Media Role in Feminism: A Panel For Feminists’ Voices and Perspectives
Feminism is a social, political, and ideological movement that aims to achieve gender equality in every aspect. Over the years, feminism has used several media like newspaper, radio, television, and social media.
In the first wave of feminism that started in the 1950s, the issue raised by the feminist movement was the women’s right to vote. Media began to play a role in this wave with the Lily newspaper in 1849 by Amelia Bloomer. The Lily newspaper was the first newspaper in the United States to be published by women and covered modesty, women’s rights, and dress reform. Lily uses agenda-setting intending to form a public agenda by informing the public about things to think about through discussions about issues faced by women and the operant actions.
In addition to the lily newspaper, the American Women’s Suffrage Association published the Woman’s Journal in 1870. Woman’s Journal shows response and involvement to the struggle of women’s suffrage. The narrative that feminists in media constantly exaggerated then produced a result when the 19th Amendment was passed on August 18, 1920, under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson. The number of newspapers with the title “Women Will Vote in the Presidential Election Next November” increases. Inferring through the media effects, with many newspapers and other media reporting on women’s suffrage, the public finally formed a positive opinion.
The second wave of feminism around the 1960s and early 1970s had many issues ranging from equality in the workplace, equal pay, child care support, and the perspective of women’s relevance that only related to appearances rather than achievements. To spread its message, feminism uses manifestos or written declarations. These manifestos include the Redstockings Manifesto, the Black Women Manifesto, and the SCUM Manifesto.
In addition, the book entitled The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan became the most popular medium. By discussing that women are mystical targets, Friedan defines mysticism as the demands for the fulfillment of sexual needs, male domination, and the role of mothers to women. Another popular media is Cosmopolitan magazine that rebranded in 1965. Changing the theme of the content previously published in the magazine, Cosmopolitan now raises issues such as women’s acceptance and liberation as a form of support and participation in fighting for women’s rights.
The third wave of feminism took place in the early 1990s. Feminism in the third wave has grown to become more intersectional with its support for women with diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. The discussion of third-wave feminism centers on micro-politics and uses post-structuralist expositions on gender and sexuality. The use of media from this wave is quite different from the previous two waves because of the existence of media framing to highlight the goals of feminism that meet publicity worthy.
Entering the fourth wave which began in 2012 until now, differences have occurred regarded by the massive use of social media in spreading messages. The fourth wave of feminism focuses on justice and resistance to sexual harassment and violence against women. Various campaigns were carried out by feminists ranging from the Everyday Sexism Project, Stop Bild Sexism, 10 Hour of Walking in NYC as a Woman, Women’s March 2018, and the #MeToo project on social media.
After a long-long battle, there has been an evolution of the representation of women in media. Progressively, women can conquer their roles on a broader scope. That, of course, can happen because of the feminism movement and feminists voicing their opinions. In news media, for example, the BBC has begun to tackle the issue of gender representation and is working on the goal of achieving 50:50 gender representation in its media. Starting in 2017, 500 BBC shows have joined the project, and as of April 2019, the programs have reached their target with more than 50 percent female contributors.
There have been films presenting strong, powerful, and intelligent female characters in movie media over the last few decades. Films such as The Hunger Games, Captain Marvel, Dark Phoenix, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider color the cinematic world and reduce the concept of hegemonic masculinity inherent in society.
Developments also happen in advertising. Since 2015, there has been an increase in the diversification of women’s representation in advertising, with one example of Dove’s Real Beauty ad campaign showing the vast diversity of body shapes and ethnicities. In addition, women who are members of the United Nations launched the ‘Unstereotype Alliance’ to combat gender stereotypes in global-scale advertising. This initiative is supported by many advertising industry companies such as P&G, Unilever, Diageo, WPP, Google, and Facebook.
Albeit feminism has continuously achieved its goals and succeeded in overcoming gender issues, feminism is still appearing its voice in diverse media. In line with the rise of social media in the development of digital media, feminism is also now taking part in it. Not only does it function as a campaign platform, but the internet is also a digital space as a comfortable community of support, validation, education, and empowerment. The internet that can reach people quickly, maintain anonymity, promote heterogeneity, and has flexible functions makes it easier for feminists to carry out their feminism movement.
Over the past few years, social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have become forums for extensive discussion and debate on feminist issues such as catcalling, harassment, sexual violence, domestic violence, and abortion. Studies on political campaigns reveal that women tweet more aggressively than men to draw attention to the narratives of their discussions. Social media itself indeed accommodates this with its ability to publish private issues to the public. With these publications, social media can encourage positive change because the declared narratives can reach a broader dimension of society.
The emotions contained in the narrative can reach the ears of the community and lead to formations of support. One of the feminist campaigns implemented globally on social media is the #MeToo campaign. Tarana Burke initially used the “Me Too” narrative in 2006 to show her empathy for women with the message that victims of sexual assault don’t need to feel ashamed because they are not alone. In October 2017, the hashtag #MeToo was first used by Alyssa Milano to show how many people have experienced sexual harassment and violence. The massive use of the hashtag illustrates how this issue is a huge problem for many people. Reached more than 500,000 times on October 16 on Twitter and 12,000,000 uploads for 24 hours on Facebook, #MeToo has succeeded in becoming a solidarity campaign to build awareness of gender issues in society.
To some degree, media can be a social force that influences the way people understand the world. This influence can also affect feminism which is reflected in media from each of feminism waves. Media has a significant role in the feminist movement. Feminism and the media have always had a close relationship. Media as a forum for feminism to fight for gender equality also becomes a panel for new perspectives, leading to discussions that resolve more gender issues in society. Within feminism, media roles and society are mutually determining and interconnected.
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