Feminist Media Studies
Call for Papers – “Commentary and Criticism” section
Scientific/ Biological Determinism:
Media Models of Genetics and Gender
● Why is it that scientific discourse of male/female difference has
become so prevalent in media accounts of gendered behaviour, or of sexual
difference in transnational terms?
● How does this scientific/evolutionist discourse
produce ‘authentic’ knowledge about women, women’s bodies, and women’s
behaviour that exonerate historical and political causes of gender
difference?
In the west, quality newspapers are eager to report on the latest
scientific research, while television documentaries call on celebrity
scientists Steven Pinker or Richard Dawkins to give legitimacy to their
explanatory commentaries. Popular entertainment in the form of magazine
quizzes, reality television, talk shows and lifestyle make-overs return
again and again to the same message, that the reason men and women behave
as they do is ‘hard wired’ into their genes through evolutionary selection
for reproductive fitness.
Meanwhile, news coverage of the ‘third world’ woman reveals her body as
the subject of uncontrollable fertility, malnutrition, and disease. If
scientific ideologies have been an integral part of population control
campaigns in India and China, for example, the same science diagnoses
media images of the bodies of women of African nations as victims of
malnutrition and sexually transmitted diseases.
None of this is new but a return to these issues is timely given the role
that scientific and evolutionary explanations now play as a counter-
discourse to religious fundamentalism.
We invite you to submit a short essay of up to 2,000 words to
the “Commentary and Criticism” section of the journal Feminist Media
Studies that address such questions as:
• How might feminist interventions disrupt the gendered assumptions
on which these scientific discourses are founded? Are there feminist
alternatives in circulation and how might these be promoted?
• What strategic uses are there for scientific accounts of gender in
the context of resurgent religious fundamentalisms?
• What features of evolutionary discourse make it attractive to
media professionals? Is it the weight of popular belief with which these
theories conform? Is it the utility of a binary model that allows for
relative simplicity in the telling? Is there an economic incentive to
promote sexual differentiation in a media market structured by gender?
• What relevance do evolutionary explanations have in a global
context? How widespread is the circulation and acceptance of these Western
scientific discourses of gender? How do they translate into diverse
cultural and political contexts?
All contributors should follow the Harvard style of reference and
guidelines for submission of manuscripts outlined on our website. The
title page of the manuscript should contain your complete mailing address,
institutional affiliation, and full contact information including phone
and fax numbers. Submissions must be e-mailed and saved as a Word
attachment to both [log in to unmask] and to
[log in to unmask] Deadline -- January 10th 2006.
|