The Illusion of Free Choice: How Our Lives Are Constantly Shaped by Gender, Media, and Communication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17977/um087v2i2202576-83Keywords:
Gender, Feminism, MediaAbstract
Human dynamics are inevitable. The perspectives and values we hold today may differ drastically from those we believed in just a few years ago. The author’s personal journey serves as concrete evidence of this transformation. Through in-depth discussions on the concepts of gender, the power of media, and the dynamics of communication, the author came to realize that social change within oneself is not a coincidence but rather the outcome of complex interactions between individuals and their environment. This essay aims to revisit the key materials studied in the course, with a focus on media and communication in particular contexts, and how these aspects influence the sociological factors that shape human perceptions of gender in everyday life. The article will also include discussions on the history of feminism, post-feminism, masculinity, and consumerism within media representation.
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (2013). Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Alice Marwick (2010) There's a Beautiful Girl Under All of This: Performing Hegemonic Femininity in Reality Television, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 27:3,251-266, https://doi.org/10.1080/15295030903583515
Banet-Weiser, S. (2012). AuthenticTM: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture. NYU Press.
Bordo, S. (1993). Hunger as Ideology. In Unbearable Weight. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bordo, S. (n.d.). Feminism, Western culture, and the body. Manuscript.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Chris, C., & Gerstner, D. A. (2013). Media authorship. Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Connell, R. W. (2002). Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Durham, M. G. (2001). Displaced persons: Symbols of South Asian femininity and the returned gaze in U.S. media culture. Communication Theory, 11(2), 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2001.tb00239.x
Edwards, T. (2003). Cultures of Masculinity. London: Routledge.
Gill, R. (2007). Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166.
Joyrich, L. (2014). Queer television studies: Currents, flows, and (main)streams. Cinema Journal, 53(2), 133–139. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2014.0015
Levine, E. (Ed.). (2015). CUPCAKES PINTEREST and LADYPORN. Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McRobbie, A. (2009). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. London: Sage.
Messner, M. A., & Montez de Oca, J. (2005). The male consumer as loser: Beer and liquor ads in mega sports media events. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(3), 1879–1909. https://doi.org/10.1086/427523
Salesses, M. (2013, March 4). Asian American men and masculinity: A conversation. The Good Men Project. Retrieved from https://goodmenproject.com
Scott, J. W. (1986). Gender: A useful category of historical analysis. The American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053–1075.
Scott, S. (2019). Fake geek girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. NYU Press.
Segal, L. (1990). Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men. London: Virago.
Shin, L. (2018). Queer eye for K-Pop fandom: popular culture, cross-gender performance, and queer desire in South Korean cosplay of k-pop stars. In Korea Journal (Vols. 4–4, pp. 87–113) [Journal-article]. The Academy of Korean Studies. https://accesson.kr/kj/assets/pdf/8466/journal-58-4-87.pdf
Simpson, M. (1994). Metroseksual: The rise of the new man. London: Fashion Press.
Spice Girls. (1996). Girl power: The phenomenon of empowerment in pop culture. New York: Pop Culture Publishing.
Tasker, Y., & Negra, D. (2007). Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Durham: Duke University Press.
Whelehan, I. (2000). Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: The Women’s Press.
Wollstonecraft, M. (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London: J. Johnson.
Zine, J. (n.d.). Muslim women and the politics of representation. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 19(4).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Lugas Lituhayu, Nanda Harda Pratama Meiji
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
