GENDER REPRESENTATION

Gender is the wide set of characteristics that are seen to distinguish between male and female. It can extend from sex to social role or gender identity. As a word, "gender" has more than one valid definition. In ordinary speech, it is used interchangeably with "sex" to denote the condition of being male or female. In the social sciences, however, it refers specifically to socially constructed and institutionalized differences such as gender roles

Feminists http://www.thefword.org.uk/ http://www.iwf.org/ Feminism refers to political, cultural, and economic movements seeking greater, equal, or, among a minority, superior rights and participation in society for women and girls. These rights and means of participation include legal protection and inclusion in politics, business, and scholarship, and recognition and building of women's cultures and power.

Feminist effects on society Job pay more, nearly equal to men's in Western society. Reproductive rights of women to make decisions on pregnancy. Protecting women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and sexual assault. Lesbianism and bisexuality came to be accepted as part of feminism by a significant proportion of feminists.

Feminism and the women’s film movement Identity was dictated by male film directors with women used purely as an object for sexual desire. S. Smith notes “From its beginning they [women] were present but not in characterisations any self-respecting person could identify with” Women such as Kate Millett, author of Sexual Politics (1970) criticised the power relationships and traditional sex roles inherent in film, and called for a more positive representation of women and attention to women’s issues. The early 1970s therefore saw a massive increase in the production of feminist films, and by 1976 it is estimated that there were well over 200 feminist filmmakers

Feminist film festival Held in New York in June 1972, the first International Festival of Women’s Film may be termed as the ‘debut’ of the feminist film movement. Over 100 films from America, Canada and Europe were screened, and occasions for panel discussion were utilised. Organisation of feminist screenings by Laura Mulvey at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1972, and the 1974 International Women’s Film Seminar in Berlin created further opportunities for consciousness-raising and the possibility for filmmakers to meet and discuss.

Laura Mulvey- Feminist theorist Mulvey argues that “Freud's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society, and 'looking' in itself as a pleasurable act of voyeurism, as "the cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking." Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives that occur in film which serve to sexually objectify women. The first is the perspective of the male character on screen and how he perceives the female character. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen. The third "look" joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience member's perspective of the male character in the film. This third perspective allows the male audience to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate himself, through looking, to the male character in the film.