feminism

• Men dominate society and mass culture benefits the patriarchy.
• Popular culture stereotypes women into social roles, as evidenced by McRobbie's 1978 study on magazines for girls promoting traditional housewife roles.
• Radical feminists critique popular culture for appearing to promote and legitimize violence against women, as evidenced by Andrea Dworkin's research into pornography in the 1980s.
• Post modern feminism suggests that the representation of women in the media today is empowering, as evidenced by Catharine Paglia's writings about female celebrities suggesting that they were once objectified by the male gaze but now have more control.
• Functionalism argues that social order is important and that women benefit from social order like men.
• Post modernists argue that gender is just one identity among many and that people can create their own diverse cultures and are not defined by mainstream cultural norms.