Lauren Wakeling

Thursday, 31 July 2014

UPDATE: 31/07/14

Websites & Current Topics:
I have previously chosen several websites I will be using to assist me in my EPQ research. I am looking at them individually this week to get a feel for the websites and types of information/sources they will give me.

Today I have looked at the following:

FBomb - thefbomb.org

This is a website that I have chosen because I believe it reflects contemporary feminism and the third wave of feminism. In its ‘about’ page it explains that the website is ‘loud, proud, sarcastic and passionate… everything young feminists are today’. This website is purely opinions, but it is a great way of keeping up to date with the current issues of feminism and also the current attitudes of women involved in feminism.

Saturday, 26 July 2014

UPDATE: 26/07/14

Experts, texts and areas of interest:

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women’ by Naomi Wolf

Amazon description: ‘In the struggle for women's equality, there is one subject still shrouded in silence - women's compulsive pursuit of beauty. The myth of female beauty challenges every woman, every day of her life.

Naomi Wolf exposes the tyranny of the beauty myth through the ages and its oppressive function today, in the home and at work, in literature and the media, in relationships between men and women, between women and women. With pertinent and intelligent examples, she confronts the beauty industry and its advertising and uncovers the reasons why women are consumed by this destructive obsession.’

- I have chosen this book as I think it will provide a great background for speaking on feminism and why it is still relevant and necessary. This book was published in 1990, so is significantly outdated and not contemporary, but I believe that the core of the book and the issues it raises will still be relevant to my EPQ question.

‘Full Frontal Feminism’ by Jessica Valenti

Amazon description: ‘Feminism isn't dead. It just isn't very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagates on her popular website, Feministing. com. Covering a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more, Valenti provides young women a primer on why feminism matters. Valenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues. No belaboring where today's young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with, something they can own. Full Frontal Feminism is sending out the message to readers yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty frigging cool.’

- I have chosen this book because it is fairly contemporary (2007), and it appears to cover a lot of issues within feminism which are still being tackled right now. It also seems that this book will try to reinforce the fact that feminism is relevant - therefore directly giving a lot of information on my EPQ question.

‘The Equality Illusion’ by Kat Banyard

Amazon Description: ‘In The Equality Illusion, 'the most influential young feminist in the country' (Guardian) and UK Feminista founder Kat Banyard argues passionately and articulately that feminism continues to be one of the most urgent and relevant social justice campaigns today.

Women have made huge strides in equality over the last century. And yet:

Women working full-time in the UK are paid on average 17% less an hour than men

1 in 3 women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused because of her gender

Of parliamentary seats across the globe only 15% are held by women and fewer than 20% of UK MPs are women

96% of executive directors of the UK's top hundred companies are men

Structuring the book around a normal day, Banyard sets out the major issues for twenty-first century feminism, from work and education to sex, relationships and having children. She draws on her own campaigning experience as well as academic research and dozens of her own interviews. The book also includes information on how to get involved in grassroots action.’ (2011)

Experts:

Laura Bates - Founder of Everyday Sexism project, feminism writer for The Guardian, and author of the book ‘Everyday Sexism’

Contact: laura@everydaysexism.com

Lori Adelman - Executive Director of feministing.com

Contact: lori@feministing.com

Kat Banyard - Director of UKFeminista and author of The Equality Illusion

Contact: katbanyard@yahoo.co.uk

Kat Lazo - Feminist Vlogger, gave a TED talk on feminism

Contact: http://www.katlazo.com/contact/

Marianne Schnall - Founder of Feminist.com and feminist author

From my initial research into feminism (http://laurenwakeling.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/update-10514-initial-research.html) areas I think I am most interested in are the following:

Violence against women/rape culture: This involves domestic abuse, sexual harassment, rape. Rape culture also known as victim blaming. This is a large issue in contemporary society.

Representation in the media: Women being portrayed as the inferior sex, female characters having less speaking or major roles, female characters used only as love interests or being quickly killed off, the lack of complex characters. There are also less female news reporters, issues such as page 3 and ‘lads magazines’, further, the amount of coverage that women's issues receive in the media and the use of women as sex objects in advertising.

Everyday Sexism: This is important to contemporary sexism, as it illustrates the behaviours that have been normalised in society but are occurring everyday. Researching into this will reinforce the relevance of contemporary feminism.

Women and work: Gender gap in pay, the amount of women in top business roles, treatment of women in the workplace, all issues that are very current and important in progressing with equality.

Tuesday, 22 July 2014

UPDATE: 22/07/14

WEEK ONE OF RESEARCH: DAY ONE
My research plan for this week is as follows: This week I need to do all of my background research on feminism. I need to discover which experts I would like to contact, read into different types of feminism, choose texts I would like to use for research, and discover which areas of feminism I am most interested in.

Today: I have looked researched the different types of feminism and the history of feminism. I have used a google search, using several articles and sources for each part of my research in order to maximise reliability of information.

Sources used:

The three waves of feminism USA article

Three waves of feminism 2

RED = USA specific article (but all information does relate to the UK waves of feminism)

British Feminism History Timeline - use for dates on legislation and large events

Pioneers of feminism:

Sappho - Ancient Greece (570BC)
Hildegard of Bingen - Medieval
Christine de Pisan
Olympes de Gouge
Mary Wollstonecraft
Jane Austen

First Wave Feminism:

Late 19th to early 20th century
Goal: open up opportunities for women
Focus on suffrage
Formally began with rally at Seneca Falls convention 1848 (300 men and women rallied for equality of men and women)
Generally propelled by middle class white women
Suffragettes/suffragists trying to gain the vote
Legal inequalities

Second Wave Feminism:

Began 1960s carried on to 1990s
A radical movement
Sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues
Goal: Pass equal rights amendment to the constitution (social equality regardless of sex)
Very theoretical movement - Marxism and psycho-analytical theory
Drew in many different types of women
Social and cultural inequalities
Still happening in some countries

Third Wave Feminism:

Began mid 90s
Dismantled many social constructs - slut, bitch, heteronormativity, sexuality, body
Use of the internet
Global and multi-cultural movement
Combat issues such as women’s influence in politics, female stereotypes and media portrayal of women

Sources:

http://web.viu.ca/vaugeois/courses/trmt_153/feminism.htm

http://bitchmagazine.org/article/everything-about-feminism-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask

http://www.uah.edu/woolf/feminism_kinds.htm

Branches of feminism:

All branches agree on three key things: equal rights & opportunities for women, all recognise that women are oppressed and exploited by virtue of being women, all organise to make change

Liberal Feminism:

Views discrimination on women unjust as deprives of equal opportunities
Do not think oppression of women is due to capitalism, do not seek to overthrow governmental system
Concerned with rectifying the discrimination that grows out of socialisation
Works within structure of mainstream society to bring women into that structure

Social Feminism:

Aims to integrate issues of gender and class - bring together patriarchy and capitalism
Targets state/government as site of ‘patriarchal capitalist’ power
Struggles for women's control of reproduction

Radical Feminism:

Rejects liberal feminisms willingness to work in the frame of current society
Womens oppression is viewed as the fundamental oppression
Sees sexism as the root of other issues such as class hatred, racism, ageism, war
See the world as men controlling womens bodies, believe women need a women only space where they can nurture each other, gain control over their bodies and develop a women culture
Main issues have been violence against women (rape, sexual harassment, incest, pornography, domestic violence)

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

UPDATE: 8/7/14

Upon meeting with my EPQ mentor, we prioritized the areas that I need to research and decided on a rough amount of time to spend on the research per week. It was decided that I would do around 2 hours research, 3 nights per week, for between 6 and 8 weeks.

I have now created my planning review, a screenshot of it can be seen below.

The link to the google document is here.

Thursday, 3 July 2014

UPDATE

Areas I am interested in that are relevant to contemporary society:

Violence against women/rape culture
Representation in the media
'Everyday sexism'
Women and work

Research I need to do: A research plan needs to be made, but this is a rough outline

Contact experts - will contact many and see if any are willing to speak to me. For example, Laura Bates, writers from various feminism websites, etc.
Read some texts - ‘The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women’ by Naomi Wolf, ‘Full Frontal Feminism’ by Jessica Valenti
Find some statistics - for example, the 2013 gender gap report
Use websites to keep up with current issues and developments (fbomb, feministing, rookie, f-word, UKfeminista)
Use of videos & speeches - TED talks
Possibility of surveying people on their attitudes towards women/feminism

Thursday, 10 April 2014

UPDATE: 10/5/14 - Initial Research

After a meeting with my EPQ supervisor, we decided on the rough title of why does feminism exist in modern day society. So, I did some initial research in order to learn about contemporary feminism and have since discovered that there are absolute masses of information on modern day feminist movements, it is almost overwhelming.

To get started, I watched some TED talks as they are given by those who are experts and at the top of their fields. There is many videos which cover a wide range of topics. Listing and linking them here for future reference and commenting on them:

1. 'We should all be feminists' - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, feminist writer. This talk was an interesting look at feminism from the perspective of another country and culture, especially as Africa can be said to be considerably behind the Western world in its developments in equality.

2. 'Violence against women - it's a men's issue' by Jackson Katz, anti-sexist activist and expert on violence and media. This talk focuses on the huge issue of violence against women - rape and domestic abuse, more specifically. He suggests that this will become less of an issue if we all do our part in making changes in attitudes - telling somebody it's not okay to make that sexist comment, etc. He makes the argument that violence against women is an issue of men, so this is a good reference for anything regarding rape culture/victim shaming & blaming. Why we need feminism: rape/domestic abuse - violence.

3. 'Why we have too few women leaders' by Sheryl Sandberg, facebook COO. She discusses why it is that there are far more men in the leadership roles of the world, and she also discusses how this can be combated. Recognizes that the change is in the next generation and this has some good statistics. Why we need feminism: Need for equality in the top of fields.

4. 'Reinventing Feminism' by Courtney Martin, activist blogger. Although I didn't find this the most helpful and informative talk as it was quite personal and more about discussing all social injustices, I did find it interesting and she made the fantastic point that we shouldn't just be feminists, we should be standing up for all social injustices also.

5. 'Feminism isn't dead, it's gone viral!' by Kat Lazo, feminist youtuber and blogger. This was one of my favourites, as in my opinion it is very important to consider the online world and social networking in feminism, as it is arguably the greatest tool in spreading the word and gaining support for causes. She discusses the power that online movements can have, and the importance of informing people. She spoke about some very interesting successful petitions and campaigns. It also directed me to several feminist websites which have led me into further research, and that I will discuss later on.

6. 'A teen just trying to figure it out' by Tavi Gevinson, then 15 now 16 editor-in-chief of Rookie online magazine. This had to be my favourite, as it was so relateable and really caught my attention. She talked about the lack of strong female characters in the media, and how one trait of supposedly 'strong characters' is often exaggerated, leaving us young women to believe that we should have that trait, or that we should be that simple. She talks about how women are made to believe that we should be un-complex and un-flawed. This largely focuses on sexism in the media, so it's a really good reference for anything regarding that. Why we need feminism: better and accurate representation in the media, and the need for universal acknowledgment that women are complex, flawed, imperfect, and that that's okay.

7. 'How movies teach manhood' by Colin Stokes. This discussed 'the bechdel test' which has three criterias: having two or more women in the film, having the women speak to each other, and having the women speak to each other about anything other than men. He discussed the need for more role-models for women in film, the need for more female protagonists and how films help in internalising sexism within men. Why we need feminism: Equal representation of men and women in the media.

8. 'The Sexy Lie' by Caroline Heldman, chair of politics department at Occidental College, a frequent commentator on radio and TV, and a contributor to Ms. Magazine. This talk is themed around debunking the excuse that 'sex sells' being the reason for objectifying women in the media. It's a very insightful talk about objectification in advertising and the media, with some shocking examples. She points out the very important fact that men are far less sexualised in advertising than women. Why we need feminism: Objectification and sexualisation of women.

9. 'Global Oppression of Women' - by Sheryl Wu Dunn, novelist who wrote 'Half the Sky' - a book investigating the oppression of women allover the world. This is an amazing talk on the struggles that women all over the world face, and her stories of oppressed women are truly shocking, really underlining the lack of and need for equality between men and women.

10. 'Everyday sexism' - by Laura Bates, founder of the EverydaySexism project. This was one of the most interesting of the talks I watched, as she discussed the normalisation of the everyday sexism that women are exposed to, and how it is wrong that both men and women have accepted these acts of everyday sexism as normality. She tells many stories of everyday sexism, but also of the success that feminist campaigning has had already. Lots of great statistics on sexism and gender inequality in many areas here, so good reference for that. Why we need feminism: Because of the way everyday sexism has been normalised.

Watching these talks led me to some websites and projects to look at, all of which I think are great resources to keep up to date with modern feminism, being well-informed and for my research. They are the following:

And finally, to finish my initial research are some statistics I have found:

Up to 3 million women and girls across the UK experience rape, domestic violence, stalking, or other violence each year.
On average two women a week are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner in the UK.
Almost 1 in 3 girls have experienced unwanted sexual touching at school.
36% of people believe that a woman should be held wholly or partly responsible for being sexually assaulted or raped if she was drunk and 26% believe this if she was in public wearing sexy or revealing clothes.
The full time gender pay gap is 10%[13] , and the average part-time pay gap is 34.5%.
It is estimated that for each year a mother is absent from the workplace her future wages will reduce by 5%.
Approximately 70% of people in national minimum wage jobs are women.
54% of women working part-time have been found to be ‘employed below their potential’, which amounts to 2.8 million women.
Women make up only 17% board directors of FTSE 100 companies.
Up to 30,000 women are sacked each year simply for being pregnant and each year an estimated 440,000 women lose out on pay or promotion as a result of pregnancy.
It is estimated that the UK would gain up to £23 billion (the equivalent to 2% of GDP) by better harnessing women’s skills in employment.
At least 75% of mothers have primary responsibility for childcare in the home.
Women who work, with or without children, spend 15 hours a week on average doing chores, while men spend only five.
Only 1 in 4 MPs is a woman and women from minority ethnic groups make up only 1.2% of MPs yet comprise 4% of the UK population.
Women are outnumbered 5 to1 by men in the cabinet only 16% of senior ministerial posts are held by women.
Locally, just 35% of elected councillors are women and only 13% of local authority council leaders are women.
Just 23% of reporters on national daily newspapers in the UK are women with only 1 female editor of a national daily.
Only 24% of news subjects (the people in the news) across global news channels are female and only 6% of stories highlight issues of gender equality or inequality.
Research on UK media found that men typically outnumber women as ‘experts’ by 4:1 on major TV and radio programmes across channels.
50% of women in survey of 327 reported experience of sex discrimination in the last 5 years and 23% had experienced sexual harassment in that period.
From ukfeminista

Monday, 10 March 2014

EPQ: Initial Ideas

Idea One: Representation and Sexualisation of women in the media over the years.

Looking at how the way women are portrayed in the media, and reviewing how much this has changed across the years. In a society that claims to be more equal than it ever has been, this can easily be questioned due to the thousands of adverts using women to sexualise their products, along with the consistent use women of women in television and as a love interest for the protagonist or a non-speaking role.

Idea Two: Why sexism towards women exists.

As something that appears to have existed for many years, it would be interesting to know why exactly women experience such sexism, where it came from, and how it developed.

Idea Three: Why we need feminism in modern day society.

There is often a stigma against the feminist movement in modern day society - many saying we don't need feminism any more, it often being pushed aside as a dated concept. But in a society where only 25% of the people running our country are women and where the pay gap remains at 10%, it is starkly obvious that there is still a need for the change that the feminist movement could bring.

As all three ideas are quite similar, I have done a SWOT analysis to cover all three.

Strengths:

I am passionate about this issue, and I know that my interest in any of these ideas would be sustained. There is a large amount of information on this subject. For all three ideas, there is a huge focus and debate in the Western world on feminism and sexism, so there will be lots of information, statistics and opinions on it. More specifically for idea 3, the media is extremely vast and involves many mediums: television, film, magazines, newspapers, the internet and advertising, for example.

Weaknesses:

There is the possibility with idea two that it is a limited question that may not provide enough scope for an EPQ, and there is also the possibility that with idea three, there is too much information or the topic is too broad to do an EPQ on. It may be with all of these that first-hand research is quite difficult to carry out, but it would be easier with idea one as this is based around our (extremely accessible) media.

Opportunities:

Although these ideas don't directly relate to any specific subjects for university, doing an EPQ on this topic would show that I am interested in current events, social justice and the importance of media in society (which is ever growing). It also shows that I have passion for something and any EPQ shows dedication and commitment, which is a good trait to be able to prove when competing for a university placement.

Threats:

As previously stated, this is a very current topic in the Western world. This may mean that there is a lot of information, a lot of opinions, and it may be hard to stay focused on the main idea of my project and to not stray off into the several branches of feminism and sexism that there are. However, this is also a strength in a way, as this means there is lots of resources to consider and research from.

Lauren Wakeling - EPQ