Intro to pop culture & feminism:

(these notes are adapted from
Frances Bonner, Lizbeth Goodman, Richard Allen, Linda Janes and Catherine King , eds. Imagining Women: Cultural Representations and Gender London: Open University Press, 1992: 1-19.

  1. introduction to cultural representation:

    what is "representation" versus "image"?

    · thinking about the image as a part of the process of representation.

    · the process of popular culture: a system of representations in circulation through 3 processes:

    e.g.   three aspects of cultural representation dealing with those who produce, disseminate and consume pop culture

    1. production

    2. dissemination

    3. consumption ( look at harlequin romance readers, writers, distribution (in boxes of tide), consider the production of it)

  2. Women's studies has expanded in the university at the same time that the universities themselves have become more and more the extensions of capitalist enterprises. (i.e. fundraising in business etc) Our theories have developed in the direction of radical critique and insight as our institutional forms have adapted more and more uncritically the structures of the very institution we critique.

    On the other hand, fashion magazine editors and writers, many of them creative, progressive women, have sought to address other women in the "women's world" ultimately controlled by male-dominated publishing and advertising institutions, and use the vast resources from advertising to provide feminism and minority social movements a forum and a community. the future inquiry remains in these two kinds of feminism, popular and academic, both working within structuresof domination, and both seeking a way out.

  3. feminist perspectives: