Contested Images of Femininity

An Analysis of Cultural Gatekeepers' Struggles with the “Real Girl” Critique

Bibliographic Data

ID2366705
AuthorsM A Milkie (0000-0002-7772-6614, University of Maryland, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume16
Issue6
Pages839-859
Publication date2002-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGender & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2432 • E-ISSN: 1552-3977
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/089124302237891
OpenAlexW2074268435
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited45

This research illuminates struggles over cultural definitions of femininity by examining how cultural gatekeepers respond to girls' vocal critique of inauthentic media images. Interviews with 10 editors at two national girls' magazine organizations provide a rare glimpse into their contradictory responses to requests for depicting 'real girls.' Editors legitimate and share in the critique, claiming they should change images but cannot. In these accounts, they reveal struggles over altering narrow images of femininity at the organizational and institutional levels. Editors also delegitimate girls' critique as misguided by calling on the media organizations' norms and schemas about how the (good) reader is supposed to understand the images. Paradoxically, here, editors claim that they can change images but should not. Ultimately, the power of girls' resistance is tempered, as both sets of responses lead to the girls' critique being inefficacious in redefining femininity. The study contributes to an understanding of how femininity-defining cultural institutions operate to create and sustain gender stratification

Aesthetics · Art · Femininity · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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