Dr. Sara DiazWGST 280: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular CultureGonzaga University

Hegemony

Cultural Studies Concepts

•Consent vs Resistance: Power• Ideology• Hegemony • Counter-hegemony

Ideology

• In relation to “culture”: • A body of ideas articulated by a group of people which

inform practices. • Practices mask the ideas behind them so that they

seem natural, inevitable, universal

• Glossary: • [The] ideas embedded in all our social institutions

(legal, educational, economic, military, etc) [that] create a dominant commonsense understanding of reality that supports the status quo. (D&H 627)

Hegemony, hegemonic

A term developed by Italian Marxist theorists Antonio Gramsci to refer to the process by which those in power secure the consent of the socially subordinated to the system that oppresses or subordinates them. (D&H p. 627)

Hegemony, hegemonic

… [An] attempt to persuade the populace that the hierarchical social and economic system is fixed and “natural” and therefore unchangeable. (D & H 627)

Counterhegemony

According to Gramsci, however, such consent is never secured once and for all but must continually be sought, and there is always some room for resistance through subversive (counterhegemonic) cultural work.

Hall: Oppositional Readings

Hegemonic Gender Norms

•Gender Ideologies → Stereotypes

•How do stereotypes operate in media?

•How can we detect stereotypes?

•Revisit MM 42-52 when you begin Object Analysis Blogs

GENDER IDEOLOGIES: DEFINING SOME TERMS

Objectification

• To represent as a object by dehumanizing someone/reducing them to inanimate, passive “parts.”• Sexual objectification – when

objectification emphasizes sexual utility by focusing on sexualized body parts.

Feminization

• To associate something w/ the hierarchically subordinate position of women relative to men.• For example, what does it mean to

say that Asian men are feminized with respect to hegemonic white masculinity?

Infantilization

• To treat as a child, not yet fully actualized as an adult would be.•Deny subjectivity as we might do w/ a

child.

Orientalism

• Edward Said, 1978•Orientalism stipulates that the

East/Orient is essentially different from the West/Occident. Different in psychology, politics, rationality/mind, etc. Or just in “essence.”

Exotification

• To represent as very foreign or “Other”• Racialized• Eroticized• Fetishized (obsessive fascination)