WST 371 Notes week 1-7 complete study guide
WST 371 Notes
Week 1
❖ Women studies = research and teaching that places gender at center
❖ Gender attentiveness = culturally specific ways of acting and
appearing masculine/feminine must both be examined
❖ Feminist = person belives in/works toward social, economic, political
equality for women
➢ Goal = move towards inclusivity and celebrate diversity (no
exclusion/discrimination)
❖ Popular culture = create/maintain ideas about what’s normal and
ideal in society
➢ Can promote negative and stereotypical ideas about people but
also challenge stereotypes/create new multidimensional
representations
❖ Virgin/whore dichotomy =women represented in culture as
good/desexualized mothers or independent/sexualized/dangerous
➢ Movie Obsessed (married man stalked by single woman and
goes for wife)
❖ Essentialist =core sexual self, biology/genetics, universal/ahistorical
❖ Constructionist = sexuality innate, power of culture, meaning of
sexuality vary
❖ Sexual script = whom people have sex with, when/where have sex,
what/why do sexual things
➢ Gender, race, class specific
➢ EX: boy snaps bra straps and girls don’t iniate sex
❖ Social phenomenon = body interpreted through culture
imagery/influences
➢ EX: women thin/toned
❖ Theory of social construction = popular culture and social institutions
as integral site which cultural ideas about sexuality
made/altered/inforced
➢ Popular culture/media increasingly create and dissemate sexual
scripts
➢ Influence way see own body and others
❖ 2 way process = Popular culture reflects society back to self and is a
force in shaping the society
❖ Invisible style = erase all signs that we are looking at a product,
constructed through decision-intensive collaborative process
❖ Denaturalize popular culture texts to analyze them
❖ Consumer products carry a variety of different cultural meanings,
,WST 371 Notes week 1-7 complete study guide
individuals use commodities to define them
❖ Effective media analysis = avoid excessive plot summary,
interpretations of popular culture in specific evidence
(narrative/stylistic), don’t speculate characters thoughts/emotions if
aren’t presented as part of representation
➢ Be specific why you chose theme/pattern/elements of text and
how it supports your argument
➢ Thesis statement communicates your overall argument
Week 2
Out-of-Body-Image
❖ Subliminal message = women bodies are objects for others to visually
consume
❖ 70% females at LA college medium or high self-objectifiers
(internalized male gaze and monitored physical appearance)
➢ Men experience but at lower rate
➢ More prone to depression and low self esteem
❖ Habitual body monitoring - can lead to eating disorders
❖ Lower self objectification have higher GPA
➢ Self objectification = less likely to vote/run for office, impairs
motor skills, great anxiety, prioritize men during sex
❖ Girls are taught to view bodies as projects that need work before
attraiting others
❖ What to do about self objectification = recognize everyday actions
(boycott companies and activism), contact companies to voice
concerns, refuse to patronize businesses that depict women as sex
objects, avoid bad media
❖ Boys taught that your body is a tool to master the environment
Doll Parts: The "Barbie Executioner"
❖ Barbie is large figure in young girl lives - mainstream beauty
standards (young, thin, white (unhealthy standards)
❖ Barbie not defined by her career
❖ Daughter took apart barbie dolls cause they’re unrealistic
Mattel's New "Monster High Dolls' Play On Old School Stereotypes
❖ Desire to escape ordinary boundaries
❖ Platform heels, nipped waists, long hair
❖ Themes: popularity, fashion, competition in cliques, appeal to males,
sexiness
Why Aren't We Protesting Miss America?
❖ People used to always have a goal of being miss america
, WST 371 Notes week 1-7 complete study guide
❖Protests made it so it no longer is in many people's minds but still in
objectified society
Happy-To-Be-Nappy Barbie
❖ Used boiling water and pipe cleaners to give curly haired barbie
❖ Black barbie reinforces white supremacy - standard white barbie
painted brown
This Week, Drown Barbie
❖ Lack of body fat = can’t menstruate
❖ Smiling, sleek, smooth, naked and do what you want with them
(silent/submissive) - girls don’t want to be
1950's Golden Age Lecture
❖ 50’s = simple time
❖ TV is center of family life - nuclear family (father is head, mother
domestic, children naive)
➢ White middle class family, sexuality doesn’t exist
❖ Virgin until marriage, be attractive but not sexual, women harsh
social constructs
❖ Kinsey reports - 1948 and 1953 contradicting views of time regarding
sexual behavior in males and females
➢ 68% males and 50% women premarital sex
Overview of 50's pop culture/media and of gender roles
❖ More disposable income, rock & roll, baby boom, TV
❖ Conformity (gender roles) but in 60’s there’s the “sexual revolution”
❖ African american women not portrayed much
Miss America
❖ Began 1921, after labor day, define ideal American woman, in Atlantic
city
❖ Bathing suit contest (Bather’s Revue)
➢ Point breakdown = 5 for head, 5 for limbs, 3 for torso, 2 for leg
❖ First miss america = margaret gorman (16, tiny, petite, blonde,
ringlets, 5’1”)
➢ “Strong, red-blooded, able to shoulder responsibilities of
homemaking and motherhood. It is in her type that the hope of
the country rests”
❖ Hopes that winning give career in show business
❖ Fascination with beauty pageants is there is a winner agreed on by
society
❖ 1933, curvy blonde, unsophisticated, naive, enthusiastic, talented
Documentary Miss America
❖ 10,000 women enter 1200 state/local beauty pageants each year in
WST 371 Notes
Week 1
❖ Women studies = research and teaching that places gender at center
❖ Gender attentiveness = culturally specific ways of acting and
appearing masculine/feminine must both be examined
❖ Feminist = person belives in/works toward social, economic, political
equality for women
➢ Goal = move towards inclusivity and celebrate diversity (no
exclusion/discrimination)
❖ Popular culture = create/maintain ideas about what’s normal and
ideal in society
➢ Can promote negative and stereotypical ideas about people but
also challenge stereotypes/create new multidimensional
representations
❖ Virgin/whore dichotomy =women represented in culture as
good/desexualized mothers or independent/sexualized/dangerous
➢ Movie Obsessed (married man stalked by single woman and
goes for wife)
❖ Essentialist =core sexual self, biology/genetics, universal/ahistorical
❖ Constructionist = sexuality innate, power of culture, meaning of
sexuality vary
❖ Sexual script = whom people have sex with, when/where have sex,
what/why do sexual things
➢ Gender, race, class specific
➢ EX: boy snaps bra straps and girls don’t iniate sex
❖ Social phenomenon = body interpreted through culture
imagery/influences
➢ EX: women thin/toned
❖ Theory of social construction = popular culture and social institutions
as integral site which cultural ideas about sexuality
made/altered/inforced
➢ Popular culture/media increasingly create and dissemate sexual
scripts
➢ Influence way see own body and others
❖ 2 way process = Popular culture reflects society back to self and is a
force in shaping the society
❖ Invisible style = erase all signs that we are looking at a product,
constructed through decision-intensive collaborative process
❖ Denaturalize popular culture texts to analyze them
❖ Consumer products carry a variety of different cultural meanings,
,WST 371 Notes week 1-7 complete study guide
individuals use commodities to define them
❖ Effective media analysis = avoid excessive plot summary,
interpretations of popular culture in specific evidence
(narrative/stylistic), don’t speculate characters thoughts/emotions if
aren’t presented as part of representation
➢ Be specific why you chose theme/pattern/elements of text and
how it supports your argument
➢ Thesis statement communicates your overall argument
Week 2
Out-of-Body-Image
❖ Subliminal message = women bodies are objects for others to visually
consume
❖ 70% females at LA college medium or high self-objectifiers
(internalized male gaze and monitored physical appearance)
➢ Men experience but at lower rate
➢ More prone to depression and low self esteem
❖ Habitual body monitoring - can lead to eating disorders
❖ Lower self objectification have higher GPA
➢ Self objectification = less likely to vote/run for office, impairs
motor skills, great anxiety, prioritize men during sex
❖ Girls are taught to view bodies as projects that need work before
attraiting others
❖ What to do about self objectification = recognize everyday actions
(boycott companies and activism), contact companies to voice
concerns, refuse to patronize businesses that depict women as sex
objects, avoid bad media
❖ Boys taught that your body is a tool to master the environment
Doll Parts: The "Barbie Executioner"
❖ Barbie is large figure in young girl lives - mainstream beauty
standards (young, thin, white (unhealthy standards)
❖ Barbie not defined by her career
❖ Daughter took apart barbie dolls cause they’re unrealistic
Mattel's New "Monster High Dolls' Play On Old School Stereotypes
❖ Desire to escape ordinary boundaries
❖ Platform heels, nipped waists, long hair
❖ Themes: popularity, fashion, competition in cliques, appeal to males,
sexiness
Why Aren't We Protesting Miss America?
❖ People used to always have a goal of being miss america
, WST 371 Notes week 1-7 complete study guide
❖Protests made it so it no longer is in many people's minds but still in
objectified society
Happy-To-Be-Nappy Barbie
❖ Used boiling water and pipe cleaners to give curly haired barbie
❖ Black barbie reinforces white supremacy - standard white barbie
painted brown
This Week, Drown Barbie
❖ Lack of body fat = can’t menstruate
❖ Smiling, sleek, smooth, naked and do what you want with them
(silent/submissive) - girls don’t want to be
1950's Golden Age Lecture
❖ 50’s = simple time
❖ TV is center of family life - nuclear family (father is head, mother
domestic, children naive)
➢ White middle class family, sexuality doesn’t exist
❖ Virgin until marriage, be attractive but not sexual, women harsh
social constructs
❖ Kinsey reports - 1948 and 1953 contradicting views of time regarding
sexual behavior in males and females
➢ 68% males and 50% women premarital sex
Overview of 50's pop culture/media and of gender roles
❖ More disposable income, rock & roll, baby boom, TV
❖ Conformity (gender roles) but in 60’s there’s the “sexual revolution”
❖ African american women not portrayed much
Miss America
❖ Began 1921, after labor day, define ideal American woman, in Atlantic
city
❖ Bathing suit contest (Bather’s Revue)
➢ Point breakdown = 5 for head, 5 for limbs, 3 for torso, 2 for leg
❖ First miss america = margaret gorman (16, tiny, petite, blonde,
ringlets, 5’1”)
➢ “Strong, red-blooded, able to shoulder responsibilities of
homemaking and motherhood. It is in her type that the hope of
the country rests”
❖ Hopes that winning give career in show business
❖ Fascination with beauty pageants is there is a winner agreed on by
society
❖ 1933, curvy blonde, unsophisticated, naive, enthusiastic, talented
Documentary Miss America
❖ 10,000 women enter 1200 state/local beauty pageants each year in
