Female Gender Roles

In “Femininity as Mas[s]querade: A Feminist Approach to Mass Culture,” Tania Modleski discusses the relationship between women and mass culture. According to Modleski, popular or mass culture serves to maintain gender roles and makes certain characteristics “ideal” for males and females. The ideal male figure represents production and work, as well as other typical masculine characteristics. Females on the other hand are represented by consumption and passivity, which makes them victims of culture, says Modleski.


Video games are an avenue of pop culture and definitely portray gender roles. Many video games follow a basic scenario; the male protagonist has a girlfriend, she is abducted, the male hero must rescue her. This goes to show that we expect women to be helpless and passive, while it is the men who need to be proactive.







Speaking of gender roles, in class we discussed gender-benders, and more specifically drag kings. A “drag king” is a woman who intentionally takes on the appearance of a man, usually for satirical purposes (or is a lesbian). The drag king is an example of an increasing trend: the blurring of the lines between what is masculine and what is feminine. Its unusual to think of drag kings as progress, but I guess you could if you believe that there should be a total absence of gender roles.