The Women's Timeline

http://www.mmu.ac.uk/equality-and-diversity/doc/gender-equality-timeline.pdf

Reference for essay and practical work

Research

Around 52% of the world's population are female yet most of the positions of power are occupied by men.

 "The higher you go, the fewer women there are"

"We have evolved, but it seems to me that our ideas of gender have not evolved"

"We must raise our daughters differently, we must also raise our sons differently"

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too sucessful - otherwise you would threaten the man."

"Why should a woman's success be a threat to a man?"

"Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage"

"The problem with gender is that is prescribes how we should be, rather than how we are"

"We raise girls to see each other as competitors - not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think would be a good think - but for the attention of men"

"We priase girls for virginity, but we don't praise boys for virginity"

Adichie, C. (2013). We Should All Be Feminists. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc [Accessed 26 Jan. 2015].

Research

"Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common stated aim: to define, establish, and defend equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist generally self-defines as advocating for or supporting the rights and equality of women. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women's social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender. Some forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives. This led to the creation of ethnically specific or multiculturalist forms of feminism.<sup>"

From the WIki 'Feminism' definition</sup>

I think it is important to realise that a lot of people only take into account white women and their roles in society. There are a lot of white women who may not identify as a feminist because they are protected by their white privilege  I think it distorts people's views on the female role because it doesn't show the whole picture and how men and women of colour are affected by this.





Bibliography: Kendall, F. (2002). Understanding White Privilege. [online] Available at: http://www.cpt.org/files/Undoing%20Racism%20-%20Understanding%20White%20Privilege%20-%20Kendall.pdf [Accessed 26 Jan. 2015].

Re-evaluated Essay Proposal

Since writing my previous essay proposal, I've struggled with staying interested in the topic. I decided to let it go and find something I would actually enjoy researching and writing about. Whilst searching for topics, I remembered my PPP project from level 4 about the appearance of female characters in video games. The female role in society and the media has undeniably changed over time, however it could still be argued that society's view on the female role still has a long way to go.

I will be concentrating on the period of time between 1920 to present day to analyse the change in the female role within society. I will be looking at the media, popular culture and key political events that have influenced how the roles of women have changed. I have chosen to start at 1920 because it is after the first world war, there was an economic boom in America during the 20's and the Suffragists and Suffragettes had been working hard to get women the right to vote.

Without a doubt, I will probably approach this essay from a feminist point of view and although I want to focus on the female role, I think I must touch upon the male role in society and how gender roles as a whole are beginning to shift. I think it is also important to look at how religion may have influenced peoples perception of particular gender roles and whether or not it still has the same influence.

Research:

1. Boundless. “Gender Roles and Differences.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 14 Nov. 2014. Retrieved 12 Jan. 2015 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/gender-and-sexuality-15/introduction-to-gender-and-sexuality-75/gender-roles-and-differences-296-12831/
2. Shapiro, E. (2010). Gender circuits. New York: Routledge.
3. Reeser, T. (2010). Masculinities in theory. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell
4. Gough-Yates, A. (2003). Understanding women's magazines. London: Routledge.
5. Weissman, K. (1999). Barbie. United States: Universal Publishers.
6. Hughes, K. (2015). Gender roles in the 19th century. [online] The British Library. Available at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century [Accessed 12 Jan. 2015].