Abstract
We live in media-saturated societies, and media organizations now have unprecedented power to shape our world views, influence our behavior and provoke extreme reactions. Reading Betty Reardon’s groundbreaking monograph, Sexism and the war system (1996), in the context of 2018, I was struck by the parallels between what she identified as the ‘patriarchal war system’ and what I contemporarily refer to as the ‘global patriarchal media system’. This is how I would describe the male-dominated media ownership system that produces content and communications infused with stereotypical representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, age, socio-economic status and abilities, whilst concurrently reinforcing and normalizing inequalities and injustices.
Sally McLaren, Adjunct, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Australia; Email: sallyjmclaren@gmail.com.
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Notes
- 1.
In January 2019 this was exemplified by the sensational backlash against the Gillette television commercial, which had aimed to draw attention to toxic masculinity and the sexual harassment of women. Instead, rightwing political groups, conservative media and men’s rights activists called for a boycott of the brand, prompting some to show images of themselves on social media platforms symbolically destroying their razors. Gillette did not withdraw the commercial and it has been viewed more than 14 million times on Youtube.
- 2.
A European environmental activist and academic recently said to me that fighting for gender equality is not as urgent or important as dealing with climate change. I responded that perhaps we would not be in this mess if we had gender equality. Gender equality does not necessarily preclude war and natural disaster in a patriarchal system, but this anecdote illustrates the failure of some educated Western elites to consider the relevance of gender in policymaking, conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
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McLaren, S. (2019). Media, Sexism and the Patriarchal War System: Why Media Literacy Matters to Peace Education. In: Snauwaert, D. (eds) Exploring Betty A. Reardon’s Perspective on Peace Education. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18387-5_12
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