Visual Vintage and Feminism - Literature review Example

Visual Vintage and Feminism The illustrations of visuals on women vintage present different understandings to different audience. The visuals aim at giving the voice of women in various perspectives stemming from feminism to abortion amongst others. For example, in the United States, even with a majority of outstanding women, men still dominate everything. Cross-examining a few articles by different authors will prove essential to understanding gender ideals, as well as values in relation to race or culture. The fight for women rights proves hard considering the patriarchal societal setup throughout the world. The first article under focus refers to an article presented by Judith and Rebecca in the form of a discussion that discusses women conditions as well as the feminist movement. The presentation of the article between the two senior editors takes the form a discussion with the parties offering partially contrasting views. The topics discussed relates to connotation of negative or positive trends of the word feminist, women issues as well as the relationship between social media and feminists. The women issues discussed relate to employment discrimination, sexual violence, and caregivers conditions. On the onset Rebecca discusses her position on seeing public modern feminist disclosure in the current days. Through her discussion, it is clear that during the 90’s, individuals feared to present themselves as feminists but that is no more. These days, the trend has changed where even young teenagers wear clothes with writings that support feminism. Much of that credit goes to the internet for facilitating these discussions that in the past were hard (Judith and Rebecca 14). The debate is hot among the young throughout the world as they follow links and engage in conversations due to the participatory nature the internet provides. Through the media and entertainment, a number of individuals both female and male have taken the advantage of feminism discussion making it a selling point for their products. There are women working in outstanding positions who remain eager to fight for female empowerment that includes reproductive rights. Life in the U.S indicates a system of ever-tightening constriction that the whole world follows (Judith and Rebecca 16). To Rebecca development of feminism remains too small but is achievable through engagement of influential women within the society. She acknowledges the role of middle-class white women within the society in achieving that objective. In her response, Judith presents a partially contrasting view regarding optimism in feminism. She attributes feminist internet as doing less in addressing the issue of feminism. However, good web presentations regarding feminism remain important in dealing with the issue. To achieve the change, prioritizing of issues will play a significant role as opposed to fighting for rights from a broad perspective. The first focus should involve sexual violence. Although condemning of the incident has been on the rise, a lot needs to be done regarding training women about rape (Judith and Rebecca 18). Campus rape also requires particular attention as well as focusing on the aspect of inequality throughout the globe that leads to sexual violence. The second issue relates to the lack of equal opportunities for women. Successful female individuals will fail in assisting their unsuccessful female counterparts as barriers to inequality takes a structural form than personal. The last aspect under consideration refers to systematic discrimination against caregivers. Feminists need to develop a caregivers approach not just through the word of mouth. Through the discussion, it remains clear that feminism remains a greater challenge within the U.S as well as other countries within the globe. The internet plays a significant role enhancing discussions relating to feminism, but is still inadequate to address the issue. The structures within institutions hinder empowered women to defend their less privileged female counterparts. Addressing the women issues remains the best solution of dealing with the issue of feminism. It will not however be achieved by the privileged and the middle class (Judith and Rebecca 22). Like all revolutions, it will require much action from the less elite group as opposed to elite group discussions. The second focus refers to a debate about abortion and the defenders of feminism. In an article of Gender law and Justice, Ziegler Mary presents divergences between feminist supporters and the current belief of pro-life feminist supporters. The abortion debate has triggered a lot of questions among them how to attain women’s equality without legalizing abortion. Supporters of abortion argue that equal protection claims will enhance and promote abortion whereas the antiabortion advocates claim that an abortion fails to help women causing more harm than help (Ziegler 237). Those activists against abortion have taken the view of real feminism considered as pro-life feminists while the others are regarded as pro-choice feminists. Pro-life feminists began with the first wave of feminism in the 19th century. Throughout the time, they embarked on a mission to block abortion laws liberalization. They argued that legalizing abortion presented double standards for both men and women. Like Charles Rice claimed, legalizing abortion made the promiscuity costless (Ziegler 239). Proponents of abortion rights argued that pro-life activists aimed at oppressing women as opposed to assisting unborn persons. During the 1970s, members of organizations that supported abortion managed to influence organizations fighting contraceptives and gained support from pregnancy disability legislation. However, with time these ideas were opposed by socially conservative group of women bringing the concept of pro-life feminism. The emergence of this anti-abortion feminist group brought a new perspective of what true feminism entails. By the early 1980’s pro-life feminism approach seemed improbable. That aspect led members of antifeminist organizations to join the pro-life movement among them Concerned Women for America (CWA). The group used its power and influence to serve as the only solution for women, advising them to participate in elections and take public offices. When post-abortion trauma syndrome claims began to spread in the mid-1990’s, CWA took the opportunity to convince the public of the importance of the pro-life movement indicating it protected women health as well as helping fetuses (Ziegler 261). Political affiliations to pro-life feminists especially by the Republicans made them earn their seats as abortion proponents lost their seats. Supporters of pro-life feminism in the 21st century including Glendon and Sarah Palin have evolved, defended and developed progressive feminism aspect. Pro-life feminists have, therefore, promoted an essential counter argument in relation to equality based arguments on abortion rights. Pro-life feminism succeeds in painting abortion opponents as pro-woman. It, therefore, remains unclear as to what the future holds for an abortion debate as considerable controversies keep arising to date regarding the true representatives of feminism. A clear definition of the legal, as well as political goals will prove essential. It, therefore, remains uncertain of what the future of abortion holds as the current evolution of pro-life feminism will impact it. The third aspect relates to the work of Franklin on Violence Against Women focusing on domestic violence in a male dominated world sparkling some feminist protectionism to protect women victims. The work consists of a study of women samples in romantic relationships with different communities. The study focuses on the role of educational as well as inconsistency and patriarchal family ideology as contributors to risk for intimate partner violence (IPV). The feminist theory attributes patriarchal society structures that portrays male dominance and submission of female runs through the society and consequently reinforced in relationships (Franklin and Menanker 825). Relating to the research findings education inconsistency does not correlate with male to female IPV. The results indicate that a difference in education level does not limit power. The differences in education level present potential disparity of earning between partners, but fail to predict access to power even outside home. Education discrepancies, therefore, offers little evidence of reasons behind IPV as factors like family background may make individuals leave their home to earn wages. Another observation refers to employment status. In contrasting women depending on their male partners with duel breadwinners, odds of victimization for dual workers increased by 2.2 while compared to the relationship where only the man is employed. The underlying facts of these findings relates to the attention and continuous dependence of homebound women. Since they act as domestic workers, they lack power resulting from co-workers connections, resources, job prestige among others. Women working outside the home access these assets that may at times undermine or devalue their male counterpart’s contributions (Franklin and Menanker 841). The research also indicated an increase in IPV victimization odds by 12 times in cases where both members were unemployed in comparison to male only breadwinner families. The results show substantial stress arising from unemployment. The last focus on distress, as well as family of origin violence, also proved positively co-related with IPV victimization in the study population. An increase in relationship distress increases IPV victimization to 1.37 times whereas increased experience of family-of-origin violence caused the IPV victimization odds to increase by 2.9 times. It remains clear from studies and research that a greater abuse arises as a result of female partner’s failure to accept patriarchal values prompting a higher risk of ill-treatment. In states where a large proportion of women have high educational, professional as well as political status, there is greater abuse prevalence among husband-dominated families. The study indicates that achievement of female rights does not depend power possessed by privileged women within the society, but a chance of the patriarchal concept within the societal setup. The last area of focus relates to Ciarlo’s work on Advertising Empire. The author studies race as well as visual culture among the imperial Germans. He describes race and visual culture as caught in between history of political and competing commercial hegemonies. The fist focus hails from a German manufacturer as well as retailer’s campaign in the early 20th century that focused on race as a visual component for marketing brand-name goods and services to increasing numbers of German consumers. Te other discussion refers to a political project that private groups as well as sympathetic government officials also organized relying on race to gain public consent regarding German colonial extension. The firm advertisement objective aimed at sales maximization of household items through the use of aggressively stereotyped representations of race in order to stimulate the buying public attention (Ciarlo 67). The second advertisement designed to promote the necessity of German society colonialism by winning public support. However, irrespective of their intended purposes, the two publications increased race prominence in the German culture. The author argues that the advertisers achieved a lasting impact as opposed to the imperialists through an exploration of the two advertisements interconnected histories. Ciarlo documents the implication of race among consumer products in Germany advertising through an analysis of advertising materials used during that time. The German advertisers had drawn inspiration from transatlantic commercial practices as well as European colonial trends, copying a quantifiable number of stereotypes to enhance in selling their products. Initially, they presented them in the form of dark-skinned natives or North American Negroes but changed tactic to distinct sets of black Africans with several exaggerated features to suit the advert. For example, the adverts would include exaggerated facial characteristics (Ciarlo 158). The colonial interest groups also played a significant role in contributing to the circulation of such racial connected images. The most notable ones include colonial groups sponsoring of trade exhibitions as well as staging Volkerschauen meaning live people shows. However, their efforts to reach a wider audience failed as a result of class-based prejudices as well as social conservatism of the organizers. The short-lived episodes, however, became overshadowed by the power of commercial visuality arising from a race-based advertising that was steady and had little-regarding German imperialism. The author demonstrates how race could be used as a tool of production promotion in Germany as with the case of United States. Works Cited Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2011. Print. Franklin, Cortney A; Menanker Tasha A. "Violence Against Women." Violence Against Women. 20.7 (2014): 825-45. Print. Judith, S; Traister Rebecca. "New Republic." We Are All Feminists Now 245.16 (2014): 14-23. Print. Ziegler, Mary. "Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice." Gender, Law & Justice 28.2 (2013): 232-64.37p. Print. Read More