Gender Identities

‘Femininity is articulated in and through commercial and mass media discourses, especially in the magazine industry and in the fashion industry of clothing and cosmetics. But most of all it is articulated on women’s bodies by women themselves.’ (Talbot 1998:71)

Construction Femmininity

The use of the verb ‘feminise’ highlights the active process whereby women engage in the various processes required to make them appear appropriately feminine.

Lakoff and the construction of femininity

(from McLoughlin 100)

Lakoff (1975) claims that certain linguistic features are characteristic of the construction of femininity:

• vagueness;• Emotional as opposed to intellectual evaluation;• Intensifiers;• Diminutives;• Qualifiers,• Politeness;• Hedging

1935 construction of femininity

Many girls can knit such nice wooly jumpers for dolls, and it is just as easy to make them for small dogs who will be so grateful when the icy winds blow.

Of course some small dogs have thick hairy coats of their own and don’t need anything more, but there are several little fellows with very thin ones who feel the cold very much and to buy them proper cloth coats costs quite a lot of of money.

Then there is always the chance that one day Little Fido will take it into his head to have a good roll in the mud and his beautiful coat with his smart braid will be a sad sight. But if he wears a a woolly jumper you can just tell him what you think of his naughty ways, pop the jumper in the wash tub and out it comes as good as new.

Semantic Field and assumption • Many girls (group) can knit (traditional feminine activity)

dolls (traditional feminine toys (+the whole semantic field of knitting: knit, needle, stitches, purl drop, stocking stitch, cast off etc., extends the assumption, i.e. the implication is that the text interpreter knows how to do all this ) hence the reader’s type of femininity is constructed as someone to whom knitting and washing comes naturally and is expected to do it.

• You can always pop the jumper in the wash tub• Fellow, he, his (male dogs) beneficiaries of the action• Even if you have not done much knitting (but some, yes,

the assumption of a minimal knowledge)

Let the jumper over cover his ribs, but do not let it get in his way underneath and make him uncomfortable. A little Lady dog can have more length left under her tummy.

Contemporary sexual identity contstruction: Kiss this!

• This conveys an apparently a diametrically opposed femminine identity;

• Apparently a more symmetrical relationship between TP and TI.

• The text producer uses the language of the Text Interpreter community – slang, informal language.

Classic ‘womens’’ language

• vagueness;• Naughty, not quite nibbles

But apart from this the text would appear to encourage a much less traditionally feminine and more assertive kind of femmininity on the part of text interpreters.

McGloughlin, however, warns against complacency (101)Why?Firstly, The text is characterised by imperatives, which firmly tell the text interpreters what to do (for whose benefit is not clear) in order to embody a particular kind of femininity.

Typically of the ambiguous discourse found in magazines, this recommendation to do only what ‘you’ are happy with contrasts with the overall discourse of the text, which suggest that it is by using the ‘snogging’ techniques it lists it is likely to make the ‘you’, that is the text interpreter, happy, precisely because it is likely to please ‘the lad’.

Construction of ambivalent femmininity

The kind of femininity achieved would seem to depend on the ability to provide pleasure. Interestingly all the processes mentioned are processes material , in which ‘the lad’ is the beneficiary. There are few processes mental in this is version of femininity (the text interpreter is invited to be an actor), which are normally used to register emotional or physical pleasure for the Senser.

Further ambivalence

Another example of this ambivalent discourse is to be found in the ‘nose’ section, where the reader is advised to spray some perfume on. This is followed by the concession that your own personal smell can be quite alluring, though we see that this not a personal smell, but it is a product – baby powder or a Boots roll on, so the personal smell is subtly associated with cheap products. One wonders if there was a feature on perfumes in the same issue.