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The Dissertation Committee for Zazil Elena Reyes García Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation

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The Dissertation Committee for Zazil Elena Reyes García Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation Copyright by Zazil Elena Reyes García 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Zazil Elena Reyes García Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Nagging Mothers and Monstrous Teachers: Female Politicians in Political Cartoons A Comparative Analysis Between Mexico and the U.S. Committee: Dana L. Cloud, Supervisor Barry Brummett Sharon Jarvis Victoria Rodriguez Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez Nagging Mothers and Monstrous Teachers: Female Politicians in Political Cartoons A Comparative Analysis Between Mexico and the U.S. by Zazil Elena Reyes García, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2013 Dedication To my four grandmothers: Emma, Mina, Pipis, and Cuca. They showed me what strong and loving women look like, and inspired two generations of women and men in my family. Acknowledgements This project was possible thanks to the work and support of many people. I am especially grateful to my amazing advisor, Dana Cloud. Her commitment to her students and to social justice was a great inspiration throughout graduate school, and her insights and support were invaluable for this work. She pushed me to write, to be critical, and even urged me to rest when both me and this project needed it. I also wish to thank the rest of my dissertation committee, Sharon Jarvis, Victoria Rodriguez, Barry Brummett, and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez. It was always a pleasure to discuss my work with this brilliant group of people and I am very grateful for their mentoring and advice. Sharon Jarvis and Victoria Rodriguez were particularly encouraging for this project. Before I took classes with Dr. Jarvis, she was already sharing texts about women and politics with me. And every time I met with her I became more and more excited about my work. Dr. Rodriguez was also an inspiration, way before we met. Her work on Mexican women in politics was fundamental for my master’s thesis, which was the first step in this project. I was completely starstruck when I finally met her, but immediately found an ally. In addition to my committee, I want to thank a number of people at The University of Texas at Austin. First, my two Graduate Program Coordinators. Dr. Susan Corbin was a supportive and caring coach for a great part of my dissertation work, and Aida Gonzalez has been an indispensable guide through the administrative maze that I have encountered living away from Austin. I also thank the librarians and staff at the Benson Library, at the Briscoe Center, and at The University of North Texas in Denton, where I spent months working on my archival research. v I could not have completed this project without the funding I received throughout my program. I want to thank the P.E.O. Sisterhood, and particularly P.E.O. International for funding the first half of my doctoral program. Thanks to all the great women who helped me with administrative issues and to those who corresponded with me during these past few years. I also wish to acknowledge the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for saving me half way through the program by giving me classes to teach and a new group of friends. And finally, thanks to the Communication Studies Department for giving me the Pic Wagner Fellowship. This project was also possible thanks to my wonderful friends and family. I am forever indebted to the brilliant and kind Tiara Na’puti. Our work dates were essential to this project, as well as her input and editing work, which is present in several parts of this text. Special thanks to Tiara and to Clariza Ruiz de Castilla, who were my allies and dearest friends in the Communication Studies Department. I am also grateful for my Latin American feminista “Benson Library friends,” Tania Camacho, Erika Grajeda, Bárbara Abadía-Rexach, María José Afanador-Llach, Sandra Cañas, and Hilaria Cruz. Mujeres, I wish we had met earlier. To my extended Yucatexan family: Anja, Rafa, Ana Pau and Claudia, thank you. My childhood friends from Mérida, México also deserve acknowledgement. They cheered me on through WhatsApp, and some of them even helped with my archival research. Gracias Claudia, Lídice, Rutbe, Ximena, Jimena, Laura, Alejandra, y Elvira. My Austin roommates also deserve acknowledgement. Meagan, Beth, and Erin, thank you for making my life easier and happier. None of this would have been possible without my parents. I want to thank my “second advisor” and my most enthusiastic reader, Alejandra García Quintanilla, aka “la ma.” She has read almost every single word that I have ever written and is my number one supporter. Her insightful comments contributed greatly in shaping this project, and vi her amazing support pushed me through the finish line. Thanks also to my dad, Jorge Reyes, who always has wise words to share and who reminds me that I am strong when life gets rough. Thanks to Casi, my lil’ big sister. She has been a guide and an inspiration through the craziness that is grad school and dissertation writing. Last but not least, I wish to thank my awesome husband, Robi Chapman. Although he still cannot understand why graduate school seems to be so stressful, he has cheered me on, fed me, and has also helped me with different aspects of my overwhelming cartoon archive. Thank you all. vii Nagging Mothers and Monstrous Teachers: Female Politicians in Political Cartoons A Comparative Analysis Between Mexico and the U.S. Zazil Elena Reyes García, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Dana L. Cloud This dissertation begins with the observation that discursive and visual representations of women in politics have direct consequences on the actual participation of women in politics (Beail & Goren, 2009; Bimey, 2010). For this reason I analyze current visual representations of female politicians in editorial cartoons. This work focuses on political cartoons because these artifacts provide information about cultural assumptions regarding gender roles and can bring insight about the cultural barriers that women still face when they become political actors. For this project I asked the following questions: How are female politicians represented visually? And how does the existing visual rhetoric enable, debilitate or restrain their political participation? This is also a comparative study of political cartoons that portray women in Mexico and the United States. To answer these questions, I analyze cartoons within a feminist framework, using literature on patriarchy, postfeminism, and the notion of the double binds faced by women in power. To examine portrayals of female politicians I developed a methodological approach that consists in identifying cartoons that rely on gender in order to construct their political commentary. Gendered cartoons are then classified using viii archetypes —specifically the Great Mother archetype— and stereotypes. For the analysis, I connect Kenneth Burke’s notion of perspective by incongruity with the feminist framework I previously constructed. The cartoons analyzed in this project comprise one decade, from 2002 to 2012, and four newspapers: La Jornada and Reforma (from Mexico), and The New York Times and The Washington Post (from the U.S.). I conclude that the argument that a patriarchal system no longer exists is not valid when we analyze cartoons that clearly resent women’s participation in the public political sphere. In these gendered cartoons women continue to be the symbol of the private sphere of the home. Their presence in the political space is portrayed as incongruous and cartoonists seek to restore the patriarchal order by visually taking women back to their traditional domestic space, depicting them as housewives and mothers. In these instances cartoons become powerful tools for reinforcing the traditional hierarchy of the private and public spheres. ix Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Chapter preview ..............................................................................................4 Chapter 1: Mediated Representations of Female Politicians ..................................8 Rhetoric and social sciences: Two approaches to gender and political communication .....................................................................................10 Politics as a gendered space ..........................................................................11 Disciplining gender .......................................................................................16 The double bind ............................................................................................18 Post-feminism ...............................................................................................20 Shortcomings in the research literature.........................................................24 Visual rhetoric ......................................................................................25 Mixed-Gendered approach ...................................................................27 International comparative studies ........................................................29 Mexican women in politics ..................................................................31 Chapter summary ..........................................................................................35 Chapter 2: Analyzing Political Cartoons Through a Feminist
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