Essential Readings
- Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. London: Routledge.
- Hall, S. (1996) “Who Needs Identity.” inHall, S. Du Gay, P. (Eds) Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage.
- Hall, S. (1997) Representations: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London, Sage.
- Heidensohn, F. (1985) Women and Crime. New York: NYUP.
Lunch Task
1. Select a certain group of women from one of these: women as victims of crime, women as perpetrators of crime, mothers who kill their children or battered women who kill their partners/husbands. Look at different representations of this topic/phenomenon in magazines, film, TV, newspapers, literature. Films you can consider looking at may include but are not limited to:
- Dance with a Stranger (1985)
- Fatal Attraction (1987)
- The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992)
- TV -The rape of Anna Bates in Downton Abbey series four
- The archive at http://www.ukpressonline.co.uk may be used to get news stories as well as Lexis Nexis or just google
- Stories of mothers who kill may include the deaths of Baby P, Daniel Pelka and Khyra Ishaq
2. Note patterns in these representations in terms of stereotyping or essentializing categories noting how class, race, sexuality etc may further affect the representation of the women in question.
3. Note value assumptions in terms of who has power, who solves problems, how problems are solved.
Mafalda Stasi 