Browsing by Subject "Feminism"
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(2017)The aim of this thesis is to present how Japanese manga were presenting female heroines during the 1970s and how they were presenting them during the 2000s and if this portrayal is representative to the changes that took place in the Japanese society. This is examined by analysing the two most popular manga of the 1970s and 2000s and the covers of nine other popular manga from the time period between 1970 and 2010. The analysis which was used was a mixed research method which combines a quantitative research for the four most popular manga and a multimodal text analysis of a sample of them. This analysis is supported by a semiotic analysis of the nine popular manga. This thesis is divided in five main chapters. The first one is the introductory part, followed up by the literature review where basic terms such as gender representation, manga and the role of women in Japan is presented. The third chapter explains the methodology that was followed. The methodology chapter is followed by the analysis, which in turn ends up with the conclusions that were derived from the research. Interestingly enough, although the manga in question were timely, meaning that they were dealing with issues that they were actually taking place in society, they did not follow the trends. For instance, in the 1970s, 40% of the marriages were arranged, a fact that we did not encounter in any of the investigated manga. Hence, they are not representative to the actual position women held in the society but they are acting more as a means of inspiration and empowerment.
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(2017)The aim of this thesis is to present how Japanese manga were presenting female heroines during the 1970s and how they were presenting them during the 2000s and if this portrayal is representative to the changes that took place in the Japanese society. This is examined by analysing the two most popular manga of the 1970s and 2000s and the covers of nine other popular manga from the time period between 1970 and 2010. The analysis which was used was a mixed research method which combines a quantitative research for the four most popular manga and a multimodal text analysis of a sample of them. This analysis is supported by a semiotic analysis of the nine popular manga. This thesis is divided in five main chapters. The first one is the introductory part, followed up by the literature review where basic terms such as gender representation, manga and the role of women in Japan is presented. The third chapter explains the methodology that was followed. The methodology chapter is followed by the analysis, which in turn ends up with the conclusions that were derived from the research. Interestingly enough, although the manga in question were timely, meaning that they were dealing with issues that they were actually taking place in society, they did not follow the trends. For instance, in the 1970s, 40% of the marriages were arranged, a fact that we did not encounter in any of the investigated manga. Hence, they are not representative to the actual position women held in the society but they are acting more as a means of inspiration and empowerment.
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(2020)Violence against women causes serious health and psychological impacts and is pervasive in society. This is partly due to gender and social norms. These have been addressed through educational campaigns, aiming to overcome pluralistic ignorance - when people wrongly believe that they feel differently from their peers, even though they are behaving in the same way. Pluralistic ignorance can prevent people intervening or reporting gender-based violence. This project proposes that public space can also play a role in overcoming pluralistic ignorance, through the medium of street political messages, such as stickers and graffiti. To show that this is possible, fieldwork exploring the existing feminist street messaging in Kallio and interviews based on this data were conducted. The interviews asked what role street media can play in spreading feminist messages, what the advantages and disadvantages of street media are and whether the existing street messaging in the Kallio district can help with overcoming pluralistic ignorance around gender-based violence issues. Four key aspects of theory are used in the thesis. Firstly, an exploration of gender-based violence literature found that domestic violence is a difficult topic to get people to engage with and that using outreach tools can spark important conversations. Secondly, a sociological study of pluralistic ignorance found that educational campaigns are the main route taken to address gender-based violence issues and that there is a gap in studies of pluralistic ignorance when considering the role of everyday public life in addressing these issues. Thirdly, public space is explored, determining that it can play a key role in feminist activism because it provides an open forum and an anonymity which prevents the activist from being verbally abused or silenced. Finally, street media were explored. This found that the eye-catching and unexpected nature of the media can catch people’s attention. In the fieldwork, seventy feminist street messages were found in Kallio, with a variety of agendas. The majority were in sticker form and located on posts on the streets of Kallio. Interviews conducted with activists and a community group determined the importance of stickers in spreading feminist messages. Street messaging had advantages of being easy to spread, having high outreach, anonymity and as conversation starters. Identified disadvantages included illegality, the potential to provoke people or trigger trauma, limited space for text and that messages can often be too niche for a general audience. The study concludes that street messaging can help overcome pluralistic ignorance by acting as a conversation starter and as a confidence boost to people. However, the results indicate that street media alone will not be enough to address pluralistic ignorance and that wider conversation is needed to have a real impact.
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(2018)After the September 11 attacks in 2001 the President of the United States, George W. Bush, declared a global war on terrorism – and a war to rescue the Afghan women from their terrorist men. Feminist scholars and activists worldwide criticized the Bush government for using feminist rhetoric to justify the war. However, the development of this discourse throughout the tiring years of warfare and the co-optation of the U.S. rhetoric by other coalition partner countries have been overlooked in the research. This thesis examines the gendered narratives and the women’s rights rhetoric of U.S. and German state officials in 2001−2002 and 2007−2008. The theoretical framework of this thesis is located on the diverse and interdisciplinary field of feminist security- and international relations studies. The research questions are: How was the Afghan war justified through gendered narratives and rhetorical tools? How did the deployment of women’s rights rhetoric change during and in-between this period? Were there some distinctions in the use of rhetoric and gendered categorizations between the U.S. and German administration officials, two countries with very different foreign policy traditions? The source material of this thesis consists mainly of speeches, press briefings, debates and statements given by the state officials from the United States and Germany in 2001−2002 and 2007−2008. The speech material was collected from the online databases of the U.S. Department of State, the White House, the German Federal Government and the debate records of the German Parliament. The methodological framework of discourse analysis was used for analysing the rhetoric. Especially two tools of discourse analysis were utilized: the analysis of hegemonic discourses and the analysis of rhetoric and argumentation. By de-naturalizing the hegemonic discourses and identifying simplifying narratives, this thesis aims to reveal how discourses can consolidate power, essentialize gender roles and situate the human subjects through discourse to unequal positions of power. However, women’s rights rhetoric practised by major world leaders is not seen as necessarily positive or negative per se: What matters is the framing and the context of the rhetoric. By analyzing the gendered rhetoric, this thesis intends to find more nuanced ways of using and manipulating gendered categories to legitimize domination and control. In the years 2001 and 2002, the first two years of the war, the Bush administration utilized the image of the masculine hero, who must protect his country under threat. Even though this hero could be a woman or man, the virtues that he represented were congenitally masculine: strength, force, heroism and courage. He had to protect the country from a new type of an enemy: the mad, savage- or even animal-like, women-hating terrorist. His sadistic treatment of women was emphasized to show his barbarism. The depiction of a normal and civilized Muslim man was almost non-existent in the discourse, the image of the terrorist Muslim man was dominant. The corruption and human rights abuses of the Northern Alliance members in the Karzai government were left unaddressed. The role of the American woman in this discourse was to be calm, collected and supportive, as embodied in the First Lady, Laura Bush. The Afghan women were treated as one singular, homogenic group in the discourse – as objects to be saved. In the German discourse the masculine protector was not as celebrated as in the U.S., the discourse of the Afghan women was almost identical. The Gerhard Schröder administration also wanted to carry its responsibility towards the women-liberating West. By 2007−2008 the war had turned out to be tiring and extremely challenging, but the masculine protector was still standing strong in the U.S. discourse. There were no signs of hesitation, regret, admitting mistakes or a change of strategy with Karzai’s government, Northern Alliance and its alleged corruption. The situation of Afghanistan’s women was painted as a success story, with no real need to talk about the still prevailing misogyny. There were no separate big speeches discussing the still existing problems in women’s rights sector. The critical voices from the opposition parties were challenging the discourse of the government led by chancellor Angela Merkel in 2007−2008 in Germany. Yet again the German administration utilized the threat of Afghan women falling back in the hands of Taliban and women being massacred to silence the war opposers. Critical voices coming from Afghan women about the warlordization and corruption of Northern Alliance were still ridiculed or silenced, as demonstrated in the case of the Afghan activist and former parliamentarian, Malalai Joya. The voices of silent and grateful women were however accepted easily as representing “all” Afghan women. This thesis sheds new light on the feminist analysis of the War on Terror by demonstrating how easily Bush administration’s rhetoric was co-opted by another coalition country. The analysis shows that even after seven years of warfare, women’s rights were still strongly utilized in the war legitimizing discourse by both countries under scrutiny. This thesis concludes that the utilization of feminist rhetoric by major world powers should not only be criticized but it could also be used to push forward the implementation of feminist policies. The deconstruction of the hegemonic war narratives and listening also to criticism and contestation could open new discursive spaces for building long-lasting peace in Afghanistan.
Now showing items 1-4 of 4