The Femininity Game By Mariah Burton Nelson

In the poem “It’s a Woman’s World,” Eavan Boland uses many poetic devices such as alliteration, simile, and enjambment in order to explain life from a woman’s point of view and how women have lived the same since the beginning of time.

In the She’s The Man (2006), Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes) cross dresses for the majority of the film, pretending to be her twin brother Sebastian. She does this in order to play for Illyria’s men’s soccer team as her school, Cornwall, cut the women’s soccer team and wouldn’t allow her to play for the men’s team. Her main motivation is to beat her former schools team and prove to them that even though she is a girl, she can play on the same field as the boys. While pretending to be Sebastian, Viola initially struggles to hide her femininity, such as when it is discovered that she has tampons in her bag. As the movie progresses her ability to hide this femininity and express masculinity becomes easier. Her cross dressing has an effect on everything and everyone around her and it pushes the line on the comfort people feel when stereotypical gender norms are challenged/ She becomes interested in her roommate, Duke (Channing Tatum) and throughout the movie the two become closer on an intimate level even though Viola is still masked as Sebastian. Duke is obviously uncomfortable with this as made evident by the end of the movie, when it is revealed that Viola was pretending to be Sebastian the entire time. His look of relief reinforces this idea of stereotypical, heterosexual gender roles, as now that Viola is revealed as a female, it is socially acceptable to be attracted to her. She’s The Man reinforces the stereotypical gender roles that society expects out of

Starting with how women are portrayed in media, Trolan (2013) states that in today’s society, individuals are shown magazines, newspapers, and television programs with articles and photographs, “of what it means to be a woman or man” (Trolan, 215). This is remarkably obvious when discussing the world of sport. Although women have achieved a somewhat higher level of respect in the everyday world, within the sporting world, “they are still viewed as women first and athletes second” (Trolan, 215). Krane, Choi, Baird, Aimar, and Kauer (2004) also articulate that women participating in sport live in two extremely separate cultures: the sporting culture and the culture in which they face the continual battle between being an athlete and being a woman. Being viewed as

While participation of women in sports has increased, the media representation of women in sports remains problematic. Even the most talented elite female athletes like Michelle Kwan and Monica Seles are portrayed in a sexual fashion, as a way of deemphasizing their athleticism and neutralizing any possible threat they might seem to pose to male viewers. Very few male athletes are portrayed in such an objectified manner; they are portrayed as competitors first and foremost, not as personalities. Also, the media coverage of athletes is disproportionately focused on male athletes. The coverage of female athletes tends to stress individualized female sports where women can be sexualized like tennis and figure skating, versus competitive team sports like basketball and soccer.

bell hook is a famous feminist author who wrote the book “Feminism Is For Everybody” hooks attempt to create a quick, simple start on feminist history, theory, and politics to the masses who receive a misinformation, misunderstood, and maligned version of the feminist movement. Hooks says “To understand feminism it implies one has to necessarily understand sexism”.We define feminism as the advocacy of women 's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.Where she simply define and shows that being feminism does not mean women have to become mean or they are better than men,she simply saying that men and women need to be equal like the civil right movements. The book begins with a brief statement of feminist political positions, then discusses some history of the movement.She discusses the change in the movement from personal to groups where women have close relationships with one another and began to feel personally empowered by their participation in the establishment of large, and how some women feel like they are working for the high middle-class women.Every single time it doesn’t matter you a women or men, you will always have someone in the higher level than you.hooks feel like it will very exciting for the women who have the power to work with other so they could build each other up..Hooks views the formation of large women’s organizations as the beginning of a stage where the movement took on the role of

What does being beautiful really mean? It is the possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, or think about. It goes way beyond the looks but what is within. The media seems to have a different view on beauty. The concept to tell someone what they are or what they should be, is what the media exhibits to society with ideal females known as “models.” In Curtis Sittenfeld, “Your Life as a Girl,” she describes the life as a female and the way they are being viewed. Although all females are beautiful, they feel like they need to appear a certain way to be categorized as such. Living in a world where others opinions are more powerful than one’s own, makes it harder for women to actually consider themselves as being beautiful.

Within sport, as throughout society, gender differences exist. The socially constructed phenomenon of gender dictates a dichotomous system whereby females are feminine and males are masculine. Focusing on females specifically, society determines the feminine traits and roles ascribed to this gender. Being domesticated, slender, passive and heterosexual are a part of the desirable appearance that society has formed surrounding femininity (Wolf, 1991). On the other side of the dichotomy is the masculine realm that sport plays into. Sport is fuelled by muscle, power and aggressiveness, which are behaviours and images associated to masculinity. Sport therefore, defies all existing female gender ideals. It would be assumed that females have no place within this institution due to the gender clash. However, female athletes do exist, and many are very successful. For this to work, sport has established and reinforced the social constructions of gender that exist in society. Female athletes are viewed as inferior and are pushed into gender appropriate sports. Furthermore, they are often labeled as masculine until they can prove otherwise, and so great attempts are made to reassert femininity. The stigma associated to being masculine or homosexual for female athletes is so great that many have become irrationally fearful of this label. The sexualisation of the female body and overt displays of heterosexuality are used in

Media “combines notions of feminism and traditional stereotypes of feminity to reinforce male dominance” (Carty, 152) by making female athletes to become sexualised. Even if female athletes try and bring out new ideas on power and strength in the society, they have to take a step back and conform to the patriarchal society and their norms. This takes the society back from any progress made and the efforts of women for equality, go in vain.

Female athletes want to have a more equal place in society compared to male athletes, however, sexploitation, their portrayal in the media and sponsorship cycles inhibit them from this.

In her Novel, Southland, 2003, Nina Revoyr captures the struggles that women, especially those of the Asian American descent, have navigated through history. The novel provides interesting material on many fronts including aspects such as sexuality, multiracial and multigenerational family saga. The book is based upon three women characters with the main protagonist being a young Japanese American woman by the name of Jackie Ishida - a 25 year old law student in her last semester, her aunt Lois and her lesbian lover Laura, an African American woman. These three women in the book represent different aspects of women 's struggles and the issues they have to confront in their day to day living.

Throughout many years there has been a great change of gender roles of men and women in our society, and especially in the world of sports. Over the last couple years female athletes have really strived to gaining equal representation and media coverage as much as the male athletes do. Female athletes are also starting to participate in more male dominated sports such as, MMA, hockey and even golf. These few sports have been perceived as “manly sports” which usually makes women feel that they shouldn't participate because they're not masculine enough. Even though there are many female athletes who feel discouraged to playing “manly sports” there are also plenty of female athletes who are trying to show younger generations that it's okay to participate and compete in sports that aren't necessarily “feminine sports”. The way that gender roles have been affecting sports for a long time are through behaviors, stereotypes and the perception of male and female athletes.

Deborah Gray White’s book, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, emphasizes the importance of the need for writing about the history of slave women. White lists many examples of theories of slavery that do not include women specifically or generalizes both genders. Due to the lack of source material on slave women in particular, historians “do black women a disservice when we rob them of a history that placed them at the side of their men in their race’s struggle for freedom” (White, 22). To right this mistake, White uses slave narrative, memoirs written after the civil war, the Works Projects Administration’s interviews with female ex-slaves, and historical/anthropological research to depict the social history of slave women in the antebellum South (White 24). The purpose of White’s book is to solely “enrich our knowledge of antebellum black culture and to serve as a chapter in the yet unwritten history of the American black woman” (White, 25).

When women decide to participate in sports traditionally for men such as bodybuilding, they risk the chance of being socially stereotyped as lesbians, or simply viewed as "less feminine" then say women figure skaters. For example, Venus Williams is seen as criticized for being very masculine in build and judged on that by her performance. The media has commented on how well she plays, and has compared her to men in her sport. She receives fewer endorsements than many other tennis players do because of her looks (but mainly due to her race).

An example of a female athlete being ridiculed for portraying society’s idea of non-femininity is Martina Navratilova. Martina was the first female tennis player who began to play tennis more as a power sport than a sport of technique. Subdued by an oppressive communist system that controlled the Czech Tennis Federation, she was seen to be playing in the style of men instead of playing women's tennis. As she did not fit into society's image of how a woman should look, behave and play tennis, she was ridiculed and branded as the proverbial ‘bad egg’ when compared to her contemporaries. Additionally, she was branded as a lesbian, which caused more hardship for her as she was forced to face a world which was much more homophobic at that time than it is now. Her sexual orientation is not a prime issue; it was something that was used against her and something that was assumed simply because she did not portray the feminine image that is expected of women.

Martínez Nova attempts to develop a picture of how indigenous women are viewed by different sectors of society she examines the “stereotypes put forward by merchants, municipal authorities, and middle-class citizens as reflected in the local press”, “anthropologists and other social scientists who advocate for indigenous migrants” [and] “indigenous women's own thoughts on the topics discussed” (250). The author also engages with other similar literature which examines cultural identities of ethnic groups including de la Cadena’s (1996) work on mestizas and Colloredo-Mansfeld’s (1998) study of Ecuadorian Andes. Like these authors, Martinez Nova is attempting to explain how different cultural representations of ethnic groups are formed,