+ + + Media Journal Assignment + + +
The media journal assignment asks you to pay regular attention to media concerning feminist issues, gender, sexuality or any other topic relevant to course material. You should be considering key theories and concepts, and how they could be applied to analyze what you see.
You could use this assignmet to track commentary on a specific issue, and it's representation in media sources (like news, magazines, newspapers, radio, film, and television) in order to become familiar with when, where, and in what contexts or situations this issue (or women and GLBTQQ communities receive media attention), and how it/they are represented.
It would also be beneficial to compare different types of sources (television, radio, print, Web-based, commercial, indie and grassroots outlets, as well as local, national, and international sources) to explore potential differences in treatment. Think about who (person, place or company) is producing a particular message and for what reason? Are they reporting an important event? Selling an idea, ideology or product?
You should collect a MINIMUM of 2 to 3 entries per week, and write a short analysis for each entry. You will write a more formal analytic essay (to be submitted when you turn your journal in May 1st ).
You can gather news links, images, video clips, music clips, scans from textbooks - anything you deem relevant to the study of women, gender and sexuality.
+ + + Example of Informal Journal Entry + + +
My absolute favorite feminist blog is feministing.com
One of the primary categories is Fun with Feminist Flickr. Read it HERE
Today's entry:

What do you see? :
Open the box and I'll open my legs OR Open your legs and I'll open the box
I think about:
- the way power operates in relationship
- gender roles and marriage
- sex as a bargaining tool
- the use of sex as power
- the control over women's bodies and sexuality
-the framing of the image (cuts her body into pieces where you can't see her face, her eyes, her expression)
- the pale whiteness of her flesh
- the angles her legs make (the V. is it for vagina? is an arrow pointing at her bargaining chips? her worth?)
It's as if the advert screams, literally screams to me:
- Close your legs, you aren't married yet!
- Single girls (like black heel and black skirt, hose wearing, business ladies) are power hunger sex brokers
- Selling sex for diamond rings
and so many more things...
What's the context of this image? I saw it on a feminist blog. I wonder where this ad appears (in what magazines, in what countries). I did a little research and didn't find much (and I'm not sure why) -
NataN Jewelers. What is their backstory? Do they think selling jewelry (and their name brand) means selling a whole lifestyle? I hate lifestyle marketing.
From this article in the New York Times . I've learned that it is a family business based in Ipanema but has 15 stores in Brazil. It is a family business, according to CNN.
From the CNN piece:
Her parents founded Natan, a successful jewelry company in Brazil, a half-century ago, but she only began designing jewelry 12 years ago. After pursuing a career in psychoanalysis, she studied under jewelry designers in Italy and Switzerland.
Now Natan is taking her parents' traditional company into the 21st century.
"I'm very aware of making jewelry, not heavy jewelry, but making jewelry as part of the new woman," she said. "Something that gives you some identity and something that makes you a little different."
Lifestyle marketing in full effect. Jewels = your identity.
They have other *interesting* advertisements as well:


What does this ad say to me?
- a woman is unhappy and incomplete without jewels
- a woman can only truly see herself when looking in the mirror
- women spend too much time looking in the mirror
- is this woman on date? will she look more appealing with jewels?
- should she just stop waiting for him to buy her that necklace and just go on and buy it for herself (you know the knew post-sex in the city right handed ring phenom)
What does selling products so often require selling ideology? Does every product have to be marketed as a lifestyle? Can a necklace and jewels just be that or must it convince us of our gendered roles and the resulting power dynamic?
I keep thinking about power, oppression, heteronormativity, coerced gender roles, control of over women's bodies and sexualities, marriage as a contract, high heels appear to be modern day foot binds, pantyhouse is constricting and I hate it.
This conversation will definitely continue...
+ + + Example of More Formal Journal Entry / Reflection + + +
A great example of a media journal entry for the Soc 3251 Race, Class and Gender blog