We’re Just Different (But Equal): Unpacking Students’ Gendered Views

Abstract

In exploring, among other issues, whether and the degree to which characteristics of postfeminism retain influence on constructions and understandings of gender, and relationships between the sexes, it is worth reiterating why such an examination matters. It is important because both the polarisation of the sexes’ narrative and the very narrow markers of success that had come to characterise postfeminist discussions regarding women’s equality need to be contested (Tasker and Negra 2007). The postfeminist discourse is perhaps most dangerous for the simultaneous, albeit counter-intuitive contentions that men and women are fundamentally different, and that the fight for equality has been won, leading to complacency and acceptance of the current status of women in contemporary society. It is incumbent upon those invested in achieving women’s rights and equality between the sexes to interrogate the cultural aspects of society that work against achieving a true valuing and respect of both women and men. Cultural manifestations of sex-based inequality are, at the same time, more difficult to recognise, articulate, challenge and overturn. Bearing this contention in mind, this chapter seeks to deconstruct and understand attitudes held by advertising students to gender, gender roles, and feminism and their position as to whether equality has been achieved, in addition to exploring the ways in which they talk about women and men and relations between the sexes.