Page 485 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Representat ons of Women

other women, that large numbers of professional women had decided to forgo their jobs in
order to stay at home with their children, and that single women over 30 had a very small
chance of getting married. In essence, Faludi argues, the popular media was promoting the
idea that the women’s movement was women’s worst enemy.
Using data from a wide variety of government and university studies, the popular press,
and personal interviews, Faludi interrogated and debunked these myths about the status of
women that were current at the time she was writing. She critiqued the press for not chal-
lenging these myths and for reinforcing the idea that feminism is to blame for the (supposed)
unhappiness of women. She argued that if women are indeed unhappy, this stems from the
fact that the struggle for equality remains unrealized. She also pointed out that the backlash
is a historical trend that tends to appear when women have made substantial gains in their
struggle for equal rights.

as the voices of experts and authority, women’s voices are often featured in “soft”
areas, such as advertisements for baby products, cleaning goods, pet foods, or
luxury items, particularly those aimed at male purchasers (such as chocolates
and perfume). In addition, stereotypes about “feminine discourse” include social
(rather than linguistic) concepts such as gossip, bitching, and nagging, for which
there are no masculine equivalents. This concept of a “feminine discourse” in
contrast to more masculine forms of communication is especially prominent in
debates about gendered representations in the stereotypically “feminine” genre
of soap operas.

womEn anD/in soaP oPEras

Soap operas have been widely studied, perhaps because they are hugely popu-
lar in both Western and non-Western countries. One significant debate that has
arisen from these studies is whether or not soap operas represent a form of “femi-
nine discourse” that is cause for celebration, or whether this conception reaffirms
gender essentialism and the image of women as more concerned with relation-
ships and talk, rather than action. The conventional view is that soap operas are
a women’s genre, and therefore do reproduce “feminine discourse.” Critics argue,
however, that the gap between the male and female audience for soaps is not as
large as most people suppose, and that if soaps are deemed “feminine” because
they deal with everyday problems and are set primarily in the private sphere,
then this further perpetuates, rather than proving, a gender essentialism.
While some scholars have argued that soap operas provide a positive image of
gossip and that female soap opera fans gain pleasure from the texts in ways that
undermine patriarchy, others find little evidence that this playful use of soaps
subverts dominant discourses. While soap operas do provide a wider variety
of images of women than other media, research on the contents of soap operas
indicates that soap characters are represented as flawed individuals, living com-
plicated lives that nevertheless remain within the expectations of patriarchy.
Structural answers to complex problems are not addressed in these programs, so