There's got to be a man in there
Reading intersections between gender, race and sexuality in South African magazines
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6030202 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nadia Sanger (0000-0003-3556-8221, Human Sciences Research Council, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 275-291 |
| Publication date | 2008-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Identities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1472-5843 • E-ISSN: 1472-5851 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14725840802223598 |
| OpenAlex | W2125172610 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 4 |
The aim of this article is to interrogate the ways that compulsory heteropatriarchy establishes women's representation as hyper(hetero)sexual in a select group of South African mainstream magazines. In men's magazines targeting both black and white male readers, women are depicted as objects for an unnamed and unmarked, but clearly, masculine audience. In contrast, women's magazines with a dominant white female readership, sexualize black femininities for the consumption of white female readers in ways reminiscent of white male colonial obsession with black bodies. Using a feminist methodology foregrounding the intersectionalities between gender, race and sexuality, I argue that hyper(hetero)feminine performances are racialized with few exceptions – white femininities are depicted as normative, and black femininities as different and exotic. If heteronormativity and white normalcy determines women's representation in the popular media – a space which relies on repetition in order to establish normativity in the popular imagination – then the struggle for women's bodily integrity, freedom and equality, needs to be more aggressively pursued in the current post‐colonial South African climate. Keywords: hyper(hetero)sexualityheteronormativityintersectionalitiesracenormative 'whiteness'invisibilized masculinity Notes 1. Heteropatriarchy suggests an institutionalised system of male domination over women within a heteronormative society. This system legitimises the subjugation of women and has been naturalised within most cultural, economic, social and religious spaces including the media. 2. See http://www.naspers.com/English/print.asp. 3. In October 2007, Touchline Media, a consortium within Media24, was accused of manipulating magazine circulation figures. The magazines affected include Men's Health, True Love and Fair Lady. It is important to note that I consider readership figures, and not circulation figures. 4. LSM is an abbreviation for Living Standards Measure, developed by the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF). While there has been some debate about the definition of LSMs, it can generally be understood as a marketing segmentation tool which measures wealth based on 'standard' of living
Art · Colonialism · Foregrounding · Heteronormativity · Human sexuality · Literature · Mainstream · Masculinity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising
| Citations per year | 0.24 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2009 - 2021 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |