Active Reading Task: Year 1 Film and Society

Semester 1 Active Reading Task: Year 1 Film and Society

Section 1: Assignment

Section 2: Reading Annotations/ Notes

Section 3: Summary

Section 4: Evaluation

Section 5: Vocabulary

Summary

Gender order was put forward by Connell, and then Giddens and Sutton(2013) summarized the theory which is to describe the power relations between masculinities and femininities in society.

Patriarchy, as one of the key concepts of the gender order, is defined that men are dominant over women. Women are oppressed by the patriarchy power both in the individual and institutional levels.

Gender order is made up of three aspects, which are labor, power and cathexis. Labor refers to what jobs men and women do both at home and at work. Power is related to social relations, such as authority, violence and ideology and so on. Cathexis has something to do with emotional and personal relationships, especially the marriage, sexuality and child-rearing. Gender regime is abstracted from the gender order, which is in smaller and more particular settings.

Gender hierarchy is the expression of gender identities of masculinity and femininity and is a key concept of the gender order. And the gender hierarchy consists of hegemonic masculinity, complicit masculinity, subordinated masculinities and subordinated femininities.

Hegemonic masculinity ranks the first because it plays the dominant role over all the other masculinities and femininities on labor, power and cathexis by different channels. Followed by hegemonic masculinity is the complicit masculinity, which cannot live up to the ideal form of hegemonic masculinity, but gets the benefits of its dominant position. Contrary to the hegemonic masculinity, homosexual masculinity is always being discriminated and ranking at the bottom of the gender order for men.

Femininities, however, are all subordinated the hegemonic masculinity. Emphasized femininity is needed to meet the interests and desires of men and can be represented as sexual receptivity and motherhood. Resistant femininities, the lowest of the gender order, are characterized by resisting emphasized femininities.

However, there are a gender crisis tendencies happening in the western society, including crisis of institutionalization, crisis of sexuality and crisis of interest formation. All of them may threaten the current gender hierarchy, but they can improve the gender equality.

Words: 334

Evaluation

Published in 2013, this book was quite up-to-date and adapted to the current society, so it is reliable. The author Anthony Giddens is a well-known sociologist for his theory of structuration and holistic view of modern societies. He is recognized by academic schools, serving as Emeritus Professor at the Department of Sociology, so he can be trustworthy. Established in 1984, polity press has enjoyed a good reputation and publishes about 100 books a year. Therefore, this text is from a reliable source.

When talking about the relevance of the text to the FSCB assignment, there are some points like gender order and gender hierarchy directly related to the assignment. Gays who are included in the homosexual masculinity were oppressed by the police who are an example of hegemonic masculinity. This scene shows one aspect of the gender order: power, but the text only shows limited information. Other points like gender is socially constructed are indirectly related to the assignment because gender identities can be influenced by the media and reproduce gender order.

Giddens agrees with Connell’s ideas on gender hierarchy and admits its contemporary significance, but he raised some questions about the theory. For example, he argues that a trend against hegemonic masculinity contradicts the gender order theory, which shows the objectivity of the text. Meanwhile, Connell believes that cathexis relates to the recognition that sexuality is socially constructed and there was no bodily dimension of sexuality before, which was not mentioned by Giddens. (Maharaj, 1995, p.12) Therefore, Giddens did not fully present Connell’s views.

Connell is a postmodern feminist whose ideas include gender order and gender hierarchy, which can explain the social and power relationships shown in the film, but he fails to put forward specific measures that can be taken. However, socialist feminism thinks that socialist revolution of replacing traditional family form should be a good way, which is included in the film. (Macionis, 2007, p.350)

Words: 318

Reference:

Macionis, J,J. (2007) Sociology. 12th ed. New Jersey, Prentice Hall.

Maharaj, Z. (2009) A social theory of gender: Connell’s Gender and Power. Feminist Review, 49, Spring

Pride. (2014) Directed by Mathew Warchus [DVD]. United Kingdom, Pathe.

Vocabulary

1. gender: (n.) /ˈdʒendə(r)/

English meaning: the fact of being male or being female

Chinese meaning: 性别

Sample sentence: There are gender inequalities between men and women.

Collocations: