Feminism and media
Feminists, on the other hand, not only supported suffrage, but also were advocates for women to be entitled to the "same level of participation, economic independence, and social and sexual freedoms as men" (Finn, 2012).
Suffragists worked together to attract more women to their cause, they went against traditional methods such as propaganda and lobbying that were previously learned during Radical Reconstruction and the abolitionist movements.
[2] The first-wave was fueled by The Second Great Awakening, which allowed women to have more leadership roles in society, and the abolition and temperance movements.
[4] Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, has been said to have spurred the second-wave movement due to its discussion of the unhappiness of (white, middle-class) women "with their limited gender roles and their sense of isolation in the suburban nuclear family" (Mendes, 2011).
[5] It was also during this period (around the 1960s and 1970s) that women's portrayal on television was changing, in part due to the eventual release of "female sexual and political energy" (Douglas, 1994).
The goals of the movement were broadened from the second wave to focus on ideas such as lesbian theory, abolishing gender roles and stereotypes, and defending sex work, pornography, and sex-positivity.
This negative portrayal over the decades has led many young women rejecting the idea of feminism, in part due to feminists being labeled as "man bashers".
In recent years, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have led to widespread discussion on issues ranging from domestic abuse to street harassment, catcalling, and abortion.
[15] In 2012, feminists in Turkey created Facebook groups to organize and mobilize protests and marches against legislation of a nationwide abortion ban.
[16] In the wake of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal, in which video evidence showed the Baltimore Ravens running back knocking his then fiancée, Janay Palmer, unconscious, writer Beverly Gooden started the Twitter hashtag #WhyIStayed.
This quickly spawned subsequent hashtags including #WhyILeft which many used to describe the final incident of abuse or reason for leaving.
[17] In 2013, the Representation Project created a mobile app called #NotBuyingIt which allows users to connect with each other and quickly tweet or otherwise engage sexist media ranging from advertisements to soundbites and quotes from public figures.
In the aftermath of the University of California-Santa Barbara shootings, thousands of women across the internet began tweeting experiences of sexism experienced in their daily lives with the hashtag #YesAllWomen.
[20] This movement reached all aspects of life in the United States including Hollywood, politics, education, news outlets, and even agriculture.
"[22] Her speech also goes into depth about the negative connotation the word feminist has because of social media and how we as a society can take a stand for gender equality.
[27] In her 1970 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", Laura Mulvey diagnosed two major issues within Hollywood that she felt allowed for an inaccurate portrayal of the feminine experience up until that time.
The second claim is that women are portrayed in film as "objects for masculine desire and fetishistic gazing",[30] writing that this relates directly to the sexuality of females and that the prevalence of a romantic element to a female's role shows that beyond a romantic or sexual element, women in the plot line are essentially worthless.
[32] Yao et al. state that female heroines in action-based video games often wear sexy outfits barely covering their bodies.
[33] As a result, objectifying females has severely affected gender equality, and it also becomes a method that game companies use to attract male players.
Bonnie Ruberg states that the reason for having discrimination against female characters is not because of the erotic labor but the devaluation behavior that presents in the games.
Though hardcopy newspapers do not carry the readership they once did, they played a historically important role in the circulation of feminist ideas within Western societies.
Newspapers were the dominant form of mass media throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, beginning to decline only after the proliferation of radio and television news.
Feminist newspapers allowed women and their group interests to voice their opinion to a larger audience with more consistency and accuracy than word of mouth, helping lay the groundwork for organized movements to take hold.
[34] The German feminist newspaper founded by Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Frauenzeitung, managed to produce a single issue.
The readership and lifespan of feminist newspapers varies widely, but there are several examples that are known for their contributions to the cause of feminism through this form of mass media.
[citation needed] La Voix des Femmes (English: The Voice of Women) was founded by Eugénie Niboyet and remained in print from 1848 to 1852.
[35] In 1917, Colette Reynaud and Louise Bodin launched a weekly French feminist newspaper reusing the name, La Voix des femmes;[36] it ceased publication in 1937.
The newspaper declared bankruptcy in 1984 because of the loss of readership due to negative coverage from male press and competing feminist papers.
