Intro to Feminist Theory

In the first chapter of Feminist Media Studies, author Liesbet van Zoonen introduces her book by looking at feminism and cultural studies. Van Zoonen provides an introduction to feminist media and the relationships between culture, the media, and feminism. I enjoyed the way that she opened her introduction by clarifying that she, as a feminist, did not believe that the media of popular culture implies a negative representation of women. She wanted the reader to understand early that the book was not entirely about the negative portrayal of women in the media of popular culture.

When discussing her position on feminism throughout the book, van Zoonen refers to power and the importance of the element of power in feminist thought. She briefly touches on the difference of power of white women compared to black women. This power relationship connects to what Gill discussed in the section about black women. Gill discussed the conflict between white feminist theory and the exclusion of black women. Gill discussed how the frameworks of feminism had to be completely reworked to include different races, classes, and cultural backgrounds.

I thought it was interesting that feminism, just like American culture, has had to work through its own sort of Civil Rights issues with the inclusion of black women in feminist theory. The inclusion of black women in the feminist theory has forced feminists writers to shift their focus to a more global level and look at feminism in different cultural aspects.