The Split Subject in (Neo)Liberal Context : (Re-)Presentation of Women Leaders in Media Spectacle

ISBN-13: 9783639124736 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 76 str.

Jeanne Hamilton-Bick

Opis

Leadership is performed and gendered. There are impossible performances of "the leader and failings in such performance that play out in mass media representations. These representations accumulate into spectacle that re-inscribes leadership as masculine and reconstitutes gendered and minority difference and consequent disadvantage in attaining leadership positions. Because of the vast circulation of liberal democratic rhetoric, idealistic belief in equal opportunity for anyone who uses the tools of liberalism such as independence and perseverance is espoused. Media spectacle plays a transnational role in articulating and reinstating these impossible performances of women leaders through repetition of normative masculine leaders and restating the preponderance of liberal opportunity. Using Butler s theory of performativity and Debord s discussion of spectacle and society, I locate within the spectacular production the performance expectations that work to undermine women s leadership potential. I show how the media representations, in their urgent, rapidly-produced present, work against the discourse on gender equality and inclusion.

O autorze

Jeanne Hamilton-Bick, performance artist, writer and teacher,
received her BFA in Painting, Photography and Performance from
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her Masters
degree in Gender Studies from Central European University,
Budapest. She currently lives and works in Hanover, Germany, and
is comtemplating her next move.