Gendered Media: Women, Men, and Identity Politics (Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics, and Culture)
In the past three decades, popular culture has seen huge changes in the portrayal of gender roles, but are the changes deep and abiding or merely superficial and easily co-opted by the old guard? British feminist media scholar Ross examines how the media has shifted representation of gender issues to include broader issues of sexuality: the crisis in masculinity, the backlash against feminism, and the rise in gay, lesbian, and transgender identities. She explores cultural trends from Britain’s lads’ mags, with their postfeminist, postironic sexism, to the Promise Keepers’ search for new male identities to advertisers’ rebranding of femininity to continue its usefulness in selling everything from cars to household cleaning products to sex. Ross also explores how men and women have begun to use new media—particularly the Internet, with its relative anonymity—to redefine gender identity. Among the other topics she explores: differences in coverage of the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, porn-star chic, and cyberfeminism. Ross offers a broad and overarching look at gender and the media from politics to pornography. --Vanessa Bush