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Master Suppression Techniques and Gender Stereotypes as a Means to Discredit Female Leadership in the Media Representation of a President. A Case Study (Argentina 2011–2015)
Abstract
This article focusses on the media representation of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as portraited in the covers of the weekly magazine Noticias during her second mandate as president of Argentina, 2011–2015. Through a feminist review of the documental evidence, this text aims to determine the most prevalent patterns in the use of master suppression techniques and gender stereotypes in the media, discussing the representation of female politicians in visual and written narratives as it usually reinforces gender stereotypes in disadvantaged ways, damaging to the public image of female candidates and representatives. The results show how five identifiable gender stereotypes (the narcissist leader or the frivolous diva; the suffering lonely widow vs. the wicked widow; the hyper-sexualized or uncontrolled woman; the mentally sick or psychically unbalanced woman; and the unbearable woman) interplay with seven not exclusive but complementary master suppression techniques (making invisible; ridicule; withhold information; double bind or double punishment; blaming and humiliating or put to shame; objectifying; and violence, force or threat of force) in this media’s rejection, underestimation and mockery of female political leadership.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/al.2019.8.189-208
Date of publication: 2020-03-24 15:16:31
Date of submission: 2020-03-23 19:56:50
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