15 Feminism and Cultural Studies

Ms. Akhila Narayan

Introduction:

Feminism broadly can be understood as a form of cultural critique that stems from the knowledge of deep-seated prejudice based on gender that underlie and govern all spheres of social system.

Historically, feminism has its roots in the organized agitations for social change (Abolitionism, Civil Rights movement etc.), which began in the mid nineteenth century in Europe and the West. Its culmination can be seen in the Women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s, when women came out in large numbers in the streets fighting for their rights and suffrage. During its first phase, which roughly falls between mid 19th and early 20th c., feminists struggled to achieve equal rights and access to social, economic and political spheres from which they were traditionally excluded. During second wave, between 1960s and 70s, along with the demand for equal rights it also identified gender hierarchy as the primary structure of oppression, which formed the basis for other kinds of oppression and sought to abolish it. This phase is further marked by an emphasis on sexual liberty, experimentation with sexuality and emancipation. The third wave encompasses more recent efforts led by women to challenge the status quo. In this phase, it not only critiqued its own positions but also acknowledged differences among women due to race, class and ethnicity. Feminist theory evolves against this backdrop providing the direction and necessary theoretical foundation to the movement, while in turn getting shaped by it.

Feminism in its current state is multi- faceted, and multidisciplinary in approach. It has taken several new directions, borrowing from several other theoretical schools like structuralism, poststructuralism, marxism, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, ecorcriticism, postcolonialism etc.

Key premises:

Since its onset feminism has evolved and taken new directions, collaborating with other social theories and revising its own positions overtime so much so that it no longer fits into a monolithic framework. Nevertheless, there are certain key premises, which is commonly agreed upon.

1.Against Patriarchy: The term patriarchy has its roots in Greek patria meaning ‘father’ and archè meaning ‘rule’. An anthropological term it refers to the sociological condition where men generally predominate in positions of power. Under such a system men are considered superior and women are positioned as subordinate and inferior to men across cultural domains: be it familial, religious, economic or political. Feminists identify patriarchy as an ideology that forms the key basis for gender oppression and oppose it as it ‘naturalizes’ these unequal gender relations thereby legitimizing the domination and exploitation of women. Think about the honour killings, practiced rampantly in several parts of India. A woman who challenges the patriarchal norms is put to death, in the name of tarnishing the name and honour of the family. The killing is justified in the name of safeguarding the honour of the famiy.

2. Sex versus Gender: The distinction between sex and gender is fundamental to feminist politics. Sex is biological, referring to the physiological condition whereas gender is a social construct. Gendering is a cultural process whereby biological functions are attributed with social meanings. Reproduction is a biological function but society invests it with certain mea nings. Most blatant fallacies upheld by society are: a woman achieves fulfillment only with motherhood and every woman by nature is caring and nurturing. Such erroneous notions trigger a process of gendering. Thus a woman who cannot conceive is made to feel that she is imperfect and flawed. Gender attributes certain qualities to male and female under which women are supposed to be feminine (timid, dependent, sacrificial) where as men are supposed to be masculine (strong, rational, protective). Under such a construction women are often positioned as the ‘other’— inferior and subordinate to men. Patriarchy thrives by naturalizing these unequal gender relations known as biological determinism. One of the prime agenda of feminists is to politicize gender by unraveling its constructed nature.

3.Cultural Stereotyping: Stereotypes are notions or images that are standardized and fixed by convention. They are widely held, oversimplified generalization about a particular group, community, individual or object that does not necessarily have a factual basis. To assume that women are passive and submissive, and men, active and aggressive is an instance of gender stereotype. Stereotypes of any kind, be it of race, class, caste, gender or ethnicity, can be dangerous as it can lead to discrimination or unfair treatment. Feminists are critical of gender stereotypes as they serve to reinforce the unequal nature of gender relations by portraying women in a negative or inferior position to that of men, thereby reinforcing patriarchy. They also serve to standardize social roles and functions. For instance childcare is often considered as a woman’s duty, while household repairs belo ng to the domain of men. Until recently, positions of nurses and secretaries were offered to women, whereas, armed forces are strictly devoted to male. Literature, media, films are spaces where stereotypes are created, disseminated and sustained and they form of locus of feminist analysis.

4.Commodification/ Objectification: Objectification can be defined as the practice of seeing or treating another person, usually woman, as an objec t. Commodification of the woman often leads to her objectification. Women in media TV ads, popular novels, music video, fashion etc are often commodified, where she is reduced to a sexual thing or object displayed for the man to look at and relish. Think about the ‘item number’ in Bollywood cinema where the ‘item girl’ donning revealing outfits, dances to a large male audience. Objectification is an insult to the person as the individual is often reduced to an instrument or tool, which lacks agency. A woman objectified is denied autonomy or subjectivity, as she becomes a possession that can be owned, bought or sold. Car ads, one notices, often carry a glamorous woman along with the vehicle. The analogy attributes the quality of one to the other and vice versa. Woman is identified with her body or body parts and judged based on her appearance. Young women are constantly under pressure to look good in order to gain social acceptability and are made to conform to the ideal feminine appearance endorsed by the media and TV ads. They take to dieting in order to retain ‘size zero’ and dveleop eating disorders like anorexia. Feminists regard objectification as prime cause that produce gender inequality and aggravate violence against women. Pornography often dehumanizes women and teaches men that women exist for their consumption.

5.Language and Gender: The feminist’s take on language is that it is essentially male centered. Some of the earliest research on the links between language and gender were based on ‘difference and dominance’. It investigated the patterns of communication, issues relating to dynamics of power, politicized categories and classifications, which serve to situate social relations and identities. Dale Spender’s Man Made Language (1980) argued that men construct language. For instance the word ‘man’ is often used to refer to human species in general plus God is always referred to as ‘he’. Women within language are often sidelined or stereotyped. Terms referring to female counterparts in binaries like master/mistress, bachelor/spinster etc. are not used congruently and often carry negative connotations. Ecofeminists point out how women are often animalized through words like ‘bitch’, ‘old hen’, ‘chick’, ‘vixen’ etc. used in casual conversations. Psychoanalysis argues that gender identity is formed with the acquisition of language, which marks the transition of the child from the Imaginary (realm of the Mother) to Symbolic order (realm of Father). Since language acquisition is concomitant with internalizing of patriarchal ideology, feminists often consider language as phallocentric. Within the poststructuralist- feminist framework language came to be regarded as a site of cultural construction of identity. Identity/ Subject, it argued is not static or fixed unlike what traditional feminists believed, but it is a discursive construction. Lacan says subject is a process implying that it’s constantly produced and hence changeable through verbal interactions (speech and writing). Individuals take up gender positions as they enact practices within discourse.

Key approaches: –

Black Feminism: Feminism of colour, which includes Black feminism, Chicana feminism, Asian feminism and Native feminism, examines women’s subordination by situating it along the racial axis. It sets itself apart from the mainstream feminist movement by launching a severe attack on the latter which they see as essentially led by the middle-class, white women who are blind to the oppression based on race, caste and ethnicity. Black feminism, a significant subtype under this, grew as a socio- political movement in the US out of severe discontent with both the Civil Rights Movement and mainstream Feminist Movement of the 1970s. While Civil Rights Movement primarily focused on the oppression faced by black men at the hands of white, feminists focused solely on the problems faced by the white woman. For example, earning the power to work outside of the home was not an accomplishment for the black feminists as they have been working all along. Neither movement addressed the issue faced by the Black women or women of other races specifically. Black feminists claim that the prime reason for this invisibility of women of colour within the feminist as well as racial discourse is due to their intersectional position. Women of colour are victims of both racism and sexism due to their marginal status within both the discourses. Hence oppression against them falls in neither, but has to be considered as a combination of both and more. Black women are doubly oppressed as they suffer abuse in the hands of both the whites (men and women) as well as the black men. This suppression is as much psychological and material.

Since racial prejudices are sourced in cultural artifacts, black feminists examine the representation of black women in media and films, which is dominated by the white maale perspective. Black women in these representations are usually pitted against the European white women.

For example, black women are often presented as sexually aggressive and huge as opposed to controlled, less rebellious, petite white women. They are often presented in the roles of servants or Maamies, (in films like Gone with the Wind, Colour Purple or the animation series Tom & Jerry)

Black feminist, along with other feminists of colour, criticize the white feminists’ tendency to homogenize or universalize the oppression of women across georgraphy. The experience of feminine sexuality, they argue, varies according to one ’s race, caste and ethnicity and hence is not similar. For instance the experie nce of an African- American woman in America is completely different from that of a Dalit woman in India.

Psychoanalytic Feminism: Psychoanalysis states that our conscious self (subjectivity) is not innate but formed through our relations with the others in society. This is of great significance to feminism as it gives them a means to negotiate biological determinism. Psychoanalytic feminism seeks to understand the process of gendering by exploring the workings of the human subconscious. In its early phase, feminists were acutely conscious of the disparity between women’s experience and representation of human development in psychology literature. Such literature generally takes the male as the norm, ignoring the women’s experience to talk about human development. They were especially critical of Freud, who in his theory of psychosexual development defined women as suffering from a lack, as she discovers her castrated state (lack of penis) during her early stage of sexual development, and develops a penis envy, a constant sense of inferiority and incompleteness. As opposed to the boy who resolves his oedipal crisis (i.e. discovery of penis and difference from mother) by identifying with his father, the girl child is unable to do so fully as a result of which her position is rendered ambivalent and fluid. She is denied a matured sexuality and is considered deprived (incomplete man) by nature. Further, the unsuccessful resolution makes her more vulnerable to psychosis, thus presenting femininity in a negative light. His statement ‘anatomy is destiny’ was met with strogn resistance from the feminists. While materialist feminism combats the notion of fragmented self which they see as furthering women’s suppre ssion, postmodern feminists see it as an opportunity for subversion, a point which is dealt in the section on postmodern feminism.

Despite its misogynist hue, psychoanalytic feminist has appropriated some of Freud’s notions especially his linking of the unconscious with sexuality. Freud states that infantile sexuality is inseparable from subject’s identity, but this sexuality, psychoanalytic feminists claim, is not a result of biology but due to the association that the child develops with the outside world (here the mother and the father). Going by this, the ‘lack’ that woman suffers from is not necessarily that of the male organ but the lack of power that it represents. Thus one may be born male or female but the cultural environment in which one is placed determines ones masculinity or femininity.

Jacques Lacan who revised Freud’s theory, establishes links between language and gender through his study of human psyche and described the process of formation of the subject. He introduced the terms Imaginary and Symbolic to distinguish between Freud’s Pre-Oedipal and Post-Oedipal stage. What separates the Imaginary from the Symbolic, is the entry of language in the second phase, which becomes a substitute for the loss of the primal, maternal during the transition period. Gender identity is created as the child makes the transition from the realm of imaginary to the symbolic, and occupies a certain subject position. The Imaginary, which refers to the pre- Oedipal stage belongs to the mother and is realm of primal, nature, psychosis, multiplicity, differences and asymmetry while the Symbolic belong to the father that stands for civilized, culture, rational singularity, unity, symmetry and sameness. Lacan’s distinction between the Imaginary and the Symbolic throws light on the process of subject formation around binary structures, which is based on the fundamental distinction between man and women. For Lacan the Phallus is not the penis itself, but the symbolic power that is attributed to it thus making masculinity the norm and femininity, deviation from it. Lacan’s theory is particularly useful to feminism as his study of formation of subjectivity throws light on the constructed nature of gender and thereby opens up possibilities for moving outside the established boundaries of gender.

Materialist Feminism: Also known as socialist feminism, it’s a strand of feminist theory that seeks to expose the nexus between patriarchy and capitalism in keeping women under subjugation. Developed in France in the 1960s, under Christine Delphy, Stevi Jackson, Juliet Michelle and others, materialist feminism draws upon Marxist analysis of class to study women’s issues and concerns. Material feminists attack postmodern feminism for focusing too much on discourse and not looking into the material conditions of women’s lives; for their preference for the representational over the lived. Material Feminism is thus concerned with issues like working conditions of women (labour and wages), sexual division of labour, political dimension of family life (reproduction, sexuality etc.), the roles they play within these structures like mother, housewife, consumer, reproducer etc, and the co nstruction of femininity within patriarchal white supremacist capitalism.

Materialist feminism conceives capitalism, which controls the mode of production and distribution as economically and sexually exploitative as it works in collusion with patriarchy. A workingwoman under such a system is not treated based on her merit but her sex. She gets paid lower wages for the same if not more strenuous work that she shares with her male counterpart. This is especially so in the factories and unskilled labor sector. Material feminist also looks into the role of family in maintaining capitalism and the nature of women’s labo ur within family. Domestic space, according to material feminists, is the arena where gender hierarchy is first produced which is later replicated in the society. The woman in the household takes care of the family– her husband and children and the house. She is assigned the role to nurture and protect them while the man goes out to work. Thus domestic labor is ‘woman’s work’ and since it’s tied to her role as a nurturer and mother, it’s not considered as labour at all and is kept outside the capitalist system. Thus while a man’s work is considered as ‘productive’, the housework is rarely seen as one. Such an identification also guides her choice of career. Since a woman is always associated with the role of nurturer she is encouraged to opt for professions related to ‘caring’ like teaching, nursing etc. Juliet Mitchelle looks at the material reality of maternity in her work, Woman’s Estate (1971). Michelle reads reproduction as an important weapon in the hands of patriarchy and capitalism to subordinate women. Within patriarchy motherhood is hailed as universal and reproduction and nurture are idealized. A girl child internalizes this ideology, so that as soon as she grows up she is absorbed into causal chain of marriage, maternity, absence from production and public life, sexual inequality, and in the process erased from the capitalist system.

Material feminists conceive all structures be it cap italism, patriarchy, racism, colonialism or imperialism as grounded in material realities and studies social structures, relations and practices by situating them within their material context. Furthermore it does not perceive them as monolithic forces but as constantly intersecting with each other creating a complex web of inequality and oppression. This attention to ever shifting material realities stops them from reducing women’s oppression to a single cause. Thus a material feminist knows that experie nce of a woman working in IT industry in city is different from that of a tribal girl.

Postmodern Fe minis m: It refers to the third wave of feminism that evolved in the 1990s under the influence of poststructuralism and deconstruction. This is described as the ‘cultural’ turn in feminism marked by the shift from “things’’ such as women’s labor and male violence to “words” focusing on issues of language, representation and subjectivity. Judith Butler was the prime exponent of this mode. She rejected the essentialist generalizations about gender and the tendency to view gender as a fixed binary. Instead she argued that categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ can be defined only in relation to each other and they are based on performance. This performance is social, as it has to be enacted, validated and accepted by society. The performative aspect is crucial to feminist agenda as it gives scope for negotiation, conflict and contestation of gender roles. Further its meaning is dependent on location, time and cultural framework within which it is performed and since it has to performed continuously the meaning of gender categories cannot be fixed for all time.

Gender identity is constructed through repeated performances. Men and women need to behave in a certain way, wear certain of clothes in order identified so. It includes a set of practices enacted and representations that is understood within a discourse. Thus one’s clothing, mannerisms, speech, etc. are signs that declare one’s gender to the world. It’s a language based on a set of signs (here signs include particular kind of dressing— like women wearing saree whereas men shirts and pants—and beaviour) that is socially accepted and shared and which has to be repeated. A woman hence, is identified as one not strictly based on her biology but based on her repeated performance of the role.

In poststructuralist lingo therefore gender is a text, a system of signs that is open- ended as its meaning can never be finalized. It is based on the context. What constitutes as ‘womanly’ and ‘manly’ might differ from place to place, from one context to context. Meaning of the text is produced during the interaction between the text (signs) and reader (context) every time it is performed and read.

Poststructuralist feminism perceives categories like ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as ‘fluctuating identities’, or the binary divide between gender as a ‘regulatory fiction’ to be subverted. Postmodern feminism took away the social import out of these categories, no longer treating them as hierarchical in nature. Gender is produced and sustained through a process performance and attribution.

Cybe rfeminis m: Internet or cyberspace has figured prominently within feminist debate—a subject actively contested, and negotiated. There are three fundamental feminist approaches to read this space. First is one in which Internet is seen as a ‘technical’ realm and hence associated with masculinity. This is partly due to the perception that women are slow or do not access internet. Second, it is seen as a ‘feminine’ medium that provides a counter public space where women can come together interact, create solidarity and participate in networking, let along have access to knowledge which was traditionally denied to her. The third approach, and this is of special concern to Cyberfeminism, perceives Internet as a ‘bodiless space’ where assumed gender binaries breakdown and are made irrelevant. Under this mode, cyberspace embodies a utopian world beyond the constraining gender boundaries. The possibility of bodiless communication allows for ‘gender swapping’ thus creating opportunities for creating new gender identities.

Donna Haraway, in her manifesto on cyberfeminism, introduced the feminist cyborg theory. It came down harshly upon traditional feminism, which worked with essentialist notions of gender identity and binaries like nature and culture. The essay is a study of position of women from a postmodern socialist feminist perspective locating her within technically advanced postmodern world. Haraway argues that the culture of high technology has blurred the boundaries that separate man from women, heterosexual from homosexual, white from black so much that these hierarchical dualisms are destabilized in the virtual space. New technologies thus prompt redefinition of such notions as nature, culture, reproduction, work etc.

Haraway introduces the figure of cyborg— ‘a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction’— a postmodern agent that stands as a metaphor for postmodern play of identity. As a combination of machine and human, a cyborg escapes and stands outside traditional dichotomies of machine and man, nature and culture. A cyborg thus resists and eludes final definitions, as does postmodern feminism, which avoids totalizing categories of gender. In this fashion Cyberfeminism intervenes in identity politics, monolithic conceptions and exclusive categories—problems of inclusion and exclusion within feminist and gender discourse. Thus the theory is anti-essentialist.

If the above mode is often classified as liberal cyberfeminist, there is a group of radical cyberfeminists who are concerned with questions of everyday problems in internet like homophobia, harassment of women and pornography which has a n adverse effect on women in the lived world.

Ecofe minis m: Ecofeminism is branch of feminism that argues that historically, there is an inherent link between domination of women and that of nature. In western society women are often treated as inferior to men, nature is treated as inferior to culture and humans are considered as superior to nature. Nature is often portrayed as feminine. Expressions like “Mother Earth”, “virgin forests”, “rape of nature” testify to this and women are thought to be closer to nature than man. One reason for this is the physiological connection between childbirth and care. Linking menstrual cycle to lunar cycle also underscore the idea of women being in tune with nature. Focusing on these connections ecofeminism analyses how nature and women are culturally devalued and oppressed.

Ecofeminism posits several possible theories for this shared oppression. Of which the most emphatic is their critique of patriarchal ideology. Ecofeminists claim that the roots of exploitation of women and nature can be traced to the patriarchal outlook of the western society, which is essentially dualistic. According to this view, the world is organized around binaries, which stand in opposition to each other and are hierarchical. Thus mind is split from body, spirit from matter, self from other, male from female, culture from nature, civilized from wilderness, human from non-human, reason from emotion etc. While the mind, spirit, self, male, culture, civilized and so on are deemed superior, the corresponding opposites are considered as inferior and of lesser value. Thus the world is ordered into discrete units with self ‘in here’ and everything else ‘out there’. This division, ecofeminists claim, prompts a view where nature is seen as mechanistic system that man can exploit and use and since women are also viewed as the ‘other’ they too get similarly manipulated and controlled. Ecofeminists consider global environmental issues as feminist issues because women and children are often the first causalities of environmental degradation. Ecofeminism in this regard, examine the role of global economies – Third World debt, underdevelopment, food production and distribution, reproductive rights, militarism, and environmental racism. Industrialization, militarism, and over-consumption have increasingly depleted the natural resources, causing immense pollution of air, water and soil making women, children, poor, ethnic/ tribal communities and ecology itself the immediate victims of it.

Ecofeminism believe that patriarchy is founded on sexism, racism, imperialism, class exploitation and environmental destruction, which are complexly linked and mutually reinforce each other. Thus they seek to develop ‘multi-system’ approach to understand the points of intersection among these forces that create an oppressive system.

Based on the above premises, ecofeminists claim that the current environmental crisis can be resolved only through a social change. They look into arena of reproduction (freedom to choose motherhood, and regulate it), technology that control and manipulate women’s biology, health (unpolluted water, food, air, soil) and conservation of the ecosystem.

Ecofeminists place the emphasis on the interdependence of all life and call for a non- hierarchical system which is governed by the knowledge of interdependency and interconnectivity. They try to counter relationships dominated by values of control and oppression.

Case Study: Construction of notions of masculinity and fe mininity in the ads of high street fashion brand French Connection Jean Kilbourne who has extensively studied the image of women in advertisements states that ads sell more than products. They sell values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, of normalcy, and tell us who we are. But what they te ll us most is how we look or are looked at. A study of the ad series and short films of the high street fashion brand French Connection demonstrates how despite its unconventional campaign, the series work with traditional gender stereotypes of what constitutes as masculine and feminine. The ad series is notable for its retro-style and wry, tongue- in cheek humour and reminds one of the absurd French New Wave cinema.

A comparison of the portrayal of the man and the woman in ads shows that while the man stands for rugged masculinity with his self-confident, determined, focused, active, powerful, brooding posture, the woman embodies passive femininity with her confused, distracted, doe-eyed, vulnerable, listless expression and languid or provocative postures. John Berger in Ways of Seeing (2008) states that ‘men act and women appear’. In the gender discourse men are applauded for their action while women are appreciated for her looks. He talks about how in the western art and media men are often the surveyor while women are surveyed. According to Laura Mulvey’s gaze theory, media looks through the eyes of male. A woman is constantly aware of being looked at and learns to look at herself through the male eyes (fig 5). Notice how the woman is always looking straight into the viewer. She knows that she is being watched and projects herself in a certain way. On the other hand, the man is always looking at a distance, immersed in deep thought and if at all he looks into the camera, it’s more of a challenge than invitation.

The short film on man continues the trend where the narrator follows the man who at no point addresses the camera. He is described as strong, virile, ‘a bull’, capable of speech and opinions while in the video of the woman, she is conscious of the voice of the narrator and the camera eye, both clearly male. While man has to be watched for the power, anger and confidence he exudes, the woman by virtue of her being ‘inignorable’ draws our attention to her appearance and body She is judged by her body, size and postures (fig 2 & 7) whereas the man is judged by the power he exudes ( He is in action through the film) . Note that the video on the women opens with her act of undressing. The narrator in the end comments that the man lack knowledge of sequins, suggesting it’s not in a man to take fashion and looks seriously when he has more important matters to look into. Whereas for the woman she takes comfort in her appearance and clothes, thus painting her as vain and frivolous. The dress is an extension of her body, ‘she turns lines into curves’.

The man in the video is looked at from a distance where as the woman is watched from closer proximity. The narrator draws the attention of the viewer to her body posture and camera zooms in on her body parts, dismembering her body and turning her into an object. Though it’s mentioned that she ignores the men, ironically she cannot ignore the ‘male’ eyes. While the attraction of the man lies is his strength and quality of mind, in the case of the woman the speculation on the same, revolves around her body. Thus conforming to the age-old stereotype of men is of mind and women of body.

It’s also interesting to note that while the man is quoted, the woman is described- an act that effectively silences her. Further the typography has the male lines in full caps and the female lines in sentence caps all underscoring the power and voice of the man. Fig 4 and 9 shows the man in full glory after a conquest, in absolute co ntrol over the nature, whereas the woman in fig 10 is followed in the night, almost creating a feeling of being stalked. The video situates the woman within an ecnlosed room while the man occupies a more expansive space. The advertisements thus work with gender stereotypes and through repetition and reiteration normalizes them. These representations tell one what it means to be a man or woman in a culture.

AUDIO VISUAL QUADRANT (MULTIMEDIA LINKS)

Links to short film:

Woman- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMlCnN7o6Iw

Man- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRLugaUvSKQ

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Fig 10

Reference:

• Gamble, Sarah, ed. The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
• Jones, Amelia, ed. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
• Shiach, Morag, ed. Feminism and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.
• Strinati, Dominic. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2004. Print
• Water, Melanie, ed. Women on Screen: Feminism and Femininity in Visual Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.
• Jackson, Stevi. “Why a Materialist Feminism is (still) Possible – and Necessary” Women’s Studies International Forum. 24.3/4 (2001): 283-293. Web. 16 August 2014.
• Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44. Print.
• Gaard, Greta and Lori Gruen. “Ecofeminism”. Society and Nature. 2 (1991): 1- 35. Web. 18 August 2014.
• Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008. Epub.
• The Naked Truth — Advertising’s Image of Women: Jean Kilbourne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8yLaoWybk