Feminism in the news

Feminism in the news is an amazing book that offers in-depth analysis of media representations of the feminist movement in the United Kingdom and the United States. Author Kaitlynn Mendes also establishes at the very beginning of the book that this book is an analysis of news representations of feminist movement and should not be confused with actual historical account of the feminist movement. This very fact makes the process of reading all the more interesting.

Since ideologies of all the newspaper organizations aren't the same, the articles published regarding feminism varied with their content. Due to these differences in opinions in the newspaper articles along with the author's tremendous amount of research, it became possible for me to understand the different perspectives with which feminism was dealt with in the olden days. In this book, Mendes focuses on the key issue of who was writing about feminism and where these articles appeared in papers. Just like today, all too often women's issues weren't treated as ‘news’ but instead found themselves sidelined into features or comments.

The book also analyses how the papers explored ‘issues associated with feminism' such as sexual objectification, equal pay and the glass ceiling. Mendes found that a higher than expected number of articles sought to legitimise feminism as a movement for good. However, were these articles always political? Some focused on how women can wear lipstick and still be a feminist - This way of making feminism pretty and Non scary could again be seen as legitimising feminism whilst ignoring it's political anger and need for change.

Books like these bring light to the issues that are hidden away from the public's eye. Writers like kaitlynn Mendes have helped a lot in legitimising feminism, who managed to do so without compromising politics and radical demand. This book was an eye opening experience for me, leaving me with different perspectives and a greater knowledge about feminism in general