How Did Feminism Become A National - 1817 Words

How did feminism become a national dirty word? For individual feminists, this is a question that causes concern. True feminism is straining to survive and the reason for this can be linked to the group itself, sometimes including its own accountability to effectively consider and accommodate the diversity of viewpoints of women among the group and in general. However, the biggest and most influential source of the word having a negative connotation is the mass media. Its hostility toward assertive women leads the media to usually represent them in a negative way and this has turned all feminists into a frightening â€Å"fringe element.† (Beck) It is important to understand how the media portrays femininity and how that impacts their†¦show more content†¦(Beck) A major strike against feminism s attempt to get a fair shake in media portrayals is the media s attraction to opposition, particularly between men and women. The dualism of masculine/feminine continues to be most successful in programming us to believe that male is the opposite of female, according to Lana F. Rakow. From there, it is just a short conceptual jump to tagging feminism as bad when contrasted against the good masculine norm in this society. Rakow notes, Journalists are taught to think in terms of dichotomies, to develop their stories of right versus wrong, good versus evil. The journalistic obsession with a narrow corridor in an abstract space called balance continues to build this kind of false opposition.† Most journalists place great stock in their ability to maintain objectivity. On the surface, that would seem to imply an inherent fairness in this approach to news coverage. After all, wouldn t an objective reporter simply convey some set of independent facts as they are without imposing meaning upon them? But the objectivity so revered by the news media is just a standpoint, one that cannot be separated from factors like gender Objectivity is a normative ideal†¦In practice, objectivity is a standpoint-white and male (Green). Jessica Goldstein agrees that since