ (Selek, 2009). Behzat Ç. is latterly very popular TV serial in Turkey which provides us space of research in popular culture. In conclusion, in synthesis of all that acknowledgments, this study will try to make a reading of masculinity in crises on/about Behzat Ç. serial. In this research; basic method is analysis on parts of serial. First of all discourse analysis on leading role Behzat and other characters, will help us to see entire story. So we can see their position on crossroads of his city, job and relationships. Research justivicates that there is some chances in masculinity that we call crises. And we can see that crises in our everyday lives, so we can see and read it from also popular culture productions. As an example from Turkey, TV serial named Behzat Ç. shows a man in masculinity crises. Key words: masculinity, masculinity in crises, popular culture, Behzat Ç.

1. Introduction: My story about study

I have been living in a family for 27 years and in Turkey, so I know it a bit of them. I want to see what is going on with men (and also women) around me. Actually, after using some quotation from Behzat Ç. serial and see that they are useful and working in daily life and men in my life having troubles day by day so I said I have to look it closer. Gender is a topic that I am interested in for four-five years. It is so real, in the middle of everyday life and so politic, around me, I am in it. I thought good point to start to see power relations. I had a flat mate from Seville, he was understanding me and my feminist sensibilities but, Turkish flat mate was not. So I got, gender is global issue as Connell told but there are some differences and you should see it culturally and historically. I was a good audience of the show Behzat Ç: Bir Ankara Polisiyesi. It was so popular among young people. For example, in Ekşi Sözlük (a popular dictionary that people join and write their opinions about topics) there are 160 topics about the serial and under ‘’Behzat Ç.’’ topic there are 8550 entries in the end of first 30 chapters.

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In light of all above; Behzat Ç. brought together questions in my mind. And then so this study focuses on Behzat Ç.: Bir Ankara Polisiyesi serial, which exposes the male characters’ conflicting inner processes and allows presentations that can be commented within the concept of masculinity crises. Study aims to see which images are using to show masculinity crises and this crises reuniform hegemonic masculinity with an example from Turkey.

2. Theoretical Background

Gender is always contradictory structure, arenas of tension (Connell & Messerschmidt, Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, 2005). It is relevant to culture, technology, society and economy; it depends on time and space. But popular ideology represents gender the stable, natural and something does not change (Connell R. , Politics of Changing Men, 2014). So all that causes makes it hard to handle even they can be easily seen in our individual lives. According to Connell, as masculinities and femininities are gender projects, gender is reproductive arena of human bodies that should taken as system of social relations (Connell R. W., The Social Organisation of Masculinity, 2004). If we take gender as a system of social relations, we can take masculinities as the patterns of social practice associated with the position of men. Masculinity refers to male body but is not determined by biology. With the help of post-structuralism effect on social sciences, identity became multiple and reconstructive. So instead of one dimensional masculinity, new sociology of masculinity offers multi-dimensional, historical, cultural and symbolic masculinities in the context of power relations (Yüksel, 2013). In studying masculinities, hegemonic masculinity helps us to handle different masculinities, which is not only relevant to hegemony on women but also hegemony on men. Hegemonic masculinity is not stable and certain, it is as dynamic as gender explanation of Connell that differs from time to time in a culture. Even can change in a man’s’ lifetime. Hegemonic masculinity tries to explain how a minority of man hold power and power positions, how legitimize it and reconstruct hegemony (Sancar, 2009). Only a minority of man might enach it but it requires all other men to position themselves in relation to it. It is ideologically legitimized (Connell & Messerschmidt, Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, 2005). In critical masculinities study general framework is,  Different masculinities can be together in same culture  Hegemonic masculinity exists in a relationship with women and other men  Masculinities can be performed not only personal performances of men but also by institutions or men groups  Even bodily experiences does not immobilize men identity, pleasures of body and getting injured of body helps to development/management/performance of manhood  Actively constructed men and masculinities can change (Connell R. W., Masculinities and Men’s Health, 2001) Another big topic of masculinity studies is masculinity crises. Today basic orientation is to take masculinity/ masculine identity as total crises (Cook & Bernink, 2006). Some writers like Lynne Segal, Walter Hollstein and John MacInnes says with help of/after feminist and gay movement, modernity and globalization and their

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consequences in society, economy and technology that leads insecurity and uncertainty, hegemonic masculinity is in crises because of lack of productivity (Yüksel, 2013). On the other hand, there are theorist like Beynon; because there are masculinities, we cannot talk about one big crises about masculinities (Beynon, 2002). Also, according to Connell, this changing situations does not damage patriarchy and hegemony of men over women, crises tendencies, may provoke attempt to restore a dominant masculinity (Connell R. W., The Social Organisation of Masculinity, 2004) Tim Edwards states that masculinity crises gathers under two titles, inside and outside. Inside crises in their personal life and insignificance, ambiguity and alienation. Outside crises is about loss of their exclusive and primary positions in social institutions (Yüksel, 2013).To him, there are three levels of crises in masculinity  As practices, reducing value of masculinity – relating it with negative features  Blurring gender boundaries  Masculinity as crises (Edwards, 2006) In this study, in the light of all studies pointed up, crises in masculinity does not mean an overall hegemony loss, but a crises both inside (including their perception about topic) and outside (including loss of primary position in social institutions)

2.1. About Turkey: An Introduction Trial

There are many explanations about hegemonic masculinityculture to culture, time to time. But we can find some definite terms in them. For example, they include heterosexuality, economic independence, breadwinning, having nothing feminine, emotionally recessive, estimated behaving, putting himself forward, knows what he needs and what to want, hiding anxieties, mastery, toughness and so on (Alsop, 2002; Peterson, 1998; Seidler, 1998; Carrigan at all, 2002). There are of course some similarities with hegemonic masculinity in Europe between Turkey, but also some original differences. For example age and statue can be seen as some other dynamics (Ulusay, 2004) in Turkey. In addition if we try to make some hegemonic masculinity descriptions in Turkey, we have to talk about military. It is not the only but one of the most important institution (Özbay, 2012-2013) because of obligatory military service. Order, uniform, violence are components of military. And that normalize them in mens’ everyday lives. In general, military service called as being man service. Space is another important component. We can take it as places like gendered spaces, like night clubs and drinking houses (Özbay, 2012-2013) coffee houses closed to women and helping men in socialization process. In the beginning of 21st century, globalization, ethnical changes, new conservatism, wild capitalism, relations with European Trade Union, savageness in Middle East and Africa, changing economic, political and social conditions effected Turkeys’ familiar parameters (Ergun, 2009). To Özyeğin; changes in Turkey after 80’s can be listed such as privatization politics, absolute capitalism, neoliberal globalization, relations with Europe (Özyeğin, 2011) as results of these changes in society and politics, rise of religious, ethnic, gender identities, rising nationalism can be count on. So they all caused some changes in settled identities, caused crises (Ulusay, 2004). If we look closer for example, we can see in the result of migration to big cities (Sancar, 2009), rising Kurdish movement, feminist movement as causes of masculinity in crises, that those helped to construct masculine identity as identities constructs on ‘’other’’s.

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When we look masculinity crises literature in Turkey, we see many terms used in meaning of crises such as impossible power, crises, loss, lost of masculinity, hesitation, transformation. After those times, we were able to see ‘’men movies’’ rising in popular Turkish cinema in 90’s. Buddy and road films in 9o’s, not a coincidence that men are all together in a group, after loss of masculine power. This new male cinematography can be seen as compensation off masculinity in crises (Ulusay, 2004). In those buddy films, we see man are over again a big challenges, tasks or goals waiting for them. They are in dangerous situations against bad guys with guns and their friendship that always tested by that difficult tasks (Ulusay, 2004). Even there is no dad in movies, there always are daddy role played one someone elses, there are idealized symbolic fathers. They have to put leading role in masculine world, prepare him for that world (Ulusay, 2004) just like Behzats’ big brother. Women characters are not as powerful as men in those movies. They are generally speechless if not prostitutes. They are also kind of road movies, showing inner journeys of men (Ulusay, 2004).

3. Analysis

Behzat Ç: Bir Ankara Polisiyesi is story by Emrah Serbes. First episode was totally the whole book. And then he helped script writer Ercan Mehmet Erdem in some episode during serial, that they are close friends. Also there is not a director for 3 seasons of serial. There are totally 5 directors (Behzat Ç. Bir Ankara Polisiyesi bölümleri listesi, 2014) that enables us to write from directors’ eye. Totally serial continued 3 seasons and 96 episodes and finished in 2013. Also they made 2 movies with the same crew. Behzat Ç. is serial of the police commissioners’ life. He is solving murders in Ankara with his team. Behzat is opponent to everyday life realities (Tekelioğlu, 2014) that he handles organ trade, conflicts in police organization, works for transvestite murder, helps student activists also watches over Kurdish guys. In 3 years time serial had some serious problems with RTÜK (A government institution which controls TV shows according to popular ideology) and punished many times for different causes such as alcohol, curse, inappropriate behaviours and so on. Even RTÜK made Behzat marry in second season. Finally this very popular serial finished because of that punishments (Eyüboğlu, 2014). Some people thought the story and characters were so rude and macho because of that much alcohol and curses and too many man around. But it was so popular among young people. For example, in Ekşi Sözlük (a popular dictionary that people join and write their opinions about topics) there are 661 topics about the serial and under ‘’Behzat Ç.’’ topic there are 24495 entries in the end (Behzat Ç., 2014). In ‘’towards a new sociology of masculinity‘’ Carrigan, Connell and Lee pointed out that psychodynamics of gender is inseparable from social relations (Wedgwood, 2009) which is also related to post-structuralist multi-identities and that enables us to handle masculinities (multi)dimensional. So in this analysis this approach was really very useful to understand Behzat totally. Behzat means noble man in Turkish, but never learned his surname. Actually writer says, Ç. is a letter that we are not using in Turkish properly, that’s why he wanted to use it, (Cengiz E. , 2014) this is so ironic. Also we saw Behzat in Gezi time, leading role in protest time said Ç. means Çapulcu (president called people in park). It also another clue that how people saw Behzat realistic. To Connell; state is a masculine institution (Connell R. W., The Social Organisation of Masculinity, 2004) and Behzat is working for that masculine institution as

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police commissioners. Behzat became police because he punched a captain when we has in military school. Then his soldier father helped him to be a policeman. In police organization he is not the best. He always has troubles with his managers. But he is good at his job and managers looks for him to solve murders despite he is not obedient to organisation. Paid work is a central source of masculine identity. It requires status, power, symbolic benefits, skills and experiences (Collinson & Hearn, 2004). Behzat many times try to quit but, he can never does. In one example he says, that he is leaving, but adds, he’s going to work with his brother. But actually that all were joke. Another example when he was proposing he claims himself as workaholic. Behzats’ team consists of 5 men and a women in office. 2 of that 5 men are new comers. New members are teased and tested to see if they’re ‘man enough’ to take the insults (Collinson & Hearn, 2004). Also they are not able to handle murders outdoor, they are taking care of the Works as women officer. In an episode, she asked Behzat to go out for murders and added that she knows murder is something masculine. They tried it for two episodes and then she back in office till the end of serials. Male domination in work places, their being aggressive, humorous yet insulting, playful yet degrading (Collinson & Hearn, 2004) just, you can see in office. That Eda (only women at office) bothered with all those aggressiveness, bad jokes and curses around. In 90’sTurkish cinema, this buddy films showed in dangerous situations against bad guys with guns and their friendship always tested (Ulusay, 2004). As a team they come over again a big challenges, tasks or goals waiting for them.Behzat is hegemony for his team. In another saying he is father; listening them, protecting and teaching them as we saw many times in 90’s Turkish ‘’man’’ cinema. Behzat has no daddy in serial time but, he has a big brother who cares for him. He is always there, teaching him and planning his life. This big brother has a family a son and he is manager of a shopping mall. Also he has a lover too. So he seems to symbolize ideal Turkish family guy. Men are more fragile and emotional when they are alone but in a group they became more masculine (Cengiz, Tol, & Küçükural, 2004). But Behzat has his emotions with him always. We are able to see him many times crying. Also he goes in mental hospital few times. Normally hysterics is something feminine. In addition, body is important symbol for masculinity but Behzat is vulnerable both physically and mentally. In an episode there were 5 Behzats in an episode talking each other- There are too much violence in the serial, including symbolic violence. He fights bad guys in every episode. We can see Behzat and his team with their gun, with their fists and so on. This provides them kind of power against hegemonic masculinity in case they are not hegemonic enough. This violetic space gives an area to discuss masculinity as Ta said for fight club. (Ta, 2006). Becaming policeman is an ideal workplace and perfect masculinity symbol (Sancar, 2009). Ercüment Çözer is the hegemonic masculine of the serial. He has networks, he is so rich, he is fit, there are many women around him, he is doing whatever he wants, and he has a surname. Also he killed Behzats’ wife Esra too. In addition to his relations between other men in serial, there are many women around him. In Behzat, there are some women but script writers are so unsuccessful writing this characters like there is only Behzats’ doughter in all three seasons –who got in jailin final-. Those women are powerful ones. For example; Behzat is working for Esra, she is hierarchically above him. In addition women who drinks alcohol is not good for Turkish men (Sancar, 2009) but we see Esra drinking in a traditional drinking house many times. In the end of second season, hegemonic masculine Ercüment killed Esra, because she was so powerful and it was not good for Behzats’ hegemony in serial. When

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we talk people watching serial, most of the men said, she should die. Another women, Bahar is a Behzats’ high school love who left him because he was going to be policeman, lefts him second time. We saw Behzats’ daughter many times as mentoring him. Those women are arbiter more than Behzat about his life. Other women we see in Behzats’ life are two prostitudes as usual in 90’s ‘’man’’movies. Also his mother comes in the middle of second season, is the most powerful women in the serial. She is the only one who can fight with the hegemonic masculine Ercüment Çözer. Mothers represents helplessness, dependency (Kimmel, 2004) which is not good for Behzat. So we watch Behzat always having trouble and fightinh with his mother to become a man. We are able to see Behzat changing in serial time. He says ‘’Esra changed me a lot, made me soften’’ in the usual drinking house. We see also hegemonic roles changing in serial from one character to another, but there is no change in meaning of hegemony. We just see problems and troubles about of whom exposed to that power. In the end, Behzat could not be able to handle all those power problems and leaves the city. At last scene we see him driving out.

4. Conclusion

Research objective of the study was both to see what is going on about masculinity –to show and also make analysis on -in Turkey and to help global studies by showing this case from the aspect of popular culture products. To Connell, bodies are not docile or empty pages or done just by social process. So they are neither out of history, nor prior but open to social processes after changes. To sum up, they are alive and anchored their own historical contexts (Wedgwood, 2009). Keeping in mind hegemonic masculinity also differs in the same time according to parts of society I tried to show how masculinity having relations with hegemonic masculinities and changing after all challenges in corporation to globalization and so on. With the help of putting psychoanalyses in new sociology of masculinity enabled me to make analysis about Behzat in multi-dimensional. In Behzat we see a guy who is trying to be man all the time. He is really bad at relations. When is not able to be a man actually. Even he seems as one of the characters in 90’s Turkish movies, he has much more powerful women around him. Evden he is the hegemonic one in his group, he is not as Ercüment. He is not as powerful as him both emotionally, relationally andeconomically and bodily. So at the end, he leaves everything behind, left the scene. A new gender politics for men means new ways of thinking also willingness and openness for uncertainty and new experiences (Connell R. , Politics of Changing Men, 2014) as we call crises about masculinities. MacInnes asks ‘’A bad time to be man?’’ and answers it, also bad time for being a woman (MacInnes, 2004). Gender identity does not mean sum of social institutions and processes. It in fact is always in motion and can give us some points to make cracks for political transformations (Yüksel, 2013). I am not as pessimistic as MacInnes, I think it is wonderful to live these changes, being part of everything just like as everything that made us who we are in a romantic notion.

5. Bibliography

Özbay, C. (2012-2013). Türkiye'de Hegemonik Erkekliği Aramak. Doğu Batı (63), 185- 205.

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Özyeğin, G. (2011). Arzunun Nesnesi Olmak Romans, Kırılgan Erkeklik ve Neoliberal Özne. C. Özbay, A. Terzioğlu, & Y. Yasin (Dü) içinde, Neoliberalizm ve Mahremiyet (s. 151-178). İstanbul: Metis. Arslan, T. (2004). ''Onu kaybettin Tahsin hem de yıllar önce'': Yeşilçam'ın erkekleri ne istiyor? Toplum ve Bilim (101), 162-192. Atay, T. (2014, Ocak 5). Emmy’nin Estirip Çağrıştırdıkları. Radikal Gazetesi: http://www.radikal.com.tr/yazarlar/tayfun_atay/emmynin_estirip_cagristirdiklari- 1152241 adresinden alınmıştır Behzat Ç. (2014, Şubat 28). Ekşi Sözlük: https://eksisozluk.com/?q= adresinden alınmıştır Behzat Ç. Bir Ankara Polisiyesi bölümleri listesi. (2014, Şubat 28). Wikipedia.org: http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behzat_%C3%87._Bir_Ankara_Polisiyesi_b%C3%B6l%C3 %BCmleri_listesi adresinden alınmıştır Beynon, J. (2002). Masculinities and Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press. Brittan, A. (2004). Masculinities and Masculinism. S. M. Whitehead, & F. J. Barrett (Dü) içinde, The Social Organisation of Masculinity (s. 51-56). Maldon, USA: Polity Press. Candemir, Y. (2014, Şubat 28). Vicdanının sesini dinleyen kahraman. Haberturk Gazetesi: http://www.haberturk.com/medya/haber/559730-vicdaninin-sesini-dinleyen- kahraman adresinden alınmıştır Carrigan, T., Connell, R., & Lee, J. (1985). Toward a new sociology of masculinity. Theory and Society , 551-604. Cengiz, E. (2014, Şubat 28). 'Behzat Ç. Alfabeye İsyanımdır'. haber 365: http://www.haber365.com/Haber/Behzat_C_Alfabeye_Isyanimdir/ adresinden alınmıştır Cengiz, K., Tol, U. U., & Küçükural, Ö. (2004). Hegemonik erkekliğin peşinden. Toplum ve Bilim (101), 50-71. Collinson, D., & Hearn, J. (2004). Naming Men as Men. S. M. Whitehead, & F. J. Barrett (Dü) içinde, The Social Organisation of Masculinity (s. 144-170). Maldon, USA: Polity Press. Connell, R. (2014, 1 12). Gender, Men, and Masculinities. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems: http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c11/e1-17-02-01.pdf adresinden alınmıştır Connell, R. (2014, 1 5). Politics of Changing Men. Australian Humanities Review: http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Dec-1996/connell.html adresinden alınmıştır Connell, R. W. (2001). Masculinities and Men’s Health. B. ed. Baron, & H. Kotthoff içinde, Gender in Interaction: Perspectives on Femininity and Masculinity in Etnography and Discourse (s. 141- 142). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Connell, R. W. (2004). The Social Organisation of Masculinity. In S. M. Whitehead, & F. J. Barrett (Eds.), Masculinities Reader (pp. 30-51). Maldon, USA: Polity. Connell, R., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender Society (19), 829-859. Cook, P., & Bernink, M. (2006). The Cinema Book. London: BFI. Craine, J., & Aitken, S. (2004). Street fighting: Placing the crisis of masculinity in David Fincher's Fİght Club. GeoJornal (59), 289-296. Edwards, T. (2006). Cultures of Masculinity. New York: Routledge. Erdemir, F. (2011). Geleneksel Erkek İmgesinin Dönüşümü: Behzat Ç.'nin Erkeklik Halleri. S. C. Yağcı Aksel (Dü.) içinde, Beyaz Camın Yerlileri (s. 129-177). Kocaeli: Umuttepe Yayınları. Ergun, Z. (2009). Erkeğin Yittiği Yerde. İstanbul: Everest Yayınları. Eyüboğlu, A. (2014, Şubat 28). ‘BEHZAT Ç.’ iÇiN TEK YOL ‘FiNAL’! illiyet Gazetesi: http://www.sinemamuzik.com/HaberDetay.aspx?HaberID=12783 adresinden alınmıştır Kimmel, M. (2004). Masculinity as Homophobia. S. M. Whitehead, & F. J. Barrett (Dü) içinde, Masculinities Reader (s. 266-288). Maldon, USA: Polity Press. Lee, A. K., & Flores, L. A. (2003). "Slaves with white collars": Persistent performances of masculinity in crisis. Text and Performance Quarterly , 1 (23), 1-29. Lizardo, O. (2007). Fight Club, or the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism. Journal for Cultural Research , 3 (11), 221-243. MacInnes, J. (2004). The Crises of Masculinity. S. M. Whitehead, & F. J. Barrett (Dü) içinde, Masculinities Reader (s. 311-330). Maldon, USA: Polity Press. Maral, E. (2004). İktidar, Erkeklik, Teknoloji. Toplum ve Bilim (101), 127-144. Sancar, S. (2009). Erkeklik: İmkansız İKtidar. İstanbul: Metis. Selek, P. (2009). Sürüne Sürüne Erkek Olmak. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Ta, L. M. (2006). Hurt So Good: Fİght Club, Masculine Violence, and the Cirsisof Capitalism. , , . The Journal of American Culture (29:3), 265-277. Tekelioğlu, O. (2014, Şubat 28). Normalite atakta, Amirim siperde. Radikal Gazetesi: http://www.radikal.com.tr/radikal2/normalite_atakta_amirim_siperde-1087272 adresinden alınmıştır Tuncer, S. (2012). Behzat Ç. Kent, Kimlik ve Yerellik. F. Ş. Cantek içinde, Cumhuriyet'in Ütopyası: Ankara (s. 549-574). Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Yayınları. Ulusay, N. (2004). Günümüz Türk sinemasında ''erkek filmleri''. Toplum ve Bilim (101), 144-162.

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Wedgwood, N. (2009). Connell's theory of masculinity - its origins and influences on the study of gender. Journal of Gender Studies (18), 329-339. Yüksel, E. (2013). Bir Savaş ANlatısı Olarak Nefes: Vatan Sağolsun ve Hegemonik Erkekliğin Krizi. Fe Dergi , 15-31. Yazgıç, S. K. (2014, Şubat 28). Emrah Serbes ile Ankara ve Behzat Ç. Suavi Kemal Yazgıç: http://www.suavikemalyazgic.com/emrah-serbes-ile-ankara-ve-behzat-c/ adresinden alınmıştır

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PART 3. The co-education of children and young people through communication in gender equality

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GENDER, NATIONALISM AND GENOCIDE IN BANGLADESH: A RESEARCH-CREATION PROJECT

Azra Rashid Department of Communication Studies Concordia University [email protected]

Abstract: currently, the feminist scholarship is divided on the relative importance of gender and ethnicity in the context of violence endured by women in genocide. Despite some similarities in the gender-based violence committed during war, women’s experiences in genocide are varied and rooted in specific, local history. Instead of treating “women” as a unified category and transcending history, space and boundaries, there is a need for detranscendentalization within the feminist discourse on representation of women’s experiences in genocide. The feminist task is to not only resist and challenge the patriarchal accounts of genocide but also to make visible the difference in experiences and the existence of repressive mechanisms that create them in the first place. Such visibility and representation can help demystify the otherness of the marginalized "other" and more specifically of women. In this paper, I explore the potential of “research-creation” in investigating the lived reality of gender and the multiplicity of gendered experiences of women in the 1971 genocide of Bangladesh.

Keywords Gender, genocide, nationalism, research-creation, Bangladesh, essay film, representation

1. Introduction

The form that women’s pain and their trauma take in the visual medium has been a central concern for feminist researchers dealing with the questions of gender and representation. In When the Moon Waxes Red Trinh T. Minh-ha writes that oppression can be located both in the story told and in the telling of the story (Minh-ha, 1991, P6). How a woman’s story is told depends on who is telling the story and for what purpose? Woman repeatedly finds herself removed from the modes of visual production and her representation restricted and reduced to either being spoken down to or being spoken about. That mode of address creates a power dynamics that is mirrored not only in social relations but also in the ideology of nation and the mainstream narratives regarding nationalism and genocide. This paper explores the alternative politics of representation that makes room for multiplicity and reflexivity while also challenging the dominant representations. By exploring the potential of “creation-as-research” as methodology in investigating the lived reality of gender and the multiplicity of gendered experiences of the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, I argue that documenting specific experiences of women can resist and challenge not only the gender-neutrality of the memorialized images of war, but also the universalizing of gendered crimes of genocide.

2. Theoretical Background

In Technologies of Gender (1987) Teresa de Lauretis argues, "Gender is (a) representation" (P4) and "The construction of gender is both the product and the process of its representation" (P5). Gender, as a way to classify individuals, represents a shared characteristic that allows them entry into a group or class. Gender marks a woman from a man not only through a difference in sex, but mainly through the culturally conceived and assigned roles given to individuals in a society.

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However, there are also differences within the category “women”. An articulation of “women” as a unified socio-cultural category presumes not only unity of its subjects but also the universality of the shared characteristics and experiences that form a woman. Such categorization creates problems for the specificity of experience and history, as they may vary across different locations and cultures since women’s rights have progressed differently in different parts of the world due to their varying encounters with patriarchy, nationalism and colonialism. Transnational feminists, such as Chandra T. Mohanty, have challenged the idea of "universal sisterhood" by questioning the removal of agency from women by portraying them as ahistorical beings and merely as victims. Mohanty contends that the idea of transcending history, space and boundaries denies women their role in history (Mohanty, 2003). While women's stories might have been omitted from history, Mohanty argues, women still played historical roles and the idea is not to transcend history but to acknowledge women's role in history. Additionally, patriarchy, even when institutionalized, has taken different forms in its evolution in different parts of the world, conferring different struggles on women in different geographical locations. Asserting the needs and demands of Western feminists over the locally-defined needs of disempowered women from Third world reproduces the ideas of hierarchy borrowed from patriarchal privilege. Mohanty warns us against a particular reading of differences and codification of "women's experience" as self-presentation of Western women, originating from "a location of white, Western, middle-class privilege" (2003, P111). It is this way of coding the information that makes everyone outside the West as the ‘other’. The outsiders remain on the margin and out of the discourse since the only frame of analysis and discourse available is dominated by the mainstream, which seeks to flatten the differences to appear to represent a unified category of "women." The idea of universal sisterhood denies a plurality of voices to women on the margins. Through projecting the white, Western, middle class privilege as the experience of every woman in the unified category of "women", some feminists not only take away the voice of the subaltern, but they also present themselves as speaking for every woman. As a result, representation of Third World subjects in discursive practices becomes a serious issue.

Representation of the "other" is complex, especially when differences within the category are also taken into account. The dominant culture not only decides what maybe considered the best ideas and rules of engagement in a society but it also takes away agency from women by forcing conformity. A representation of women devoid of their historical struggle and flattening all the differences that exist within the fold is a reflection of the problematic position women are forced to occupy in society. In The Spectacle of the ‘Other’ (1997), Stuart Hall writes, "Meaning floats. It cannot be finally fixed. However attempting to 'fix' it is the work of a representational practice, which intervenes in the many potential meanings of an image in an attempt to privilege one" (P228). The meaning, privileged over all others, is dictated by the social institutions and mass media, which operate within a system structured according to power and the ideology that supports it. In essence it is the dominant culture that "fixes" the meaning. Meanings are assigned from a position of power and inequality, linking the politics of representation with the politics of gender and experience. If gender is produced by experience, and gender is a representation, then representation of experience is also crucial in feminist discourse and feminist scholars must make room for difference. The feminist task therefore is to not only make visible the difference in experiences but also the existence of repressive mechanisms that create them in the first place. Such visibility and representation can help demystify the otherness of the

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marginalized "other" and more specifically of women. In “Under Western Eyes’ Revisited” (2003) Mohanty argues, "In knowing differences and particularities, we can better see the connections and commonalities because no border or boundary is ever complete or rigidly determining" (P505). Recognizing divisions within a unity - at points of differences rooted in history due to race, class and geography - would help build solidarity and it is that acknowledgement that allows individual a voice within collectivity. Difference must not be thought about as being on the other end of the spectrum as sameness, and difference should also not be confused with individualism. As Trinh T. Minha emphasizes in her work, there is room for difference within unity (Minh-ha, 1991). By allowing differences, transnational feminist movement makes room for historicization and a more honest representation of an individual's experience. Difference allows room for creativity, as seen in the works of feminist filmmakers, especially those with a transnational feminist approach, who put women at the centre of the debate and challenge the standardization of women’s experiences and their representation in mass media. Their creative approach, still grounded in the documentary practice, offers a reflection of the society but more importantly they offer an insight into the lived reality of gender. Every image in a film carries signs and connotations that capture the biases of the image producer and the image consumer. In doing so, it is argued that films, especially non-fiction, documentary films provide evidence.

The term ‘documentaries’ was coined by John Grierson in the 1920s to name the practice of the creative treatment of reality, which would offer a more direct access to actualities than that found in the reconstruction of narrative cinema (Corrigan, 2011, P162). Moving image gets its evidentiary status from the presumed objectivity of the camera. But the moving images and words, all carry meanings that must be decoded by the viewer with knowledge they already possess. To accomplish that a trust is established between the viewer and the image producer, which informs the consumption of the image as reality or depiction of a reality. In every frame of a documentary, the image-maker is trying to convince the image-viewer that this is what really happened and this is an honest truth. It is the viewer's trust and confidence in the image-maker that helps mediate and construct meaning for the viewer, which sometimes can be far from reality.

Observational documentaries, especially Cinema Vérité, claim to have access to truth. With the advent of technology came light weight and portable cameras and portable lights, which filmmakers with observational technique argue help to enter a situation without altering the course of events, and they are able to do it solo, as a one-person shoot. Such documentaries follow individuals around, silently observe the events in the most unobtrusive manner possible, never ask individuals to repeat an action for camera and contain long takes that are meant to capture the entire event in the film. Moreover, these films by the virtue of minimal editing argue close to nil manipulation. Observational documentaries claim to offer a closer look at a person's lived reality while abiding by strategies validated by the industry. Observational documentary mode treats the camera eye as a silent witness or as "objective" and without any pre- conceptions. However, it is impossible to separate the human eye behind the camera from the camera lens. What is captured by the lens is decided by the person behind the camera, who is also able to make sense of what is being shot and whether or not it is of any relevance or interest. It is that eye and not the eye of the camera which decides if the course of events unfolding in front of the camera would be deemed

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important or boring by the viewer. Reflexive documentary filmmakers, on the other hand, see the process of mediation in the name of providing evidence as being exploitative and disingenuous. Documentaries made in reflexive mode pay a great deal of attention to the consciousness of the process of making of meanings in a film. Such films acknowledge the camera and its restrictions and the problems posed to the issue of representation due to that. Reflexive filmmaking wants image-makers to be conscious of the process and acknowledge the impossibility of representation of truth and draw a clear distinction between truth and its meaning.

Within the reflexive style of documentary films, the essay film is most useful to the feminist thought. Timothy Corrigan formulates the essay film as a testing of expressive subjectivity through experiential encounters in the public arena, the product of which becomes the figuration of thinking or thought as a cinematic address and a spectatorial response (2011, P30). The expressive subjectivity of the filmmaker, which is considered one of the most recognizable signs of an essay film, makes visible the articulation and consciousness of the filmmaker. It not only creates transparency but also accountability for a specific positioning of a knowing self. Instead of claiming access to a universal truth, the filmmaker makes transparent the various visual possibilities and viewing positions, and focuses on one point of view which is most accessible to the filmmaker, which is her own. In essay films, as Laura Rascaroli (2009) writes in The Personal Camera, “meanings are presented by a speaking subject as a personal, subjective mediation, rather than as objective truths. It is this subjective move, this speaking in the first person that mobilizes the subjectivity of the spectator” (P36). The essayistic filmmakers, such as Agnes Varda, Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha, offer the spectator a representation of social reality through their expressive subjectivity and self- reflexivity, which the viewer can either accept or reject. But, as Rascaroli argues, the essay structure implies a certain unity of the human experience, “which allows two subjects to meet and communicate on the basis of such a shared experience. The two subject positions, the ‘I’ and the ‘you’, determine and shape one another” (2009, P36). It is this articulation of the essay film, which allows multiplicity, and renders it the most appropriate form of research output and the most useful to the feminist thought in the context of gender studies Similar to a transnational feminist approach, the consciousness of the essay film expressed through the essayistic subjectivity, demands the viewing position of the “I” to build coalition with the “you”, and does not attempt to squash the “you” into the “I”. This dialogue between expressive subjectivity and the public is what allows people to see connections and differences.

The expression of subjectivity in reflexive style films is rooted in a place of vulnerability and demands the essayistic subject take risks, engage in self-reflexivity and find comfort in a self that is destabilized but better-suited to enter into a dialogic relationship with the viewers. This destabilized self is not about transcendence, it is situated in a specific location with situated knowledge, it maintains the “I” while trying to find connections with the “you”. It is able to construct and deconstruct ways of seeing, while also seeking perspective from different viewing positions. As Donna Haraway writes, The split and contradictory self is the one who can interrogate positionings and be accountable, the one who can construct and join rational conversations and fantastic imaginings that change history. Splitting, not being, is the privileged image for feminist epistemologies of scientific knowledge. 'Splitting' in this context should be about heterogeneous multiplicities that are simultaneously

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necessary and incapable of being squashed into isomorphic slots or cumulative lists (1991, P193). The transnational feminist notion of situated knowledge finds home in the expressive subjectivity of the essay film. By allowing differences, transnational feminist movement does not attempt to transcend history but makes room for specificity and a more honest representation of an individual's experience.

3. Case Study: Nationalism, Gender, and Genocide in Bangladesh

Ethnicity, according to Fredrik Barth, is a process of maintaining boundaries between the dominant group and the ‘other’ (Barth, 1969). This process is not grounded in objective cultural difference but in identification of all members of the group as having shared values and mutual interests. Within these groups membership is granted through birth or other means of coming together to promote unity and progress - culturally, economically and biologically - among its members. In this process, state becomes a set of institutions with control and dissemination of resources necessary for progress of its people and exclusion of non-members as the ‘other’ from the nationalist identity. Through collective instruction and assigning significance to shared experiences, common ideas and values, state can manipulate and instil nationalist sentiments in individuals. Nationalism - a product of a collective imagination - can therefore be deceptive. The ideology of nationalism can blur the line between nation and state. Through a control over language and history, and by excluding the experience of the 'other' it removes any possibility for multiplicity and results in violence, similar to the 1947 partition of India and the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh.

Through the process of inclusion and exclusion, the outsiders and insiders are decided and boundaries are created. Nationalism, as Ernest Gellner argues in his work, invented nations where they did not exist before (Gellner, 1983). In the case of South Asia, prior to the twentieth century, Hindu or Muslim nationalism in the sub-continent laid dormant, if not entirely non-existent. Despite a history of living together for thousands of years, in the early twentieth century Muslim leaders of the sub-continent put forth what came to be known as the "Two-nation" theory, which stipulated that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations based on ethnicity and religion. This ideology of "nation" eventually led to the partition of 1947, creating a largely Hindu India and a Muslim state of Pakistan. The newly-born state of Pakistan was divided into East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and West Pakistan, now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, with miles of Indian land stretched in between and insurmountable cultural and linguistic differences. While West Pakistan was dominated by Punjabis with a small population of Sindhi, Pathan and Baluchi nationals and an influx of Urdu-speaking immigrants from India, East Pakistan comprised a predominantly Bengali-speaking population and some immigrants from the northern Indian state of Bihar. The agricultural riches of the country were in East Pakistan but the government was located in West Pakistan. The government not only extracted the revenues without investing in the people and economy of East Pakistan, but they also enforced an active policy of suppression of a distinctive Bengali identity, including language and culture. As a result of the grievances originating from inequitable distribution of resources, economic exploitation, restrictions on Bengali speech in the public sphere, and lack of political representation in national government, people in East Pakistan demanded independence from Pakistan. The military dictators tried to suppress the separatist movement for decades, but the floods of 1970, which resulted in massive death tolls and

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destruction in East Pakistan, proved to be the last straw. The flood-stricken people received no relief efforts by the national government, bringing to the forefront the government’s general attitude of indifference towards the people of East Pakistan. The events triggered the war of independence, which lasted nine months, and Bangladesh, meaning "Bengal nation" was created on December 16, 1971. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, and as Yasmin Saikia (2007) writes in Overcoming the Silent Archive in Bangladesh, ten million people became refugees, several hundred thousand Biharis became "stateless" in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and close to 200,000 women were raped (P66). The Pakistani army established sex camps where Bengali women were held captive to serve the soldiers and officers (Saikia, 2007, P70). This was done to teach the Bengali nation a lesson about ethnic superiority, and Bengali women a lesson about male dominance.

After the war of independence, Bangladesh faced the issue of dealing with the shame that was supposedly brought to the nation by rape survivors and children born of rape. To rid the nation of the "Bastard Pakistani" the option of abortion was made available by the government and those who could not or did not get an abortion were abandoned by their families and ostracized by the society. Some war babies were also exported to western countries like Canada with the help of Mother Teresa where they were given up for adoption. It was partly in the context of reintegration of these women into society that the government designated rape survivors of the war as "Birangana" meaning female hero (Saikia, 2007, P73). But it was also because of the national shame and humiliation at the hands of the enemy that the Bengali government declared rape survivors as “Biranganas”. By classifying rape as a sacrifice, the government attempted to appropriate women's pain and suffering for their own propaganda of the nationalist cause. The government made rape and violence against women of secondary importance within the discourse of Bengali nationalism and in the war fought by men on behalf of the nation to obtain nationhood. The few women who decided to seek justice were shunned by their families and communities. Any evidence of mass rape in 1971, including police reports, medical reports, letters and photographs, was destroyed by the government as part of the active national campaign of forgetting (Saikia, 2007, P75). Moreover, the years that followed the war of independence saw a transformation of “Biranganas” into “Baranganas” meaning prostitutes in the local memory (Saikia, 2007, P 73). As a result, the women were silenced and their stories were written off as collateral damage of the war, as opposed to examining these rapes as a strategic and carefully implemented policy by the enemy. One survivor told Saikia,

Don't ask me who killed whom, who raped whom, what was the religion, ethnic or linguistic background of the people who died in the war. The victims in the war were the women of this country - mothers who lost children, sisters who lost their brothers, wives who lost their husbands, women who lost everything - their honor and dignity. In the war men victimized women. It was a year of anarchy and the end of humanity. Is this something to talk about? (Saikia, 2007, P71)

This is something to talk about. In Politics and the Study of Discourse (1991), Michel Foucault argues that discourse is constructed by the difference between what one could say correctly at one period and what is actually said (P63). The mediated images of war, though seemingly genderless, contain an untold history of women and how meanings and bodies get made in a society. The patriarchal and dominant narrative on genocide

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performs the function of silencing women’s stories in the name of the collective and the nation.

The ideology of nationalism, which in its extreme form manifests itself in genocide, has gendered power and social relations at its heart. Nationalism not only borrows from the ideology of gender but it reproduces gender in all social relations by creating subjects who are forced to occupy different spaces, public or private, depending on their gender. Revisiting Teresa de Lauretis’ notion that gender is a representation and it constructs a relation between one entity and other entities, on the basis of belonging to a class, a group or a category (1987, P4), it is easy to see the same power hierarchy and asymmetrical power balance mirrored in all collectivities and social institutions of a nation. Woman, often referred to as the mother of the nation, is pigeonholed into the traditional role of a caregiver akin to the space she is to occupy within a traditional patriarchal family. In her role as a mother, she is prevented from equal participation in society as a worker and a citizen. Socialized as a subordinate to man within a traditional familial structure, a woman in "nation" finds expression in domestic space. While men are the protectors of the boundaries of a nation-state, women are to reproduce it and nurture it. The role of "reproducers" is in line with the metaphor of "mother" which is often mobilized in a discourse about nationalism. And, because of this particular role ascribed to women within nationalism, we see that from Korean “comfort women” to the rape camps of Bangladesh and Omarska, historically women have been targeted differently from their male counterparts in a conflict situation.

Genocide, as defined in Article II of the Genocide Convention, is an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The acts include: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (Chinkin, 1994, P333). With genocide defined along the lines of ethnic divide and reproduction, it becomes impossible to focus more or less on ethnicity or gender, as both are markers of asymmetrical social relations and power hierarchy. Ethnic identity is a product of the marking of difference, and gender of sexual difference. Sexual difference marks a woman from man, based on different biology, language, culture, and history. The oppression of women finds room for expression when the dominant culture seeks to define what it means to be a woman, and tries to ascertain the truth about women of a particular ethnicity by tying them down to reproduction and growth of a minority group.

There is a need for feminist scholars of genocide to examine gender-based violence against women at a point of intersection of patriarchy and nationalism, both intrinsically gendered and militarized. In her explorations of genocide in the Balkans, Krista Lynes (2013) notes that the complex relationship between gender, nationalism and genocide divided the feminist community in Zagreb and in the West on the issue of whether to put more emphasis on the gendered dimension or ethnic dimension of genocide. Lynes aptly warns us that while focusing on gender may bring to light the prevalence of sexual violence against women globally, it also jeopardizes a particular reading of gender and ethnicity which was seen in the former Yugoslavia (2013, P49). A feminist reading of genocide demands a marriage of the two very different approaches, perhaps a way of looking at genocide that allows differences in history and experiences while also

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making room for sameness. There is a need to understand the differences and similarities in women’s experiences in genocide and how they are represented in mainstream, nationalist discourses, and account for them in order to build a better understanding of how women's bodies are turned into sites of violence in an ethnic conflict. Difference, which has been touted as a limitation, can in fact provide a space for understanding and creativity. Research rooted in creative practices and dealing with the issues of representation has the potential of creating a discourse on genocide that can challenge patriarchy and unsilence the gendered victims of genocide.

4. Methodology

There has been a tremendous effort by researchers in Canada, including Kim Sawchuk, Owen Chapman, and Andra McCartney, to theorize research-creation within the existing framework of viable qualitative research methodologies. Sawchuk and Chapman (2012) have argued in their article, Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and ‘Family Resemblances’, that research creation is not a fixed methodological approach. It can, in fact, take the form of research-for-creation, research-from-creation, creative presentations of research, and creation-as-research – the four modalities not being mutually exclusive. In any creative work, it is common practice for some basic research to precede creation or production; similarly, it is often the case that the existing creative works, especially audio/visual archives, help with research; and researchers have always strived to find ways to creatively present their research findings. Finally, creation-as-research, deemed the most controversial and complex of research-creation methods by Sawchuk and Chapman, is research-through-creation (2012, P19). Creation- as-research offers a unique way of knowing while also engaging with theory. Within the realm of creative practices, the essay film – situated at the intersection of personal, subjective and social history – has emerged as the leading non-fiction form for both intellectual and artistic innovation. If the subject of inquiry is the politics of discourse, the appropriation and visual representation of women’s stories within the discourse on genocide, it would be logical to use creative tools as a way to explore that tense relationship.

The essay film on the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh does not make any claims to universality of experiences of women in war. The women featured in the film only speak for themselves and are not called upon to embody an entire nation. Without making a claim to some universal truth, it is my subjectivity, as a filmmaker and a woman whose grandparents left India in 1947 to live in East Pakistan and left Bangladesh in 1971 for Pakistan, that offers the viewers a representation of social reality through the experiences of the survivors of genocide. The three subject positions, the “I” (the filmmaker), the “she” (the survivor), and the “you” (the viewer) determine and shape the meaning of the film. The film offers a unique meeting point of my subjectivity as a researcher, filmmaker and a woman, with those of the survivors and the viewers, and it attempts to create a space to communicate, challenge and resist the dominant discourse on genocide by building a coalition between the three subject positions. Furthermore, the multiplicity of women’s experiences is captured by testimonies by Bengali survivors, including “Biranganas”, Bihari survivors, Bengali Hindu survivors, women who fought with Bengali militia, Mukti Bahini and Mukti Jouddha, women who gave testimonies in war trials, nurses and service providers, activists, and gender historians.

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Ferdousy Priyabhashini is a rape survivor who was given the title of “Biranagana” in the aftermath of the genocide. This is an excerpt of Ferdousy’s testimony: “It was after 3 AM or so at night. They had tried to rape me for two days before that night. As I said earlier they applied Vicks on my private parts. They gagged me, and it nearly suffocated me. So I indicated to them that I will cooperate with them if they uncovered my mouth. I begged them to finish their business fast. They were driving and stopping and raping me. … They were really enjoying it, it was obvious to me, but I was nearly dead. Once they stopped the car and dropped me out. They pulled me by my hair. It hurt so much I couldn’t think if it was happening to me or someone else. They kept shouting at me, “You are a Hindu. You are a spy.” I used to wear a bindi [dot] in those days. They asked me to surrender and admit that I had committed murder. I refused to do so. I was not a nationalist or anything like that. I did not even love my country then. I was struggling to stay alive, being raped by five men. At home my condition was no better without a husband and with three children that I had to provide for as well as my mother, brothers, and younger sister. Where was the time for me to think about nation and freedom? …. Life after my gang rape did not change much. I continued to work in the office but I was not forced to have sex. Everyone teased and insulted me, though, on account of my rape, including my ex-mother-in-law and ex-sister-in-law.”

Bir Protik Taramon Bibi is one of two freedom fighters formally recognized and honoured by the Bangladeshi government – Bir Protik is the fourth highest gallantry award in Bangladesh. Here is an excerpt from Taramon’s testimony. “I moved into the camp and started working for the freedom fighters. I would cook for them but I would also hide their weapons so that if there were raids, people wouldn’t find anything. When I was working there, I started calling Muhib Habilder “father”. He started telling me that I had a lot of courage, that I was strong and fearless. So he said, lets give you some more training. He trained me on how to fire a gun, etc. … After that Muhib Habilder said that a rifle gun is not enough because the shots can go here and there, I will teach you how to use a stun gun. So, he taught me how to use a stun gun. So when ever there were little battles (or skirmishes) I would be cooking and doing everything they asked me to do at the camp, I would also work as an informer, and fight in gun battles. Once we were sitting for a meal and Muhib Habilder said, Taramon we’ve just sat down to eat and we didn’t recce. I forgot to recce. Can you climb up the tree and make sure that everything is clear? I climbed up the tree with a binocular and I saw that there was a gunboat coming from the other side of the river. I just ran

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down and shouted that there was a gunboat coming with the Pakistani army and then they all got together. I was a part of that with my gun. We attacked the boat. No one from our side was killed but a lot of the Pakistani soldiers were killed. And it was a battle that we won. That was the biggest battle I fought.”

Saira Bano is a Bihari survivor. Supposedly from the enemy side, Saira Bano has been living in a refugee camp in Dhaka for over forty years now. This is part of her testimony: “I was very small when I left India. It was when the Hindu-Muslim riots started. I don’t remember a lot from back then. I remember, I used to go beg for money and a man abducted me. I started crying which caught other people’s attention. He then let me go. I remember that much. I used to beg for food. My entire family was killed in Calcutta. There are no remains of them. My husband was killed in Kamalapur, Nawabganj. That’s when I came here. My daughter lives in Pakistan. My son died in India too. I came here young, now I am old. I have no one in this world. It’s just me, the people at the camp and Allah. I fetch water for people who live in this camp to earn a small living. I love drinking tea. If I don’t drink tea, I don’t fetch water for anyone. I don’t care if I eat. But I need to drink tea. But here I have no stove, no door where I live, no blanket. I sleep on the floor and it gets cold. You see how I live. … I came here when I was young, now I am old and I don’t want to leave these people. They will bury me when I die. People ask me to stop working but I say, no. If I stopped working, I would get sick and die. I cannot stop fetching water. I like working. I am too embarrassed to ask for charity.”

Using the visual medium, this essay film directly challenges the representation of women’s trauma in the mainstream narrative on genocide. The essay film also highlights the differences and similarities within the unified category of women. The multiplicity of women’s experiences in genocide is captured through the testimonies of survivors who experienced the war from various vantage points. Furthermore, the testimonies of these survivors are juxtaposed against the nationalistic, memorialized images of the 1971 war and resist the collective memory which either seeks to silence women’s voices or appropriate their pain for the nationalist purposes. When positioned as such, the film raises questions of whose war is being fought, who is fighting the war and who are the winners and losers of nationalism.

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Academic research rooted in creative practice closes the gap between theory and creative practice by focusing on creative art as a cultural industry, one that is compatible with theory and offers insights into real problems in the real world, making practice- based research self-reflexive. Research-creation, specifically the essay film, has the potential of bringing women’s experiences and their stories out of the private and into the public domain and challenge the hegemonic reading of a conflict. It has the power to name the experiences and individuals who were previously silenced in favour of the nation. The essay film does not seek to flatten the differences, instead it sets the ground for a joining together with the audience to have a conversation based on their lived reality, experiences, and struggles. The viewers get a chance to interpret, translate and reconcile the tension presented in the film with their own existing views and subjectivities and they can either accept or reject what is being presented in the film. In doing that, the viewers also transform into actors and agents of change. Additionally, the essay film can help transmit knowledge produced through research back into society. In The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities (1990), Stuart Hall discusses the political nature of cultural studies in engaging with “some real problem out there in the dirty world” (p. 17) and the need to translate knowledge back into practice. Hall writes, “Neither the one nor the other alone would do” (1990, P18). Practice-based research is communicative of problems and resolutions. It offers, as Melissa Gregg argues, a multi-layering of arguments, which “would otherwise appear as a dense and prosaic discussion,” and makes “the complexities of cultural debates more attractive to a broader audience” (Gregg, 2004, P367). This is the ultimate potential of research-creation.

5. Conclusion

Simone de Beauvoir writes, "Humanity is male, and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.... He is the subject, he is the Absolute - she is the Other" (1949, P16). Woman defined by man, as lesser than him, is told that her story, her experience and how she came to be do not matter. Through the absence of violence endured by women in the images of genocide, she is denied her experience. She is asked to forget her gender and her ordeal and be part of the collective aspirations and collective memory. Creation-as-research, in particular the essay film, helps provide a better understanding and analysis to the study of gender in the existing discourse on genocide. It allows the subject positions of the

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researcher, the survivors of genocide and the viewers to unite in order to construct an alternative account of history. In Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991), Donna Haraway writes about the importance of situated knowledge and webbed connections. Local knowledge, which is partial by all accounts, has to be situated within the broader framework of knowledge and power in order to provide a better account of the world. The politics of location and positioning, not only of the survivors and the filmmaker’s, but also of the audience’s, are at the forefront in the essay film. Haraway argues: The only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular. The science question in feminism is about objectivity as positioned rationality. Its images are not the products of escape and transcendence of limits, i.e., the view from above, but the joining of partial views and halting voices into a collective subject position that promises a vision of the means of ongoing finite embodiment, of living within limits and contradictions, i.e., of views from somewhere (p196).

The situated knowledges of the survivors take us to a particular place in time, space and consciousness of local history and enable the joining together of their partiality into a collective subject position. It attempts to produce complex realities that are often contradictory, political, and trans-local in nature. Without presenting a view from above, research-creation makes room for an outlook on women's situation comes from a specific position in history, from the testimonies of survivors whose lives were interrupted if not stopped in the war.

6. List of References

Barth, Fredrik. (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget,.

Chapman, O., & Sawchuk, K. (2012). Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and "Family Resemblances". Canadian Journal Of Communication, 37(1). Retrieved from http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2489/2298

Chinkin, Christine. (1994). Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women in International Law. European Journal of International Law 5(1), 326-341. Retrieved from http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/5/1/1246.pdf

Corrigan, Timothy. (2011). The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker. New York. Oxford University Press. de Beauvoir, S. (1949), The Second Sex. Pan Books, London [1988].

De Lauretis, Teresa. (1987). Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Foucault, Michel. (1991). Politics and the Study of Discourse. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, (Chicago: the

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University of Chicago Press. pp. 53-72.

Gellner, Ernest. (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.

Gregg, Melissa. (2004). A Mundane Voice. Cultural Studies. 18(2/3), 363-383. doi:10.1080/0950238042000201563

Hall, Stuart. (1990). The Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of the Humanities. October, Vol. 53 (Summer), 11-23. Retrieved from http://0- www.jstor.org.mercury.concordia.ca/stable/778912

Hall, Stuart. (1997) The Spectacle of the ‘Other’. In S. Hall (Ed.) Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage in association with the Open University.

Haraway, Donna J. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge,

Lynes, Krista. (2013). Prismatic Media, Transnational Circuits: Feminism in a Globalized Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Minh-ha, T. (1991). When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, gender, and cultural politics. New York: Routledge.

Mohanty, Chandra T. (2003). Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

Mohanty, Chandra T. (2003). “Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles. Signs. 28(2). 499-535. DOI: 10.1086/342914

Rascaroli, Laura. (2009). The Personal Camera: Subject Cinema and the Essay Film. London; New York: Wallflower Press.

Saikia, Yasmin. (2007). Overcoming the Silent Archive in Bangladesh: Women Bearing Witness to Violence in the 1971 'Liberation' War. In M. Skidmore & P. Lawrence (Eds.), Women and the Contested State. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

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PART 4. Treatment and prevention of gender equality through education and communication

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PLAYING WITH GENDERS – STRATEGIES TO RAISE PUBLIC AWARENESS ABOUT GENDER PROBLEMS THROUGH CRITICAL GAMES

Valeria Prosperi [email protected]

Abstract: this consideration is on gender stereotypes in culture and games, and focuses on ways to communicate issues and insert subversive elements. I illustrate my research about the Italian gender gap and the potentiality of critical games and my consequent game design process, showing strategies used to make people have fun and reflect. I concluded this theoretical and practical work designing a board game called Rigenerati! (“Re-gender yourself!”), a game aiming to raise public awareness about gender problems specially in the Italian society.

Keywords: awareness, stereotypes, gender, critical games, empathy, work environment, Italian gender gap

1. Introduction

This paper looks at gender stereotypes in culture and games, and focuses on ways to communicate issues and insert subversive elements: I illustrate my research and the consequent game design process, showing strategies used to make people have fun and reflect. This paper was originally a MSc thesis project developed at the Design School of Politecnico di Milano in 2011 (under supervision of Maresa Bertolo, assistant professor at Design department, Politecnico di Milano and Vanessa de Luca, at the time her assistant): a theoretical and practical work designing a board game called Rigenerati! (“Re-gender yourself!”). A game aiming to raise public awareness about gender problems specially in the Italian society.

2. Hypothesis

I have focused my attention on a theme that appears controversial, not well known, in some ways "uncomfortable", but extremely remarkable in daily life of all the individuals, using the communication design tools to underline the critical points and to propose some strategies to raise awareness considering the variety of the theoretical approaches and being strongly provocative, encouraging a process of critique and stimulating interest in the topic. I decided to adopt a critical playing approach because games can convey important messages, through philosophies of life in their systems of representation, and especially in the game mechanics. Games can communicate dissonant messages, stimulating the players to think from other points of view, simulating complex reality or forcing them into non pleasant roles.

3. Context 3.1 Gender Stereotypes in Italian society

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From 90’ women’s issues re-entered the public discourse. They were sometimes reporting “the decline of the differences”, other times denouncing a new and violent wave of misogyny. Gender differences as expressions of values, systems of power and economic relationships, constitute a theme of primary importance in a reborn debate in the scientific and in the institutional and political environment. During the years of the great protests, the focus was on concrete objectives, mainly parity in the professions, civil rights and salaries. Perhaps feminists didn’t insist enough on changing gender symbols, images and relationships as represented in popular culture, trying to create new directions and educating to interpret stories. We need to challenge cultural stereotypes and reject standard gender models; an alternative view that modifies imagery and culture, we need to involve women and men tired and to be represented in wrong and restrictive ways.

The role of communication is central: it produces the processes of construction of the popular, accompanies and interprets social changes. Sharing the critical tools to read the messages is an effective strategy to oppose stereotypes and critique mainstream thinking: we need a communicative subversion.

Rights equality, wage equality and access to all careers, are in theory already offered to women. They will remain however inaccessible to many women until the psychological structures that prevent women to strongly desire these things are modified. Women are currently positioned to feel guilty for attempting to insert themselves in a productive environment (Gianini Belotti, 1987: 9)

Gender stereotypes are common simplified representations of reality that influence the collective thought. "The prejudices are deeply entrenched in lifestyle: they endure, resist revisions because they constitute a social utility. They furnish the certainties that human insecurity needs”. (Gianini Belotti, 1987: 13) Therefore I considered necessary a long immersion in popular imagery, whose wide diffusion contributes to the development of culture. There’s still a vision that differentiates the two sexes following the ancient symbols: masculinity is associated with risk, adventure, exploration and dominion of the external world, whereas feminitity with seduction, closed spaces and exaltation of beauty. The analysis of stereotypes give us precious elements to understand what we expect from women and from men and what is intended with "feminine" and "masculine" behaviors: man is perceived as strong, rational, logical, independent; woman is defined as calm, good listener, predisposed to affection and care. The separation between masculine-production and female-reproduction seems clear. Young men are more attached to traditional values (like family) and, meanwhile, they continue to be imprisoned in the model of the "job at any costs" (the man must work) showing more limited plans in comparison to coetaneous females. (Lipperini, 2010 :51)

Obviously the discussion is not to oppose men and women but rather to learn that there exists differences and similarities between men and women that should be accepted and respected. The purpose is to avoid directing potential gender identity, leaving the individual to find their own way to define and express their own gender identity.

3.2 Italian gender gap What is the Italian working context?

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From research How life of women changes (supported by Istat, the Italian National Statistical Institute) it emerges that: women invest more in culture, they are better in school, are more involved involved with their jobs in comparison to the past and experiment with a multiplicity of roles in the different phases of life. But critical areas remain: in the transition school-job, considering that women find job later, they are worse paid and less satisfied with their jobs; in the barriers of job access with particular reference to the loads of family tasks; in the interruptions of the job in concomitance with maternity; in the strong difficulties in obtaining decision making roles; in the disadvantaged economic situation of old women.

More recent Istat data underline how much gender asymmetry still exists in Italian houses: they confirm that the activity of cleaning and rearrange the house and those tasks related to the preparation of the meals are still exclusively a female competence. The perception of woman as a manager, emphasized by fashion and common thoughts, seem to not match Italian reality. In the final classification of the Global Gender Gap 2010 by the World Economic Forum (that takes in examination four factors: attendance to job and economic opportunity, access to education, political influence, differences between men and women in terms of health and expectations of life) Italy is to 74th on 134 nations, next to last in Europe.

There are two further elements that demolish the false image of the winning woman in career. First: horizontal segregation that restrict females to a number of professions due to the persistence of gender stereotyping in professions that carry subordinate positions, low salaries and scarce opportunities for career progress. Therefore women are 75% of teachers, 93% of social assistants, and 77.6% of domestic collaborators. Secondly: the vertical segregation that obstructs the access to business hierarchies. "There is not one professional area, in our country, in which there’s a balanced gender composition in higher levels, even if women are present from more time and are more. The case of the school is symbolic: women are more than 75% of teaching staff but less than 40% of scholastic executives: men, therefore, are less than 25% of teachers but more than 60% of executives." (Pruna, 2007: 26)

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1. Infographic: italian gender gap. Datas from ISTAT, rcfl, 2007

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2. Infographic: Care and family tasks. Datas from ISTAT, rcfl, 2007

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3. Infographic: maternity and employment. Datas from ISTAT, rcfl, 2007

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3.3 Critical issues: care and male involment Many working women cannot rely on either the social organization or their partner, so they often resort to a domestic collaborator. Italy holds the record of European country for number of immigrants working in our houses. A controversial but central issue that adds complexity to the discourse on roles, is questioning dynamics, relationships and social order, by comparing care work to remunerated work. Jobs are generally remunerated, implying an exchange of activity, professionalism and salary. This model doesn't see and doesn't believe that relationship, care, affections, parenthood, assistance, are also forms of work, even if not remunerated, not visible and therefore, simply ignored. Women have two jobs: the remunerated one and the free and invisible one.

As John Stuart Mill wrote, “women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation of women, until men in considerable number are prepared to join with them in the undertaking”. (Stuart Mill, 2010: 304) My conviction is that change cannot happen without a reorganization of daily being: from these reflections the necessity of a masculine involvement clearly emerges. The same definition of female studies (recently abandoned in favour of gender studies) appears extremely inadequate to indicate a group of complex phenomena that concern society as a whole. The scarce presence of women is traditionally recriminated in masculine areas such as technical and scientific careers. What is rarely considered is that these rigid roles and stereotypes not only damage women but also men. Rigid gender roles restrict men from to appearing fragile or sensitive or being involved in activity that opposes with the more traditional concept of masculinity. (Lipperini, 2010: 13)

3.4 Sexualized cultural representations We should pay attention to persistent of sexist stereotypes, as a pervasive element in social relationships. Many projects have monitored female presence in media and verify what models of women are communicated by mass media and what function they develop in comparison to Italian cultural change.

The media themselves don't adequately interpret a public opinion that is composed from men and women. There exists a monopoly of "masculine" information that still limits the presence of women and doesn't exalt the roles that they have conquered in real life; there is a notable distance between the new presence of women in society and the female universe as represented by media.

Female identity is still predominantly depicted in a masculine world, and is not defined independently, but rather in the various relationships with men. We commonly meet "busy masculine characters in great adventures and female figures with scarce relief, or simply passive waiting the hero. This is due to a masculine idea of the "adventure": open and endless space to male gender, narrowness inside spaces to female." (Schembri, 2002: 27). This division of roles is not only found in the literary tradition, but also in novels, comic strips, cinema and television. The actions, space and time reserved to female figures has been extremely limited and circumscribed. More recently, the seductive, timid and defenseless protagonists common until a few decades ago, have started to be replaced by a new type of heroin, less vulnerable, but seductive and dangerous. We again encounter the Madonna-Eva dichotomy a masculine creation of female identity.

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Games do not escape these strongly sexualized cultural representations. Despite the increase in the population of gamers, the characters depicted in games do not match the diversity of the population. Characters are for the greater part depicted as middle class white males. Zimmerman examines the relationship between gender and game in the text Rules of Play, and affirms that investigating the gender cultural rhetoric means to examine the ways that games reflect, reinforce, question or subvert cultural ideas about the categories of masculine and feminine, male and female, transgender and other concepts related to gender identity. (Zimmerman, 522.)

4. Methods 4.1 Strategies to raise awareness through critical game design

After carrying out cultural and sociological research around the strong influence of gender stereotypes in Italian contemporary reality, I have reflected on ways and tools of communication to deal with such a delicate and controversial subject. I chose to adopt a critical playing approach, examining in depth the relationship between stereotypes, gender and Games Studies.

My intention is to avoid a dramatic tone of communication. I consider this matter one of the biggest criticality in relation to communication of gender problems. Issues related to stereotypes are often avoided by people, and an dramatic institutional approach with explicit "educational" intents would only strengthen the feeling of "heaviness" that some people experience. Recent studies have theorized that reflection can be introduced more effectively through the tools of irony satire and paradox, and a “fun” component is fundamental to stimulate the change of daily behaviors.

Critical playing approach determined to be the most effective and involving one. This vision of social change as de-construction and re-construction of social organization systems pushed me to direct my research and my communication strategy toward a project that is a critique to Italian contemporary society, strongly influenced in its mechanisms by gender stereotypes, and at the meantime includes, as playful project, some elements of transgression of these mechanisms. Playing a simulation we discuss critically its rules.

In this research I underline the subversive potential of games: firstly by showing that all games contains an ideology (sometimes unconsciously transmitted), then secondly examining how elements in games can stimulate reactions. Games can be used to explore serious issues and can further:

 encourage a process of criticism (hoping that critical thoughts in micro level influence whole society);  induce to think with different points of view;  reduce complexity of reality through a simulated system;  give opportunity to experience critical situations.

My project consists therefore in a boardgame made to both entertain and stimulate reflection. The idea to design a game that has as its primary goal social change (entertainment being secondary), comes as a result of studies and research that

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show how games can convey important messages, through philosophies of life in their systems of representation, and especially in the game mechanics. A game can be an excellent vehicle for activism and political and social criticism, as it can offer a critical view of the world from a conscious manipulation of its features. A game’s style, rules of progress, context, scenarios and paradigms of victory and defeat can highlight possibilities, limitations and conventions. Because every game carries it’s authors vision of the world, convictions and ideologies, games can also communicate dissonant messages, stimulating the players to think from other points of view, simulating complex reality or forcing them into non pleasant roles.

4.2 Potentiality of subversive games: case history We can think of games as a medium of expression, manipulating their instruments: representation systems and styles, rules of progress, codes of conduct, context of reception, winning and losing paradigms, ways of interacting. Mary Flanagan affirms that Critical Play means to create or occupy play environments and activities that represent one or more questions about aspects of human life. These questions can be abstract, such as rethinking cooperation, or winning and losing; or concrete and involve more real issues (Flanagan M. 2009: 6). Criticality can provide an essential viewpoint or an analytical framework. Those using critical play as an approach might create a platform of rules to examine a specific issue - rules that would be somehow relevant to the issue itself. This does not mean that the games cannot, or should not, be “fun,”: it means that there is a further desired outcome beyond entertainment.

Gonzalo Frasca in his essay Videogames of the oppressed examines the potential of video games as a tool to stimulate critical thought and discussions on social and personal problems. He analyses in depth the idea of simulation as a representative form that, unlike other representative forms like novels, creates models that not only show characteristics of the system, but also reproduce its behavior through a group of rules. Games can offer the multiple and immediate meanings of life in society, in a way that a single role or job could never offer.

Paolo Pedercini, affirms: «[..] political games don’t exist, or better, they have always existed: every video game – as every cultural product – reflect author’s ideas, visions and ideologies. Every video game is essentially political. Game designers are usually too accommodating, they give the players the possibility to play the part of valiant heroes, powerful generals or frightful criminals to go along with their wish to escape from a boring and frustrating life. It’s too easy! We can instead establish a healthier sado-masochistic relationship with our users. We can force them in unpleasant roles to make them reason using a different point of view. [..] Providing alternative visions and criticize the conventional ones is exactly the critical game designer mission. [..] political games are simply games that clearly declare their factiousness proving that all the video games are factious». (Pedercini, 2006: 2)

Simulations have big potential as complexity reducers. With a simulation we can describe complex systems in a clear comprehensible way. It is easier to understand a social or economic system by manipulating its ludic model instead of reading its linear text description. Playing a video game is a heuristic activity radically different to the reductionist and analytical one based on decomposition and evaluation of single parts. Clearly such as modeling is not a neutral or a scientific procedure, it is always a

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simplification of the reality, a subjective designer’s interpretation. We can say that simulations are interactive theories.

With irony and intelligence groups of game designers like Molleindustria, Newsgaming, Antiwargame, Metapet, Persuasive Games, Values at Play, deconstruct schemes and contents of videogame language changing products that were considered designed to entertain. Game designers can create over invented worlds and also socially reverse environments, starting with personal mediated experiences. Today we are informed about social problems like poverty, oppression and discrimination, but our relationships with these issues tend to be. «Making people experience diversity, especially if it’s an unpleasant condition, can be more effective because it gives most interesting ideas for its comprehension than the basic documentation of Other existence». In some of these games the game experience reaches the paradoxical level of impossibility of victory: never win games in which players feel frustrated experiencing continuous defeat. Refusing the binary win-lose logic gives the idea of inevitability of a situation.

The world of board games is usually distant from social reality and today’s politics, populated with characters of imagination, set in fantastic worlds, distant kingdoms or remote times. In board games a realistic setting (and more often historical that contemporary) is often used for putting to use exchange, management and expansion mechanics, like in strategic and managerial games, but it remains a background, a pretext to use some mechanisms, and it modestly affects the overall game experience. Independent English games publishing house TerrorBull Games believes that everything can be played: international politics, environmental catastrophes, life and death. They don't believe in the existence of issues that can be discussed only in respectful and calm tones: being 'hushed' represses opinion and abolishes discussion, interaction and natural human responses. "Terrorism. Whatever. If it makes you laugh and THINK at the same time, it's going to be a good game. If it provokes you, even better. Sometimes you can't imagine a different way of looking at things until you've had a shock." Also the force that comes when players lose (negativity, nervousness) should be exploited. By coming to terms with failure we take the challenge as our personal battle, and free creativity and courage. The games are more enjoyable when creating a natural conflict in a group. Boardgames are pleasant because they are true interactions, with real people in a real space.

5. Results 5.1 Game Design and Social Impact

A board game is an ideal tool to represent behaviors and simulations, (although abstract and simplified) and specific scenarios from the real world. So I decided to examine an aspect of social life in which discriminatory practices are evident and problems related to gender stereotypes are very far from being resolved, with the aim of highlighting and exaggerating these mechanisms. To experience the diversity and try to fight the unjust structures within a game, in addition to being fun, is more efficient than reading or hearing a complex analysis from experts, due to the difficult nature of the matter and for the aversion felt by many individuals towards these issues.

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My aim was to design a game that entertains but that also forces the players to think with other points of view relating to gender and careers. These are the project’s purposes: simulation of a complex and stereotyped environment, exasperation of discrimination and point of view reversal experiencing different relationships with the job system. Since the main argument relates to social relationship among people in all aspects of society, I chose a board game in order to not lose the social aspect of playing and keep a direct relationship among players. I also excluded a roleplaying game in order for the game to engage with as many people as possible. The game emphasizes the more problematic aspects of Italian work lifestyle, and all aspects of game argument and game mechanics are inspired by numbers that have emerged from gender gap reports (such as Italian vertical segregation, women’s percentage in leadership roles, horizontal segregation, the different time spent in domestic tasks, employment rates by gender and number of children and the difficulties conciliating home and office).

5.2 Rigenerati!: gameplay and main elements that raise awarness

In Rigenerati! the player’s goal is to advance in career, facing the different reactions of the game-system while they randomly change their gender. In the game system, players experience different conditions and opportunities that society, especially work environments, assign exclusively by gender. It is possible to try to follow eight different careers: law, politic, housekeeping (“care field”), medicine, science, education, economy and construction. In each match players have a character schedule with scores of features (features are selected considering results arising from analysis of most common stereotypes) and a family area in which they have to mark children. Starting from a “training” level, followed by “job research” level players can collect “skills, vices, virtues” cards, that represent resources useful for just one gender. Passing “interview” point, players can choose a career card and start climbing up their career boards, collecting points they need to advance to higher levels and draw an “event card”. “Event cards” put players through “events”, which have different consequences for men and women, a different score (depending on the player’s gender and working area) is required to advance to higher career levels, there is a different family area (if you find the card “Unexpected wish to motherhood/fatherhood” and you’re playing as a woman you stop 2 turns, if you’re a man you can continue). Other examples of main elements that raise awareness are the “Good appearance” card, that a women can use to automatically pass the interview moment (men can’t use it); or the “Sweet eyes” card, which women can use to make sweet eyes to her boss and be promoted to higher career level without the necessary score (man can’t use it), the “Sexual harassment” card penalizes only women, the “Easy tears” card is really dangerous for men but not for women.

Adding fun and dilemmas to game play, strategic choices are influenced by the game event “gender exchange”. “Gender exchange” may occur each turn, during which participants have to turn their career card aside. They also must consider other points to pass to a higher level, whether or not to have children in their family area and take advantage of cards that favorite their new gender. Game testing revealed an average of 4-5 exchanges each match.

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6. Conclusions

Experiencing different treatment and discriminations is a very effective way to foster empathy. With this game I try to induce cognitive empathy, inserting explicit references to reality, and emotional empathy, giving players the possibility to assume different roles and having experience of critical situations and perceiving the proximity between their own reality and the game system.

Game testing sessions highlighted that this game entertains players and develops their awareness of these issues: testers rated their game experience as meaningful, declaring they had fun (particularly around the gender exchange) but also thought about issues they were not used to reflecting on.

I hope that the game, over fun, stimulated interest towards these issues, among both women and men. The playing experience involves a reflection about how working failure can be caused by discrimination (since as players are favorite or hindered by virtue of their in game gender) and about how much gender stereotypes and expectations influence people’s daily lives.

I aim to ridicule these stereotypes by including them in the game, giving them enormous power over game mechanics, and the possibility to be exchanged to the other gender. I used common ideas of femininity, masculinity and the working world, to play consciously with these stereotypes, and allowing players to clearly recognize and identify them. I also inserted the “gender exchange” option to allow players to gain a deeper understanding of gender issues by viewing the other gender’s perspective and to spread an idea of interchange of roles.

Rigenerati! provides a representation of a cross section of society in which relationships are complex and the rules are often not evident. Through mechanisms that benefit one gender over the other, which facilitate the paths if people adhere to certain imposed standards (which correspond to the models and the roles prescribed by society and its institutions) we can highlight contradictions and inequalities. With a contextualized and provocative approach I try to make individuals think, fight and talk, when playing Rigenerati!.

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4. Rigenerati! prototype

5. Careers boards

Next page images: 6. Game components: character schedule and timeline 7. Career cards 8. “event” cards 9. “gender exchange moment”

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7. References

Flanagan M. (2009), Critical Play. Radical Game Design. Cambridge, MIT Press Frasca G. (2001) Videogames of the Oppressed, thesis developed at Georgia Institute of Technology (available at www.ludology.org) Gianini Belotti E. (1987), Dalla parte delle bambine. Milano, Feltrinelli Lipperini L. (2010), Ancora dalla parte delle bambine. Milano, Feltrinelli Stuart Mill J. (2010), On Liberty and Other Essays. Digireads.com Publishing Pedercini P. (2006), Radical Game Design - Notes on Political Games Rhetoric, http://www.molleindustria.org/docs/radical_game_design.pdf Pruna M.L. (2007), Donne al lavoro. Bologna, Il Mulino Salen K. and Zimmerman E. (2003), Rules of Play, Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MIT Press Schembri R. (2002), Lara Croft e le altre. Palermo, L’Epos, Palermo

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PART

PART 5. Criticism of reality and the representation of gender roles in the field of social, economic and scientific labor relations

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‘WOMEN’S WAR WORK’ THROUGH A GENDERED LENS: A CRITICAL FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN’S LABOUR IN CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS, 1939-1945

Tracy Moniz Department of Communication Studies Mount Saint Vincent University [email protected]

Abstract: through a content analysis of Canadian newspapers, this paper examines representations of women’s wage labour during the Second World War in Canada to understand how gender identities were constructed and negotiated in the news. Women’s participation in the paid workforce more than doubled during the war, creating a situation that could challenge the traditional sexual division of labour. Using a critical feminist analysis, this article focuses on the significance of femininity in framing ‘women’s war work’ in a way that reinforced stereotypical values about women and their labour and upheld a patriarchal status quo. News in the commercial and alternative press prioritized gender, not labour. In the end, news media presented a ‘history’ of women’s labour that did not reflect the social significance of women’s lives as wage labourers. This raises questions about the scholarly implications of using such media as a chronicle of women’s history and calls for histories that more fully and equitably capture women’s experiences.

Keywords: feminist media studies, public-private spheres, gender roles, women’s labour history, media representations of women, femininity and war

1. Introduction On September 10, 1939, Canada entered the Second World War. Men enlisted for active duty overseas, creating labour shortages on the home front, and so the Canadian government mobilized women to join the civilian workforce and aid in the ‘total war’ effort. Women’s labour force participation more than doubled throughout the war, with more women working alongside and in place of men than ever before. By 1944, the number of women working for wages full-time outside the home in Canada totalled nearly 1.2 million—almost twice what it was when the war started—and approximately 800,000 additional women were employed part-time or on farms (Canada, Advisory Committee on Reconstruction, Final Report of the Subcommittee on the Post-War Problems of Women, 1944: 7; Pierson, 1986: 9). A woman filled one out of every three jobs (Canada, Advisory Committee on Reconstruction, Final Report of the Subcommittee on the Post-War Problems of Women, 1944: 8). In the labour market, Canadian women offered the only solution to the nation’s labour shortages throughout the war (Wartime History of the Employment of Women, n.d.: 29). This critical need for “womanpower,” as then Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King called it, created a situation that could challenge the sexual division of labour which traditionally relegated women to the home and positioned men in the workforce (King, 1942: 5). A sexual division of labour is essential for the maintenance of a patriarchal system and any deterioration of this division, such as women’s wartime entry into the traditionally-male paid workforce, inherently threatened the patriarchal status quo. The influx of women into the wartime workforce created a historical ‘tug of war’ between traditional notions of a woman’s relationship to the home and the simultaneous need for women’s workforce participation during the Second World War.

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Using a critical feminist lens, this paper examines news media representations of women’s wage labour in wartime to understand how newspapers negotiated the changing demands imposed on women by ‘total war.’11 Through a content analysis of the commercial and alternative (labour) press, the study analyzes how gender roles were constructed and negotiated in news of women’s wartime wage labour. It demonstrates that, both within and across the commercial and alternative press, news media prioritized gender, not labour. The article focuses on the significance of femininity in framing ‘women’s war work’ in a way that reinforces stereotypical values about women and their labour and upheld a patriarchal status quo. Despite women’s massive mobilization into the workforce, the structures of female subordination and exploitation remained unchallenged. In the end, news media presented a ‘history’ of women’s labour that did not reflect the social significance of women’s lives as wage labourers. This raises questions about the scholarly implications of using such media as a chronicle of women’s history and calls for histories that more fully and equitably capture women’s experiences.

2. Hypothesis This paper addresses the following research questions: How were gendered roles constructed and negotiated in news of women’s wartime wage labour? What impact, if any, does this have on the way women’s history is represented? Women’s workforce participation was central to the Canadian government’s execution of the Second World War. Given this necessity and the magnitude of women’s entry into the paid labour force, might the ensuing news coverage reflect the political economic and social significance of women’s lives as labourers? If not in the commercial press, then perhaps in the alternative (labour) press which, as “critical media” of the “counter-public sphere,” can more readily offer perspectives outside the established patriarchal order and question dominant social relations (Sandoval and Fuchs, 2010: 147-148, 143 Comedia, 1984; Curran, 2007)? And, if not in the general news or editorials, then perhaps in the women’s pages which, as some feminist scholars have argued, provided a “highly influential public platform” for discussing women’s issues and served as a chronicle of “women’s advancing status and participation in the local community, the nation, and the world” (Lang, 1999: 150; Gabriele, 2006, Fiamengo, 2008; Freeman, 2001). If so, this offers an exception to feminist media theory which posits that “media have marginalized women in the public sphere” and “purvey stereotypes of femininity and masculinity,” and this also challenges the patriarchal values that these stereotypical gendered representations work to uphold (McQuail, 2010: 123). This would then support a view of news as “the first draft of history” and of news media as the “creators and preservers of the public’s picture of the ... past” (Kitch, 2001: 14, 28). And this, in turn, positions historical newspapers as a chronicle or record that offers historians today evidence from which to reconstruct and write about women’s wartime history.

3. Methods

11 This paper results from a broader research project—the author’s doctoral dissertation, “Women in the Margins: Media Representations of Women’s Labour in the Canadian Press, 1939-1945.” The dissertation analyzed representations of women’s labour (domestic, volunteer and wage, with a focus on wage labour) in the commercial and alterative (labour) press. The research presented and discussed in this paper came from this dissertation, which is cited in the list of references.

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Research involved a comparative content analysis of representations of women’s wage labour within and across the commercial and alternative (labour) press during the Second World War. Content analysis allows for a systematic and quantitative analysis of media content that reveals the “relative prominences and absences of key characteristics in media texts” (Hansen et al., 1998: 94). In the case of this study, content analysis enabled an examination of how many times female labourers and their work was represented in wartime newspapers and how they were represented in the news. Applying a feminist media studies interpretive lens then allowed for an analysis of the relationship between various dimensions in the text, including the intersection between media and the area of gender and labour as well as the media’s possible role in the construction of gender and, as Liesbet van Zoonen (1998) explained it, in the transmission of stereotypical, patriarchal and hegemonic values about women and femininity. The stratified random sample for the content analysis comprised 342 newspaper issues published from September 10, 1939, when Canada entered the Second World War, to September 2, 1945, when the war officially ended—216 issues of the commercial press and 126 issues of the labour press. It surveyed the general news pages, women’s pages and editorials, as applicable, in three commercial newspapers (Toronto Daily Star, The Hamilton Spectator and The Halifax Herald) and three independent labour newspapers (The Labour Leader, Toronto, Ontario; The Labor News, Hamilton, Ontario; and The Citizen, Halifax, Nova Scotia) published in Canada during the Second World War. The variables considered in the content analysis were the type of newspaper (commercial versus alternative) and the placement of media coverage (general news versus women’s pages, versus editorials) to identify the relationships among and between them. Of relevance to this paper, categories coded for included topic of coverage, form of coverage (article or photo) and discursive framing (key words to describe women’s wage labour). Archival research, largely of original government documents, further contextualized or supported the data obtained in the content analysis. 3.1 Limitations of the Study With historical research, the scope of the study reflects the nature of historical evidence available. In addition to Toronto, Hamilton and Halifax, the Census of Canada 1941 also ranked Vancouver, British Columbia, and Montreal, Quebec, among the major urban centres in Canada during the war. Ideally, this study would offer a national perspective by incorporating a commercial and a labour newspaper from Vancouver and the same from Montreal. However, while there was access to commercial newspapers in both cities, there were no independent labour newspapers published in Vancouver and Montreal for comparative analysis. Furthermore, this paper does not discuss issues of race and social class, given that the newspapers analyzed generally focused on the experience of the (largely) white, middle-class women recruited en masse into the military-industrial complex during the war (Copp, 1974:44; Palmer, 1992). This leaves the experiences of women of different races and women on the low end of the socioeconomic ladder absent in the news and from this research paper, even though women did participate in the workforce prior to the wartime recruitment, particularly in the two decades prior and particularly among the urban working class (Copp 1974: 44; Palmer 1992). With its focus on news content, this study does not focus on audience—specifically, newspaper readership or audience reception. The lack of primary audience research precludes determining who read which section of the newspaper during the war (McQuail, 2010: 121). As such, this research draws on secondary literature

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which establishes that, given the separate spheres of ‘his’ and ‘her’ media, the general news pages represented news written largely by men for men and the women’s page represented news written largely by women for women (Byerly and Ross, 2006; Kimmel, 2005; Lang, 1999). With respect to theories of audience reception, scholars debate over “who controls the meaning of media texts”: the media or the audience? (Kitch, 1997: 485). This paper remains focused on the content itself, and not on how audiences engaged with or extracted meaning from these images.

4. Results Coverage of women’s wage labour prioritized gender, not labour. Coverage consistently portrayed working women in private-sphere, gendered roles, regardless of—or, rather, precisely because of—their public role as wage labourers. This trend persisted in the women’s pages as much as in the general news pages and editorials, which challenges a view of the women’s pages as a space that “heralded the breakthroughs women made in the paid workforce and drew attention to the frustrations and injustices women encountered in their work in the home, on the farm, and in the factory” (Lang, 1999: 5). This trend also persisted in the alternative labour press as much as in the mainstream commercial press, which challenges a view of alternative media as a space that provided alternative voices and perspectives to those in mainstream mass media and that critiqued existing structures and advocated in the interests of all labourers, including women. The latter point further demonstrates that while the labour press crossed class lines in its coverage by representing and advocating for working class groups, it did not cross gender lines by representing and advocating for female labourers. In the end, Canadian newspapers repackaged news of women’s wartime labour in ways that not only reinforced stereotypical values about women prominent in mainstream news and, more specifically, in war news, but also in ways that challenged the idea that either women’s journalism or the alternative labour press offered a ‘space’ for more progressive identities for women than those traditionally found in the mainstream press, such as that of public sphere ‘wage earner.’ The result is news coverage that does not reflect the political economic and social significance of women’s lives as wage labourers. Irma K. Halonen (1999) argued that women are consistently assigned a subordinate and objectified position in war news. Representations of women’s labour in Canadian newspapers during the Second World War offered no exception, with story frameworks and forms as well as discourse that foregrounded femininity, subordinated and objectified female labourers, and confined them to traditional roles.

4.1 Framing War Work: Gendering Story Topics Among the topics discussed in news of women’s wage labour, coverage considered women’s performance on the job, particularly in the commercial newspapers. Of the 131 news items about women’s wage labour found in the commercial press, 26 per cent concerned how women performed in their jobs. This included coverage of workplace absenteeism among women. Newspapers projected the message that women’s ‘essential’ feminine nature interfered with their reliability as labourers. An excerpt from a front-page news article in Toronto’s labour newspaper, The Labour Leader, explains why “this disease [absenteeism] was particularly rampant among women” and cites the following as “some of [their] stunts”: “If a girl has a date on a certain evening, she first of all takes that afternoon off, so that she can take a preliminary sleep. After keeping her engagement, she then takes the following morning off, to get over its effects. If

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there is a bargain sale at one of the local department stores, some will take an entire morning off to attend the sale. If a girl feels the need of a permanent wave and manicure, time is taken off from work” (1942: 1). News coverage pointed to qualities associated with femininity as a main cause of workplace absenteeism. The relationship between masculinity and femininity corresponds to power relations and gains meaning in its opposition. For instance, ‘masculine’ connotes rationality, detachment and power, while ‘feminine’ connotes irrationality, emotion, passivity, frivolousness and dependence (Klaus and Kassel, 2005: 339; van Zoonen, 1994, 1995: 320). The press did not explore other possibilities for absenteeism such as childcare issues or others related to the ‘double duty’ of work and home placed on women during the war period. Instead, news depicted female workers as irresponsible, frivolous and careless. Other story frameworks reinforced this. During the war, working women made news precisely because they were working women. Among the coverage, newspapers ran “first woman to” stories: “First Women Employed at Nova Scotia Coal Mine” (Halifax Herald, 1942: 9), “First Woman Operator Meets Romance on Sea” (Halifax Herald, 1942: 10) and “Women Pilots Aiding Air Force” (Labour Leader, 1940: 2). As Paula Poindexter et al. (2008) argued, this story framework reinforces gender stereotypes. While the coverage may appear empowering or celebratory on the surface, this story framework undermines women by presenting them, by default, as second-tier. Historically, women ‘made news’ when something strayed from the norm, and the norm was not woman as coal miner, woman at sea, woman in the military, and woman as foreign war correspondent. Novelty is a journalistic news value identifying the ‘unusual’ as newsworthy, whether it concerns men or women (McKercher, Thompson and Cumming, 2011; The Missouri Group, 2011). However, media treatment of ‘first woman to’ stories during the war more often served to explain these ‘firsts’ in ways that reinforced women’s subordinate social position and upheld stereotypical values about women than suggest a progressive shift in the sexual division of labour or social structure, or herald these ‘firsts’ as progressive steps for women or, better yet, humankind. The article, “Women Pilots Aiding Air Force,” which ran in the Sept. 20, 1940 issue of The Labour Leader, illustrates this. In it, readers learned that the first “women members” of the British Air Transport Auxiliary “wear skirts, not trousers” and that “even though women are doing a man’s job of work, that’s no reason why they shouldn’t continue to look feminine” (9). The article explained that even the necessary regulation flying suits and parachutes that women wore when flying only “improves [their] beauty” and that, “all the same, when [they are] not in the air, [they] do pride [them]selves on [their] appearance” (9). Such a story communicated less about the importance of this ‘first’ for female labourers broadly, opting instead to emphasize that these ‘women pilots’ retained their femininity. News coverage of ‘firsts’ with respect to women’s wartime wage work highlighted women’s presence in non-traditional fields as ‘other,’ and this story framework objectified women by making a spectacle of their entry into traditionally male-dominated labour. 4.2 Through the Male Gaze: Gendering Story Forms Further curtailing the challenge that women’s wage labour posed to traditional public- private divisions, news coverage objectified female labourers, placing them on visual display—most prominently for male readers in the general news pages. As Harvey L. Molotch (1978) noted: The formal news business “is essentially men talking to men” while the women’s pages “are a deliberate exception: Here it is the case that women who work for men talk to women” (180).

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For example, in the commercial newspapers analyzed, the general news pages housed more than double the photographic coverage on women’s wage labour than did the women’s pages. Of the 121 articles and photos on women’s wage labour in the commercial and labour press, the general news pages comprised 39 per cent photos and the women’s pages 17 per cent. More specifically, of the total photographic coverage on women’s wage labour in the commercial newspapers analyzed (N=38), 82 per cent occurred in the general news sections and 18 per cent in the women’s pages. By default, photographic coverage in the labour press occurred in the general news pages because the labour press comprised only an editorial and a general news section.

As Carolyn Byerly and Karen Ross (2006) argued, most mainstream media production has been oriented to a male audience. Given the separate and unequal spheres of ‘his’ and ‘her’ media, as Michael S. Kimmel (2008) put it, or mainstream news versus the women’s pages, the dominance of photos in the general news pages catered to the presumed audience—men—and corresponded to John Berger’s argument in his 1972 book, Ways of Seeing, that, as in art, women are treated as objects of the male gaze. Men are the spectators, surveying women’s femininity. Berger argued that this unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in Western culture that it structures the consciousness of many women and, as such, the ‘visual’ both reflects and perpetuates assumptions and beliefs held within (and passed on through) Western tradition. Van Zoonen agreed, noting that “the dominant visual economy is still organized along traditional gender lines: men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at” (1998: 103). Furthermore, this “traditional structure” persists because of the “patriarchal will to maintain power”—a “will” especially pertinent in times of war (van Zoonen, 1998: 103; Goldstein, 2001).

The series of ‘War Worker’ beauty pageants commonplace throughout the Second World War offers an example of this. These contests and the resulting news coverage objectified women—literally put their physicality “on parade” (“Red-Headed,” Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 3). What appeared on the surface as a public celebration of proud ‘women workers’ representing their companies and proud companies supporting their ‘women workers’ was another way to marginalize women as wage labourers by reducing them to a spectacle—hyper-feminine objects for the male gaze—and embodiments of wartime propaganda. Sarah Banet-Weiser described the beauty pageant as a “highly visible performance of gender, where the disciplinary practices that construct women as feminine are palpable, on display, and positioned as unproblematically desirable” (1999: 3). The near full-page coverage of the 1942 Miss War Worker and Miss Toronto pageants, which took place the same day, illustrates this. Told alongside news from the battlefield, these articles heralded the winners (and the ‘runners up’) as role models for all ‘women workers.’ One article, “Miss War Worker Makes Own Beauty,” describes Miss War Worker herself, Dorothy Linham, as “a pretty 19-year-old brunette” and knitter-turned-assembly line inspector at Research Enterprises Limited who “‘eats right’ to keep healthy” and, thereby, productive on the job. (Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 3). On the side, Linham also operated her own private beauty parlour to “make herself pretty,” as the article proudly quoted her mother saying (Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 3). This “beauty queen” cooks too and “looks after the house” and her mother at the same time as she works to drive the war effort forward (“Red-Headed,” Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 3; “Miss War Worker,” Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 3). Banet-Weiser further explained beauty pageants as “a profoundly political arena, in the sense that the presentation and reinvention of femininity

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that takes place on the beauty pageant stage produces political subjects” (1999: 3). Politically, the ‘War Worker’ pageants and the ensuing news coverage subsumed all employed women under a single, common identity—patriotic war workers who worked outside the home solely and explicitly to further their nation’s ‘total war’ effort. In this way, news coverage reinforced the idea that “woman’s ‘proper place’ is in the home”—a “cornerstone of patriarchal ideology” (Nash 1982: 116)

4.3 Femininity First: Gendering News Discourse

Working in tandem with the visual objectification of women in the news was discourse that foregrounded gender and gendered roles and, concomitantly, women’s femininity. Foremost, the language used to describe female wage earners and their labour in the commercial and labour newspapers analyzed placed gender (and its corresponding focus on femininity) front and centre. Within the commercial press, 21 per cent of the 136 items about women’s wage labour used the term “worker,” most often qualifying the term with the adjective “woman”—as in “woman worker.” In the 65 items about women’s wage labour in the labour press, the proportion was 37 per cent. Other descriptors also emphasized femininity and reinforced gendered roles—a proportion of 21 per cent in the commercial press and 17 per cent in the labour press. For example, newspapers referred to female labourers as “ladies in the Air Force blue,” “girl recruits, “plane factory beauties,” “wage-earning wi[ves]” and “war-working mothers” (“Airwomen’s Pay,” Hamilton Spectator, 1943: 6; “Girls from West,” Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 2; “Plane Factory,” Toronto Daily Star, 1942: 17; Dix, “Pocketbook is Friend,” Halifax Herald, 1940: 7; “Quebec and Ontario Families,” Toronto Daily Star, 1943: 6).

As Byerly and Ross argued, media frame women in highly restricted ways that promote “patriarchal” versions of “‘acceptable’ femininity” (2006: 50). The article “Do War Job, Home Job, Too; Women Busy and Keep Fit: Many Women Doing Men’s Work and Their Own Along With It” published in the women’s pages of the Apr. 27, 1943 issue of the Toronto Daily Star further illustrates this in its discussion of how women handled their ‘double duty’ with domestic and wage labour. The article begins: “The war workers who make me want to stand up and cheer are the women who are successfully putting in full time at some essential industry in addition to running their homes and bringing up their children. Having to do double work isn’t bothering these women. It is making them spruce up! All they want to know is how to keep fit and keep their figures” (24). Here, the news reassured readers, again, that women would not lose their femininity to the toils of the double duty. The emphasis on femininity is further reflected in the sex-typing of occupations and specific industrial tasks as either ‘male’ or ‘female’ during the Second World War, which organized workers into a hierarchy of skilled male labour and unskilled female labour, devaluing women’s labour and, by extension, their position in society (Anderson, 1981; Kealey, Sangster, and Frances, 2006; Klausen, 1998; Kreimer, 2004; Sangster, 2010; Sato, 2000; Stephen, 2000; Sugiman, 1994; Summerfield, 1984, 1985, 1998; Wilson, 2005; and Yang, 2000). Discourse on women’s workplace ability and aptitude shifted such that discourse ‘feminized’ industrial tasks to accommodate women in the factory without upsetting the traditional assumptions governing the sexual division of labour and the established patterns of patriarchal authority” (Nash, 1982: 82; Sato, 2000; Yang, 2000). Government and industry positioned ‘natural’ feminine attributes that complemented homemaking, such as “patience” and “dexterity,” as “special abilit[ies]” in manufacturing industries (Yang, 2000: 224;

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Summerfield, 1998: 200). Newspapers described these ‘feminine’ attributes as an ideal fit for the repetitive or operational tasks women were needed to perform in manufacturing industries. As one front-page general news item that ran Nov. 27, 1942 in The Labor News, Hamilton, stated: “This war job needs the feminine touch in many operations where deftness and delicate precision are of prime importance” (“Lace and Frills”). 5. Conclusions Women make history, not just play a designated role in history. Yet, just as Carolyn Kitch (2001) argued in reference to 20th century summary journalism, journalists have told stories in ways that “treat women as supporting rather than primary actors,” even though women have played key roles in historical events (27). This argument takes on particular relevance when thinking about the history of Canada’s working women during the Second World War. Just because there was a weak discussion of the subject of women’s labour in the wartime press and just because women were marginalized in the stories published therein, that does not mean that women were not part of Canada’s war story. More women joined the labour force than ever before in Canadian history. Yet, the historical ‘record’ left by wartime newspapers did not reflect the magnitude or political economic and social significance of women’s wartime labour. Rather, news coverage minimized and marginalized women’s workforce participation, leaving limited, if any, space for a broader or more progressive identity or for the possibility of social change in the direction of women’s equality. Newspapers told a story that confined women to the margins of history. As Michelle Hilmes wrote: “It is history writing that has consigned women to the sidelines, not historical events themselves” (1997: 132). News media, operating within a patriarchal milieu, make “representational and narrative choices in reporting” that tell a particular history (Kitch, 2001: 15). In the case of this study, news media marginalized and excluded women’s part in history. Gender served as a filter through which to communicate news of women’s wage labour. History told from this perspective, then, does women’s history a disservice because news media already structured women into gendered roles and so historical research based on such media risks doing the same—that is, reinforcing dominant patriarchal perceptions of women by replicating a gendered division of labour. This paper demonstrates the significance of gender for understanding how news media cover the subject of women’s wage labour and, in the process, it offers feminist media and media history scholars a way of thinking about women’s history and, more specifically, the historical relationship between news media and women, that goes beyond dominant constructions of the ‘domestic’ to understand women’s wage labour as a provocation to these historical gendered, public-private divisions. Future research can strive to capture a broader and more progressive historical picture of women’s experiences as labourers in Canada, including women of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Studies may analyze news media sources geared to women, such as working-class publications or trade union newsletters, to assess whether these are vehicles of women’s oppression or whether they offer any real public- sphere possibilities. Another avenue for future research could probe at how women viewed their own labour within the broader social context of the time. Stories remain untold and, with that, so too does history. As Kitch wrote: “If news is the first draft of history, then, … history is the last draft of news” (2001: 14). Applying these words, then, historians today have an opportunity to write about women’s history in a way that revises or reshapes or broadens that history—in a way that honours this time in women’s lives and history.

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ABSTRACTS

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ANTI-VIOLENCE INITIATIVES IN EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON VISUAL DISCOURSE TO END GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN AUSTRIA AND SPAIN

Birgit Wolf

Univeristy Krems, Austria

[email protected]

Considering the efforts to resolve the widespread societal phenomenon violence against women, information, awareness raising and the role of the media comprise one of the key targets by the most important conventions and declarations to overcome it. The women’s anti-violence movement, manifesting through initiatives by governmental institutions, NGOs and individual activists, has made essential contributions to the recognition of violence against women as a human rights violation, and is a crucial player in the field of prevention and awareness raising issues. Information and awareness raising about the social roots and complex contexts of the specific issue of male-to-female intimate partner violence constitutes a core target for primary violence prevention. However, its representation in the media and (audio)visual discourse remains an under-researched and fragmented subject, especially if it comes to contributions by the anti-violence initiatives. Therefore, this paper (based on Wolf 2013) aims to disclose the research gap by analysing how anti-violence initiatives are creating social meaning on male-to-female partner violence. The results are expected to contribute new findings to the field of feminist research and gender studies as well as provide detailed insights about the information practices by the anti-violence women’s movement.

Looking at the media representations in general, we can observe how different programmes and formats are depicting rather similar (visual) narratives of clichéd imagination on intimate partner violence, whereas the systemic nature of the problem mostly remains hidden (Bonilla Campos 2008; Boyle 2005; Geiger 2008; Lopez Diéz 2005; Taylor 2009). This means that media discourse reconstructs stereotypes, effects of re-victimisation and obscures the social roots and complex dimensions of gender-based violence. Moreover, the landscape of visual culture seems a harbinger of normalised symbolic violence against women (Bernadez et al. 2008, Boyle 2005; Carter and Weaver 2003, DeKeseredy 2011, Eiter 2006, Selva and Solá 2003, Richards et.al 2011, Wheeler 2009). Evidently, the visual of gender-based violence as such constitutes a crucial account of discursively created social meaning maintaining normalised symbolic violence. Hence, considering this lack and ambiguousness of mainstream media in knowledge transfer about the complex societal issue, it is important to explore if there are alternative contributions to visual discourse, as for instance through the anti- violence women’s movements. Thus, I analysed the (audio) visual discourse of anti- violence initiatives dedicated to prevent and end male-to-female intimate partner violence.

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Based on theoretical framework for comprehending the direct, structural, symbolic and discursive dimensions of intimate partner violence (Abramsky et al. 2011, Barnett et al. 2011, DeKeseredy and Schwartz 2011, Pence and Paymar 1993, Galtung 1990, 1996, Bourdieu 2001), I contextualised the very issue with visual culture applying a feminist and dispositive perspective (Berger 2010, Català 2005, Deleuze 1989, Foucault 1980, Jones 2010, Silverman 1992, 1996, McLaren 2007). Defining visual discourse of anti-violence against women initiatives on the country level of Austria and Spain as well as on the pan-European level as my research object, I tackle the questions of how anti-violence against women initiatives shape the comprehension of intimate partner violence with their contributions and which differences and communalities can be identified? Establishing a mixed method approach for visual discourse analyses (Jäger and Maier 2009, Rose 2001), I examined the (audio) visual material of the main anti- violence initiatives in Austria and Spain, as well as European-wide campaigns from 2007 to 2011 (Wolf 2013). The results show the core tendencies of the visualised discursive arrangements displayed through the (audio)visual material provided by the anti-violence movement.

The major part of the visual material shows victimising images, silencing the respective women, many of them individualising the social problem. From the results we can conclude that intimate partner violence is represented as a ‘women’s issue’, which is mainly true for Austria and the European-wide initiatives, which fail to offer contextualisation and visions towards the ‘beyond’ of gender-based violence, but rather stuck in the actual situation. Good practices we can find in Spain. Spanish initiatives mostly show contextualising depictions of (potential) victims or survivors, pointing beyond the individual dimension, and – most important – they establish male-to-female intimate partner violence as a societal problem. Concluding, I advocate for further research to reflect on the creation of meaning as there is an urgent necessity to centre on transformation and social change as well as to constitute constellations beyond violence and increase the shaping of transitory visions.

Keywords: violence against women, gender-based violence, visual discourse, communication, representation, violence prevention

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MCLAREN, Margaret A. 2007. Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity. Albany, New York, SUNY Press. PENCE, Ellen and PAYMAR, Michael. 1993. Education Groups for Men Who Batter: The Duluth Model. New York, Springer Publishing Company. ROSE, G. 2001. Visual Methodologies. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London, Sage Publications. RICHARDS, T.N., KIRKLAND GILLESPIE, L., DWAYNE SMITH, M. 2011. Exploring News Coverage of Femicide: Does Reporting the News Add Insult to Injury? Feminist Criminology, vol. 6 nº 3, pp 178–202. URL http://fcx.sagepub.com/content/6/3/178, viewed 24 September 2012. SELVA, M. and SOLÀ, A. 2003. Publicidad y Violencia de Género. In: Instituto Andaluz de la Mujer/Fundación Audiovisual de Andalucia, (ed.) Medios de comunicación y violencia de género contra las mujeres. Sevilla: J. de Haro Artes Gráficas. pp. 85-88. SILVERMAN , K. 1992. Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York: Routledge. SILVERMAN, K. 1996. The threshold of the visible world. New York: Routledge. TAYLOR, R. 2009. Slain and Slandered. A Content Analysis of the Portrayal of Femicide in Crime News. Homicide Studies. vol. 13, nº 1, p. 21-49. WHEELER, D. 2009. The representation of domestic violence in popular English- language cinema. New Cinemas (Journal of Contemporary Film), vol. 7 nº 2, pp. 155- 175. WOLF, B. 2013. 'Shaping the visual' of gender based violence. How visual discourse on intimate partner violence and European anti-violence initiatives construct accounts of the social world. PhD Thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain . [Available at: URL http://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/129680]

Dr. Birgit Wolf Academic Staff, Dept. of Interactive Media and Educational technologies, Danube- Univeristy Krems, Austria. Founding Member of HERMES Research group directed by Dr. J.M. Català, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Member of European Network on Gender and Violence Email: [email protected] WEB: www.genderview.wordpress.com

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TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT MEDIA AND GENDER EQUALITY

Mariapia Ciaghi Journalist and Filmmaker

The starting point for our discussion is the importance of the role played by communication in achieving a culture of substantive equality. The different means of communication transmit the dominant models of reference for the collective imagination, implanting, on a daily basis, overriding stereotypes of women as well as men. Recent studies (Libro Bianco Donne e Media [Woman and Media]) have in particular revealed that the depiction of women by the Italian media is neither realistic nor plural, but rather it is disrespectful of a woman’s dignity and clichéd, with the risk of entrenching male and female roles and reinforcing those discriminations that already exist. As reported in Lorella Zanardo’s documentary “il Corpo delle Donne” (the women’s body), watched by almost 6 million people, we often see vulgar images on TV where a woman's body is the object of sexual desire, something to be consumed and seduced. There appears to be no space for real women, those who work, study and are culturally and socially committed: what is missing is a well-rounded portrayal of the female universe. The process put forward can be viewed as part of an established process of democratisation, inclusion and respect for pluralities and differences, with the aim of identifying communication as a factor for change in the managing of relationships within organisations and outside of them. Another point I would like to highlight is the issue of language: the Italian language is often used to put across a male chauvinist and asymmetrical vision of the world. But words can often become walls or bridges; they can create disparities or help in the understanding of problems. When communication occurs what is required is accuracy and knowledge of the meaning and significance of words. What gender of language do we speak: Italian is a sexed language that differentiates between male and female and can interpret words on the basis of gender. The problem of gender emerges in particular when one is speaking of professional roles. The issue has been repeatedly discussed in official and other types of documents, but manuals on style that invite people to avoid the use of sexist language, offering suggestions for a linguistic equality, intended as equal opportunities for women and men being appointed, and to use the language to avoid belittling one of the genders with words. As far back as 1987 Alma Sabatini published a document for the Prime Minister’s Office – Ministry for Equal Opportunities entitled “Recommendations for a non-sexist use of the Italian language” in which people were invited to use words such as ministra (woman minister), chirurga (woman surgeon), rettrice (woman rector), procuratrice (woman prosecutor), avvocata (woman lawyer) and so on. Some people object because they say it is superfluous, of secondary importance. However the form is the extension of the content and the style is not just a matter of aesthetics, it is also one of ethics. The use of particular words conditions the interpretation and way of thinking; experimental studies of psycholinguistics have demonstrated just this: “the use of the generic male conjures up male images and is therefore neither generic nor neutral” (Orsola Fornara). Therefore, if I say: the magistrati (magistrates), the architetti (architects), I am not referring to women and men, but men. Changing the words also means slowly

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changing the thoughts associated with them. During a press conference held shortly after her appointment as Chancellor, the journalists addressed Angela Merkel as Cancelliere (the male equivalent in Italian of Chancellor) and she invited them to address her as Cancelliera (the female equivalent in Italian of Chancellor). At that point some of them replied: “but female Chancellor does not exist!” and she in turn replied: “but as of now it does, because I am precisely that”. The aspiration is therefore that of activating a number of spaces for reflecting and creating an awareness of the importance of the use of the language, of images and of all those means of communication that are geared towards the respect and enhancement of different genders. Different resolutions and directives from the European Union have highlighted that in the course of carrying out their work the means of communication must contribute to this change in mentality in order to bring about substantive equality between women and men. They have appealed for a stop to the use of images that endorse or exacerbate the situation of discrimination that already exists, but to promote, through means of communication and advertising a genuine depiction of the today’s woman at work and with roles of responsibility. I emphasise the importance of promoting a diversified and realistic image of the possibilities and attitudes of women and men within society.

I’d like to close by quoting Ursula Doleschal: “In order for women to be more present in the collective conscience, being represented in more equal terms compared to men, we have to render them visible, therefore the feminisation of the issue is the only way to obtain such a conscience”.

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