Oldal 396 [396]
OCR
394 Magdalena Sztandara neglecting and misrepresenting. Ihus, what kind of future is promised (and what kind is concealed) for women in press photographs? The attempt to answer this question should be based on the analysis of different ways in which the history of culture and customs has constructed the social strategies of female oppression. Ideology and stereotypes are usually involved in this and are understood here as habits. It might seem that the ‘socialistic promises (not only the visual ones) include the redefinition of women’s roles in society as well as their emancipation (a phrase commonly used in many countries of the Eastern Block); however, in reality they did not entail any significant changes or transformations. Their aim was rather to maintain the existing institutions and plans. The media, as an element of hegemony, transfer and form the constructs of women’s existence in a way that both the patriarchal and socio-economic systems classify as ‘normal’. We may attempt to deconstruct the visual representations of women depicted in the newspapers by pointing out the imposed models of subjugation and limitation. The visual presence of women sends a clear and unambiguous message to the viewer: they are builders of a new society. Hence, it is worth taking a close and interpretative look at the imposed roles of women (a worker, teacher, housewife or mother) as well as the dominant themes presented in press photographs (reading, writing, ironing or spinning). The particularly significant and exposed images were the ones that highlighted the women’s presence and participation in society as well as their ‘cultural’, ‘social’, ‘educational’, ‘political’ and ‘economic’ development. Additionally, it is also crucial to analyse the relationship between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’, since most of the contemporary feminist theories and practices are focused on the spaces in which “the ideology of natural inequality finds its shelter” (Papi¢ 1989: 41). As the slogan goes, the private is both political and public, meaning that the mechanisms of patriarchal suppression and the silencing of women in the public sphere are closely related to the ‘obvious’ socio-cultural roles imposed on women in the sphere of the private. Such analysis may be fruitful in two ways. First of all, it allows us to indicate the range of the ‘expected’ sociocultural roles, starting from traditional and stereotypical beliefs and ending with the ideological and power-related. And secondly, it introduces different (hi)stories of different meanings, including women’s silenced voices and their forgotten legacy. ‘Forward! For the Struggle for Socialism’. The Media Lives of Women ‘The relationship between visual representations in the media and politics, ideology and power is an important element of transformational discourse (see MoranjakBamburaé et al 2006). The period of social realism is a good example of such discourse, especially when we consider the case of reclaimed lands marked by war, crisis and radical changes of political, economic and cultural systems. It was precisely in this territory that the official redefinition of cultural, ethnic, national and gender values was needed and expected.
