Reading Journal

Reading Journal – “Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique.”

Angela McRobbie is a British cultural theorist, analyst as well as a feminist whose work consolidates the popular culture study, modern media practices, and women’s liberation through analyses and critiques. McRobbie wrote an article called “Settling Accounts with Subculture. A Feminist Critique,” where she scrutinized the compelling work of Dick Hebdige’s “Subculture: The Meaning of Style” (1979) for its nonappearance of female subcultures. McRobbie argues that in comprehending developments on adolescent subcultures, was imperative to consider the private circle of home life as much as the open scene as at that point, access to portability and public areas was more limited for young ladies as compared to young men (McRobbie, 1981, p.112). McRobbie similarly criticized Paul Willi’s book, “Learning to Labour,” on the same concept she used on Hebdige’s literature.

The authors have based their arguments in both the socio-cultural and political contexts. In the socio-cultural aspect, the media and especially magazines, have been at the forefront in popularizing the pop-culture as well as feminism in various ways. First, is the rock music which is said to have a deeper meaning and not just entirely for recreational purposes. The use of Rock n Roll music to pass information was influential at that time as it was the music of the youth culture. McRobbie criticizes Dick Hebdige for rectifying how Rock music was being perceived as his perspective did not cater to gender sensitivity (McRobbie, 1981, p.119). McRobbie states that music must be put within peoples’ conversations through which it intercedes to its crowd and in which its implications are verbalized.

In the political context, McRobbie, in her article on “post-feminism and popular culture,” argument claims that feminism is a historical movement that has already achieved its goals and has withered away. She said that for women’s rights to be “considered” it had to be comprehended as having just died. This was a development perceptible across popular culture, a site where “power … is revamped at different crossroads in regular daily existence, comprising our shaky feeling of common sense.” (McRobbie A., 2004, p.255). This is in the context that there were three different waves of feminism, which fought for, among other things, the equality in both genders in the political arena and especially the right for women to vote.

The two authors perspectives, whom Angela McRobbie has criticized were one-sided their writings about feminism. McRobbie is a feminist hence her critique. Just like Simone de Beauvoir, McRobbie writes about and supports the girl culture as she tries to justify both males and females are equal in all aspects hence should not be discriminated against. McRobbie has indulged in feminism, popular culture as well as politics. This will be the bases of my argument in the major essay as Simone de Beauvoir; my other key thinker has talked about these issues. I will analyse both McRobbie and Beauvoir’s perspectives and come up with a comprehensive essay on feminism concerning different aspects of society.

References

McRobbie, A. (1981, p.112). Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique. London.

McRobbie, A. (2004, p.255). Post‐feminism and popular culture. Feminist media studies, 4(3), DOI: 10.1080/1468077042000309937, 255-264.