I found this weeks article to be very relevant and
interesting to my current scholarly interests. As many of you know, I am part
of a research group that has studied and looked at how women are represented in
the media. Much of the research we conduct is informed by the work of Cooky and
Messner. Taking an intersectional approach in research was very new to me and
throughout the past year I have become much more comfortable with understanding
this research approach.
To help you understand how taking an intersectional approach
in research that I have been involved in was helpful, I should probably tell
you a little about the research we conducted. Our current study looked at how
women would choose to represent themselves in photos if they are given the
choice. Many times we see teams or female athletes being told how to pose in
magazine, media guides etc. We wanted to gain an understanding of what women
would choose if given no rules. Throughout the writing and analyzing process so
many different parts would come up, like race, gender, geography, and class. At
times we were not even sure which route to analyze or what to focus on. All
parts of these athletes were important and that is why an intersectional
approach was used to analyze all of the data that we gathered.
I think the current article (Cooky, Wachs, Messner, &
Dworkin, 2010) touched upon something that we encountered in our research
(research group, paper not yet published). So frequently we see the media focus
on one part of a person and all of our focus gets pulled into the one part.
When we were interviewing these athletes they unknowingly (because they are
human) brought in so many parts of themselves it became impossible to just
focus our research one aspect, like gender. We did not want to leave any
important piece of them out of the paper. Unlike in the media where normally
there is one focal point to a representation. That is why I think
intersectional research is important because it gives voice and knowledge to
areas that many times are left out of the medias portrayal of individuals.
Campbell,
ReplyDeleteYour research is very interesting, and it relates to some of the discussions we have in class. I’m interested in knowing how the women athletes would choose to pose if they had a choice. From my experience, when I see a men’s sport team’s poster they are never smiling. They are usually in a line or formation that visually tells me they are ready for battle. In my opinion, their stance is very much so an attempt to intimidate.
You might remember Danijela when she was in our class. She is the Women’s Volleyball coach for BGSU. I saw their team poster, and they were in a similar stance to some of the Men’s sports team. None of her players were smiling and they all had their arms crossed. Their viens weren’t popping out of their legs and arms, but it wasn’t “Chris Evert like.”
I asked Danijela “why did you all look mean in your picture?” She laughed and said “That’s our game face; we are nice in person” I guess this is to show how my mind is programmed to associate nice looking young women to look friendly. Not friendly like Everet in a dress, but I would assume they would smile. I associated the folded arms and grits with being mean and intimidating, and I think that was the team’s intentions to be portrayed that way. I expect that from the men’s team. I don’t think I’m wrong for having these associations. That’s why I’m interested in seeing if the ladies really want to pose that way or is their other poses that they would prefer. Good post Campbell.
David,
DeleteThanks for sharing about the photo of the Women's Volleyball team. I'm going to see if I can find this team photo. It would have been interesting to have Danijela in class when we did some of these readings.
Dr. Spencer