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.Itallowed many women to imagine, and to find, alternative ways ofdoing femininity that they found more fulfilling.Many peoplecredit her book as vital in prompting the feminist movement ofthe 1960s, one key element of which was to be critical of the waythat women were represented in the media.There have been many other studies about the media, butquestions have remained about just how much influence themedia have on how women and men act.It is not easy to deter-mine whether they produce gender stereotypes, or just reflectcurrent ideas about how to do gender (see Gauntlett 2002).Mediaimages are often criticized for being unrealistic portrayals, andharmful if real women and men try to live up to them (forexample, by starving themselves) (e.g.Bordo 1989).However, themedia can also portray more diverse ways of doing gender thanmany people might experience in their everyday lives (VanZoonen 1995).The TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or themovie Brokeback Mountain, for example, might make people LEARNING AND DOING GENDER IN EVERYDAY LIFE 43think differently about masculinity and find new ways of being aman.There are varying explanations of how these processes oflearning and doing gender might operate.CLASS COMPARISONS: LEARNING GENDER DIFFERENTLYIn contemporary society different men and women learn and dotheir gender in diverse ways, but sociologists look for patterns thatexplain why certain groups of people might do gender in similarways.The way that people do gender depends on the differentsituations they are in, but also on their location within society.People who come from similar backgrounds and are of similar ageswill probably learn and do things in similar ways.As well as cul-tural background for example, being Samoan, Greek or Thai(see Chapter 1) the class (see Introduction) you belong to will becrucial in determining how you express femininity or masculinityand what kinds of gendered behaviour the people around youthink is appropriate.French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (seeSkeggs 1997) has been influential in trying to explain how ways ofbeing and doing become ingrained.He uses the term habitus torefer to how what we think and do and like, and how we dress andtalk are learned within particular class backgrounds and becomehabits that form who we are.Class hierarchies are perpetuated bythe way people use these ways of being and doing things to dis-tinguish themselves as better than people lower down the socialscale.Class habitus also involves particular ways of doing gender.Usually, middle- and upper-class ways of doing gender arevalued more within society.There are various sociologists whohave done good work on this R.W.Connell s (1995) Australian-based investigations of Masculinities, for example, are excellent.Bev Skeggs (1997) has also illustrated the relationship betweenclass habitus and how gender is done in her research on working-class women in Britain.In their everyday lives these women areconstantly struggling with respectability.Ideas about who andwhat is worthy of respect reinforce class hierarchies.There are 44 LEARNING AND DOING GENDER IN EVERYDAY LIFEalways reminders for working-class women that other people thinkthey are worthless.One woman experienced this when workingfor a middle-class family:When I first went to work as a nanny I couldn t stand it.They [themiddle-class people] really think they are something else.They treat youlike shit.What I ve noticed is they never look at you.Well they do at firstthey look you all over and make you feel like a door rag, but then theyjust tell you what to do.One of them asked me if I had any other clothes.Some of them want you to know that you are shit in comparison tothem.(quoted in Skeggs 1997: 92)Skeggs point is that ideals of femininity are based on middle-classways of being and doing womanliness.Working-class womenmay find middle-class women snobby and pretentious, but knowthat if they can try to appear to be respectably feminine they mightbe able to get better jobs, better men and better lives.Anotherworking-class woman explains the everyday struggles, for exampleover dress, that this involves:All the time you ve got to weigh everything up: is it too tarty? Will I looklike a right slag in it what will people think? It drives me mad that everytime you go to put your clothes on you have to think do I look deadcommon? Is it rough? Do I look like a dog?(Skeggs 1997: 3)Britain is often characterized as a particularly class-bound society,but even in the supposedly meritocratic United States of Americasimilar kinds of devaluations of working-class femininity operate.One illustration of this can be seen in media coverage of one of thesex scandals in which previous president Bill Clinton was involvedaround 1998 (Holmes 2000a).At that time a woman called PaulaJones claimed that when Clinton was Governor of Arkansas hehad sexually harassed her.She was working for him and allegedly LEARNING AND DOING GENDER IN EVERYDAY LIFE 45he invited her to what she thought was a meeting and thenexposed himself to her and suggested they engage in sexual activ-ity.She declined and, some years later, when he was President, shelaid a formal complaint.Jones found it hard to get her complainttaken seriously.She was discredited by being called trailer parktrash, a loose woman (Romano, cited in Holmes 2000a: 313).Her appearance was criticized, she was thought to not be believ-able because of her working-class hairstyle and clothes.So with thehelp of supporters interested in politically harming Clinton, Jonesaltered her bodily appearance to try to make her respectable.Herhair was made straighter and smaller.She changed her make-upto natural, not neon, hues and started to dress like she came from the boardroom instead of the secretarial pool.To some extentthese markers of dignity, refinement and power helped her to betaken more seriously, confirming that there is potent politics in ahaircut and a well-chosen shade of lipstick (Givhan, cited inHolmes 2000a: 313).Such markers of dignity, refinement andpower are based on middle-class ways of doing gender.The pro-fessional boardroom suit is understood as indicating a desexual-ized competent woman who is very different to the working-classsecretary in tarty skirts.However, wearing a suit is not enough tofree women from sexual objectification, nor does it automaticallymake them powerful.Jones s case did not proceed to court andClinton remained in power (Holmes 2000a)
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