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Who were the Suffragettes?| Definition, History & Examples

On June 21, 1908 in Hyde Park, London, a group of women marched and spoke to the gathering crowd. Dressed in purple, white, and green, these women wore matching scarves and buttons as well as military sashes with “Votes for Women” written across them. They held banners, some reading “Votes for Women” while others said “Deeds not Words.” This event, Women’s Sunday, was run by women who were part of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) organized by Emmeline Pankhurst, and these female activists, marchers, and campaigners weren’t just women interested in politics: They were suffragettes. 

The suffragettes were women who, between 1903 and 1914, campaigned for women’s suffrage in public elections in  Britain. By the late 1800s, women in various countries had gained the right to vote, known as “suffrage.” Most notably, in 1893, New Zealand enfranchised women over the age of 21 (Patricia Grimshaw, Women's Suffrage in New Zealand, 2013). By 1896 in the United States, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho had granted women full suffrage (Dawn Durante, 100 Years of Women's Suffrage, 2019). However, by the early twentieth century, women in Britain still faced obstacles to their voting rights. Inspired by women gaining the right to vote in other countries,  feminists began to rally and call for change.

The term “suffragette” was coined by a journalist from the Daily Mail. Originally seen as a slur, the women-only group WSPU adopted the term as it identified its members as being separate from non-militant suffrage groups, such as the suffragists (Eileen Luscombe, History and Legacy of the Suffragette Fellowship, 2023). Known for taking direct action approaches to their cause, the suffragettes also took part in civil disobedience exercises and weren’t afraid to utilize militancy in their movement. According to Jeanette Winterson in Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere, the title of which is taken from a speech by suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett in 1913, the suffragettes took part in many controversial tactics that disrupted society, particularly aristocratic society: 

Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere

From that day forward, women went militant. Middle-class women, aristocratic women, working women. Women confronted politicians at meetings, at their homes, even on the golf course. Women chained themselves to railings. Women blew up letterboxes – the Victorians and Edwardians loved writing letters, and the Empire depended on paperwork – so getting the post blown up was really annoying. (2018)

The suffragettes faced imprisonment and took part in other militant activities, including bombings and hunger strikes. 

This guide will discuss the origins of the suffragette movement, the actions of the suffragettes in the fight for women’s right to vote, and the lasting impact of the suffragettes in Britain and around the world. 

The women’s suffrage movement began years before the suffragettes came to the scene. In 1865, the Kensington Society was formed in London for women to meet and discuss topics related to women’s rights in society and female education, as many of the attendees were educated, middle-class women who were barred from higher education. In 1867, the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage was founded, along with sister societies in London and Edinburgh, all of which focused on women’s suffrage specifically. 

Later in October 1897, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was formed under the leadership of Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929). Fawcett was an English writer and political activist who became interested in women’s rights after watching her sister struggle to become a doctor. The NUWSS focused on women’s suffrage in the UK and supported the idea that suffrage could be granted to women through non-militant and legal actions. Women in the NUWSS considered themselves suffragists, meaning they wished to achieve suffrage through lawful means and persuade politicians through words. They believed that if they followed the rules and obeyed the law, politicians couldn’t accuse them of being irresponsible and unworthy of the vote.  As indicated by Fawcett in Women's Suffrage, the women believed that violence would turn the government away from their cause,

Women's Suffrage

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies endeavoured to steer an even keel. They never weakened in their conviction that constitutional agitation was not only right in itself, but would prove far more effective in the long run than any display of physical violence, as a means of converting the electorate, the general public, and, consequently, Parliament and the Government, to a belief in women's suffrage. But the difficulties for a long time were very great. A few of our own members attacked us because we were not militant; others resigned because they disapproved of the militantism which we had repudiated. (1912, [2015])

Emmeline Pankhurst and the formation of the WSPU

In 1903, the Women’s Social and Political Union was formed by Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), an English political activist, writer, and lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, and three of her children, Sylvia, Christabel, and Adela. The WSPU met in Emmeline Pankhurst’s Manchester home where women came together on a weekly basis to discuss ideas for achieving enfranchisement. There was no formal membership list and the group was mostly financially supported by Emmeline herself and donations from supporters. They advocated for women’s suffrage through traditional means, as indicated by Andrew Rosen in Rise Up, Women!:

Rise Up, Women!

The WSPU was at this time almost exclusively concerned with trying to instil enthusiasm for women’s suffrage in Labour organizations, and the effort of persuading such organizations was conducted by orthodox means. The WSPU’s most extensive proselytizing was directed at the ILP [Independent Labour Party], which was divided over the wisdom of working for extension of the existing franchise to women, as opposed to (2013)

At first, the WSPU was focused on bringing the issue of women’s subjugation to light through “constitutional” exploits, using their talent for persuasive speech to champion their rights. For instance, in February 1904, at a meeting for the Free Trade League in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, Christabel Pankhurst stepped forward and proposed an amendment to Winston Churchill’s resolution, explaining that the Representation of the People Acts only used masculine words, thus excluding women (Rosen, 2013). Over time, women in the WSPU started to believe that proactive, substantial change wouldn’t be achieved through words alone. Thus, they began to take direct action.

‘Deeds, not words’: The radical activism of the suffragettes

In October 1905, inspired by Christabel’s bravery at the Free Trade Hall, fellow suffragette Annie Kenney joined Christabel in disrupting a speech given by Sir Edward Grey. This was the first of many direct action demonstrations delivered by women in the WSPU. Once Grey had finished his speech, Kenney stood up and shouted, ‘Will the Liberal government give women the vote?’ Following this statement, Christabel unfurled a ‘Votes for Women’ banner she had snuck in and asked the question again. When Edwards still wouldn’t answer, even after they followed procedure and wrote the question down for Edwards to look over, the two women decided to stand on their chairs and shout the question. 

They were escorted out by police but not before Christabel attempted to spit in police officers’ faces and hit one of them at least twice. Both were charged with disorderly conduct, assaulting a police officer, and causing an obstruction. Christabel explained that they had to conduct uncivil acts because of the legal position of women. When Emmeline pleaded that she would pay fines for Annie and Christabel, Christabel insisted that she wouldn’t go home if the fine was paid. They became the first martyrs of the WSPU as Jad Adams explains,

Pankhurst

The principal aim of the protest had been achieved: women’s suffrage had risen up the agenda. The suffragists even had a new slogan. Their banner had been going to call for ‘Women’s Suffrage’ but at the last minute they had changed it. ‘Votes for Women’ was a slogan for the 20th century: direct and to the point. (Pankhurst, 2018)

The WSPU continued to hold meetings and demonstrations, garnering more attention to their cause. Emmeline and her daughters remained outspoken and inspired women across Britain to join the movement. As the media began to spotlight their cause, the women began to see the potential for participating in militant activities. They smashed windows, especially targeting government offices, businesses, and establishments frequented by the wealthy, and even set fire to post boxes. Their tactics then became more severe, as they initiated bombings, participated in hunger strikes, and, subsequently, faced imprisonment. 

Beginning in 1912, the WSPU started using arson and bombings as part of its campaign. According to Simon Webb in The Suffragette Bombers (2014), for the suffragettes, bombings made logical sense. If they created enough devastation and insurance companies had to pay out millions for damages, the government would have to start listening to their demands:

The Suffragette Bombers

The decision to resort to bombings in public places was almost certainly a deliberate and calculated move by the WSPU, once they saw that attacks limited to the government and its agents were proving ineffective in rousing the public and persuading them to support the suffragettes. There were, at least at the beginning of the terrorism, sound historical reasons for favouring such a strategy. (Webb, 2014)

Between 1909 and 1914, the suffragettes embarked on a hunger strike campaign. The first to go on hunger strike was Marion Wallace Dunlop, a suffragette sent to Holloway prison in 1909 who refused to eat as a form of protest for not being considered a political prisoner. In an effort to ensure Dunlop would not be considered a martyr for the suffragette cause, she was released early. However, her courage inspired other suffragettes to participate in hunger strikes, including the Pankhursts. In her memoir My Own Story, Emmeline Pankhurst reflects on her admiration for the hunger strikers, expressing her dedication to the campaign:

My Own Story

I warned the magistrate that I should at once adopt the hunger strike, and I told him that if I lived at all until the summer it would be a dying woman who would come up for trial. (1914, [2020])

The British government were concerned that if the suffragettes died in prison, the prison would be held liable for their deaths. Therefore, the government began enforcing force-feeding to hunger strikers. The force-feeding was brutal; rubber tubes were used, causing not only extreme discomfort but injuring throats and digestive systems permanently (Winterson, 2018). In April 1913, Reginald McKenna from the Home Office passed the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913, otherwise known as the Cat and Mouse Act. The Act ensured that the suffragette, the “mouse,” would be temporarily released from prison if she became ill and be readmitted only once her health improved, being recaptured by the British government, i.e., the “cat.” The British government would be absolved of blame if a suffragette died or became injured. After the Act was passed, most force-feeding ceased (Martin Farr, Reginald McKenna, 2004).

The public was outraged by the treatment of the suffragettes in prison, believing that they should hold political prisoner status and be treated with more respect. Though the public held differing opinions regarding the lengths the suffragettes were taking to achieve suffrage, they recognized that the force-feedings were inhumane and should be stopped.

Until the beginning of the First World War, hundreds of suffragettes were imprisoned, usually due to unpaid fines or disorderly conduct offences. The suffragettes worked to be considered political prisoners with the unfailing support of the WSPU. In her work, The Suffragette (1931), prefaced by Emmeline Pankhurst, Sylvia Pankhurst discusses the growth of the WSPU, highlighting the tactics of its members, including the suffering suffragettes endured as they were arrested, force-fed, and imprisoned. According to Sylvia Pankhurst, though the suffragettes suffered greatly,  they knew that their suffering would be worth it in the end:

The Suffragette

As yet most of us knew little of the interior of a prison, but, on those burning July days, we knew enough to think with sorrow and anxiety of our comrades shut away from the beauty of the summer in the heat of their small, stifling cells. We heard with joy that they were happy and contented to suffer imprisonment for the women’s cause. And now it seemed to us as though the spirit of revolt against oppression were flowing onward and spreading, like some great tide to all the womanhood of the world. (1931, [2015])

For the suffragettes, imprisonment was a necessity for the suffragette cause. Imprisonment would ultimately deliver liberty. They believed that sacrifice would help support the greater suffrage cause in both Britain and around the world. Their work paid off when, in 1928 under the Equal Franchise Act, women over the age of 21 were granted the right to vote.

The influence of the suffragette movement 

Most notably, the influence of the suffragettes can be seen in the United States, where they inspired American women to take direct action in the name of women’s suffrage. Sylvia Pankhurst toured the US in 1911, visiting states across the country, from California to Illinois to Massachusetts to Tennessee, where she gave speeches and inspired many women to engage in local politics and support the women’s suffrage cause. Like their British counterparts, American women began participating in civil disobedience activities and hunger strikes. Women like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were influenced by the militant campaign ushered in by the British suffragettes and held their own protests and parades. During Sylvia's tour, she was received by Alice Paul in Philadelphia, where she stayed at the Women’s Graduate Club and learned more about the women’s suffrage movement in the US. 

In her introduction to A Suffragette in America (2019), Katherine Connelly explains that not only did Sylvia’s tour inspire American women to fight for the right to vote by all means necessary, but it also helped pave the way for changes in the way British suffragettes worked to dismantle the patriarchy in British society. Sylvia recognized the lack of voting rights for women as being aligned with systemic oppression and inequality, and was a contradiction to democratic ideology:

A Suffragette in America

The lecture tours of America provided Sylvia with the opportunity to explicitly situate the demand for women’s political emancipation as a part of wider struggles against oppression and disempowerment which sustained capitalist exploitation [...] In so doing, Sylvia begins to articulate her view of democracy as an instrument to dismantle inequality by providing all with an equal voice. On her return to Britain, Sylvia sought to apply these ideas to the militant suffragette movement, with profound political and personal consequences. ("Introduction", Connelly, 2019)

Believing in “deeds not words,” the suffragettes used direct action approaches in their fight for female suffrage. In the early twentieth century, the suffragettes engaged in militant activities, conducted bombings, and hunger strikes, and spent time in jail, all for the women’s suffrage movement. Spearheading the movement was the WSPU under the leadership of the Pankhurst family, though women like Millicent Fawcett and the NUWSS had inspired women to support the suffrage movement years earlier. However, the WSPU believed that women had to move away from merely taking part in speeches and had to start disrupting British politics and society through more militant actions. Though these women suffered for the suffrage cause, they inspired other suffragettes in places like America to take direct action for the cause. This ushered in more interest in the suffragette movement and women in both countries gained the right to vote in the 1920s. 

While the suffragettes were oftentimes considered controversial for their militant actions, they inspired women around the world to stand up against oppression, challenge masculine norms in their communities, and participate in politics. 

The legacy left by the suffragettes continues to influence feminists to campaign for women’s rights, minority rights, and rights for the disadvantaged. Feminism today, currently in its fourth wave, has become more inclusive, with activists campaigning for equality regardless of gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic status. For example, many feminists have participated in the Black Lives Matter movement, recognizing the importance of intersectional feminism. The rise of social media has provided women a platform to discuss experiences of sexism. You can learn more about different branches of feminism through our study guides "What is Black Feminism?" and "What is Postcolonial Feminism?".

Today, the suffragettes are honored in a number of ways, including through monuments and statues, like the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in St. Peter’s Square in Manchester, England and the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial in Centennial Park in Nashville. These women paved the way for women to find their place in politics and finally have their voices heard in their communities. 


Voices from History: East London Suffragettes (2014) by Sarah Jackson and Rosemary Taylor 

Mrs Despard and the Suffrage Movement (2020) by Lynne Graham-Matheson and Helen Matheson-Pollock 

Ireland's Suffragettes (2014) by Sarah-Beth Watkins 

The Rebel Suffragette (2021) by Beverley Adams 

The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press (2017) by Sarah Pederson 

Suffragette City (2019) edited by Elizabeth Darling and Nathaniel Walker 

March, Women, March (2021) by Lucinda Hawksley

Suffrage and the Pankhursts (2013) by Jane Marcus 

Adams, J. (2018) Pankhurst. Haus Publishing. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2801376/pankhurst-pdf 

Connelly, K. (2019) “Introduction” in A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets, and Political Change. Pluto Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/962045/a-suffragette-in-america-reflections-on-prisoners-pickets-and-political-change-pdf 

Durante, D. (2019) 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage. University of Illinois Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2382807/100-years-of-womens-suffrage-a-university-of-illinois-press-anthology-pdf 

Farr, M. (2004) Reginald McKenna. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/717046/reginald-mckenna-pdf 

Fawcett, Garrett, M. and Dame (2015) Women’s Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement. Perlego. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1729160/womens-suffrage-a-short-history-of-a-great-movement-pdf 

Grimshaw, P. (2013) Women’s Suffrage in New Zealand. Auckland University Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1465325/womens-suffrage-in-new-zealand-pdf 

Hume, L. (2016) The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies 1897-1914 (Routledge Revivals). Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1480828/the-national-union-of-womens-suffrage-societies-18971914-routledge-revivals-pdf 

Luscombe, E. (2023) History and Legacy of the Suffragette Fellowship: Calling all Women. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/4214330/history-and-legacy-of-the-suffragette-fellowship-calling-all-women-pdf 

Pankhurst, E. (2020) My Own Story. Open Road Media. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2432712/my-own-story-pdf 

Pankhurst, S. (2019) A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets, and Political Change. Pluto Press. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/962045/a-suffragette-in-america-reflections-on-prisoners-pickets-and-political-change-pdf 

Pankhurst, S. (2015) The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement. Dover Publications. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/109879/the-suffragette-the-history-of-the-womens-militant-suffrage-movement-pdf 

Rosen, A. (2013) Rise Up, Women!: The Militant Campaign of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Routledge. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1676400/rise-up-women-the-militant-campaign-of-the-womens-social-and-political-union-19031914-pdf 

Webb, S. (2014) The Suffragette Bombers: Britain’s Forgotten Terrorists. Pen and Sword. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2445570/the-suffragette-bombers-britains-forgotten-terrorists-pdf 

Winterson, J. (2018) Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere. Canongate Books. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/1457493/courage-calls-to-courage-everywhere-pdf

Who were the Suffragettes?

What is the Femme Fatale?

What is Postfeminism?

What is Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Performativity?

What is the French New Wave?

What is German Expressionism?

What is Italian Neorealism?

What is Soviet Montage?

What is Poetic Realism?

What is Lacan’s Mirror Stage?

What is Cyberfeminism?

The Male Gaze | Defining Laura Mulvey's Theory of Visual Pleasure

Laura Mulvey’s theory of the ‘male gaze’ has come to play a significant role in critical understandings of the function of cinema. The term ‘male gaze’ first appeared in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972) but was popularized by Mulvey in her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), reprinted in Feminism and Film Theory (2013). Since then, the term ‘male gaze’ has expanded beyond the realm of academia and made its way into popular discourse. In Afterimages: On Cinema, Women and Changing Times, Mulvey later acknowledges the dissemination of this idea, reflecting, 

Afterimages: On Cinema, Women and Changing Times

There is a sense in which “the male gaze” has become part of the widespread critique of mainstream film, for its day-to-day sexism, for the lack of women directors, for the lack of good female parts and so on. (2019)

As Mulvey suggests, the poignancy and usefulness of such an idea has made it a fundamental approach to film analysis and farther afield. ‘The male gaze’, observes James Bloom in Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture, ‘now reverberates throughout cultural conversations across disciplinary and national boundaries’ (2017). But what are these conversations and what is their social and cultural significance?

Based on feminist interpretations of psychoanalysis, Mulvey’s essay reflects on the act of ‘looking’ in cinema. Firstly, she describes the viewer experience as one of ‘scopophilia’, meaning a sort of sexual pleasure derived from looking at others. When we watch films, we are typically in a darkened room, facing the screen, with little interaction with the other audience members, almost as if we are alone, ‘looking in on a private world’ (2013). The action on the screen then becomes the satisfaction of our voyeuristic desires.  

Mulvey investigates the way that cinematic conventions augment this voyeurism and concludes that prevalent social structures are reflected and reinforced through the cinematic eye. She sets out to examine that way that ‘film reflects, reveals and even plays on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which controls images, erotic ways of looking and spectacle’ (2013). 

Mulvey works with the premise that film is a reflection of the dynamics at work in everyday life. She proposes that cinema has coded a particular way of seeing; a type of ‘looking’ that the audience unconsciously participates in (2013). Whether or not the viewers are aware of its effect, this gaze supports and reinforces patriarchal structures. It is these ‘erotic ways of looking’ that ‘the male gaze’ describes and it is the women on screen who receive such looks (2013). Of this, Mulvey writes:

Feminism and Film Theory

Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen. (Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, in Feminism and Film Theory, 2013)

When women are portrayed on screen, Mulvey suggests that there are two parts to the act of ‘looking’ that take place. Firstly, the characters within the narrative of the film look at the female character and secondly the cinematic audience look at the female character. We will see how, in Mulvey’s assessment, this positions the eye of the camera with which the audience identifies as that of the heterosexual male and the object of that gaze is female.  

The Male Gaze as a Reflection of Patriarchal Ideology

The male gaze has significance beyond the world of cinema. Its danger lies in its correspondence to the societal positioning and treatment of women. Because the male gaze is so intrinsic to cinema, film, as a result, ‘speaks the language of the patriarchy’ (2013). This patriarchal ideology constructs women in relation to men; women are a canvas on which male desires are projected, hence subverting female agency and power. Mulvey explains, 

Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of a woman still tied to her place as a bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning. (2013)

It is this power that the male gaze enacts. The male gaze, and the social structure it is a product of, unequivocally privileges men.

Part of this privilege is exemplified through the way that the male gaze shapes cinematic narrative. Mulvey observes that ‘when women appear on screen as erotic objects, they often halt the narrative progression, and we are encouraged to possess them with our gaze’ (2013).

The genre of Film Noir is an example that Mulvey provides in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. The introduction of the Femme Fatale, for example, is a cause for pause in the narrative action, prompting the audience to take their time looking at her, just as the male protagonist does. Mulvey describes this ‘freeze’ in the ‘flow of action’ as a moment of ‘erotic contemplation’ (2013). This can be observed in the first glimpse of Femme Fatale, Cora (Lana Turner), in The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946):

The slow pan up the body of a potential female love interest is a recognizable cinematic trope across a myriad of genres. It is one of the many ways that film establishes the male gaze. The camera acts as the eye of the male observer, who looks the female character up and down. In so doing, the camera partitions the female form: the woman is not a whole entity but a series of body parts. This satisfies what Mulvey calls ‘the pleasure in looking at another person as an object’ (2013). 

At first sight, women become an ‘object of the combined gaze of the spectator and all the male protagonists in the film’, exemplified by the above sequence (2013). Cora is reduced to a series of sexual parts by the male gaze. This sense of objectification is heightened in the way this moment interacts with the filmic narrative. The male protagonist usually drives the action of the film, and he is the one who pauses to enact this objectification of the female character. Hence, the arrival of the female character suspends the narrative progression. In this paradigm, the male is active, and the female is passive. Between the camera’s wandering eye and the narrative control, the audience’s sense of identification lies with the male characters, and the female characters become an objective other; she becomes what Mulvey describes as a mere ‘icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men’ (2013).

This is one of the many ways that Mulvey theorizes cinema to perpetuate patriarchal structures. By privileging the view of the male characters, by placing the narrative action in their hands while the female characters remain passive objects of this male point of view, women in cinema become reduced to their visual allure and what scopophilic satisfaction they offer. ‘By means of identification with him’, Mulvey says of the male character, ‘through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too’ (2013). In placing the locus of control – both the power of looking and the power of agency – on the male characters and inviting the audience to participate in the exercising of such control, film ideologically supports and maintains an oppressive status quo in the real world.

The Male Gaze in Classical Hollywood: An Example from Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954).

Mulvey provides several examples from classical Hollywood in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Of these, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), Marnie (1964), and Rear Window are referenced as pieces of cinema that not only hold the concealed filmic language of the male gaze, but in which ‘the look is central to the plot’ (2013). Mulvey supports Douchet’s interpretation of Rear Window as ‘a metaphor for the cinema’ (2013). In examining the opening sequence to Rear Window, the complexity of the gaze can be observed:

Although at first, Jeff (James Stewart) has his back turned to the window, the preceding sequence invites the audience to watch the events unfolding from his window, positioning the viewers to voyeuristically engage with Jeff’s surroundings even when he is not. This immediately establishes the gaze of the audience both as an independent voyeur and an occupant of Jeff’s space, creating a sense of identification with the male protagonist. Once Jeff is on the phone, he gazes out the window, returning to the same voyeuristic vantage point at the beginning of the scene. In both the gaze of the audience and Jeff’s, the woman across the way, scantily-clad in the privacy of her home, dances and stretches as she moves around her room. The provocation of these actions only comes from her cinematic treatment; the fact that she is unknowingly being watched. The gaze is what sexualizes her. This exemplifies the bifold act of looking that Mulvey identifies, where both the male character and the audience participate equally. Mulvey observes,

Hitchcock’s skilful use of identification processes and liberal use of subjective camera from the point of view of the male protagonist draw the spectators deeply into his position, making them share his uneasy gaze. The audience is absorbed into a voyeuristic situation within the screen scene and diegesis which parodies his own in the cinema. (2013)

Mulvey suggests that Hitchcock draws attention to the voyeurism enacted in watching a film, unfolding the gaze from the male protagonist to the audience. Jeff looks into the private lives of his neighbours. Meanwhile, the audience looks into the private life of Jeff and, through Jeff, the lives of his neighbours. Mulvey suggests that Hitchcock is exploring the psychology of a non-reciprocal look, exemplifying the way in which women are the ultimate object of such voyeurism.

The Male Gaze & the Objectification of Women in Popular Culture

The particular way of looking which the male gaze describes can be seen across a multitude of cultural mediums. Despite being first identified by Mulvey in classical Hollywood cinema, the theory of the male gaze can be extended to apply to a number of different modes of pop culture today.

In Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture, Bloom emphasizes the way that ‘male gazing permeated the most durable hit songs of the twentieth century’, citing songs like ‘Standing On The Corner’ (The Four Lads, 1956), and ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’ (Frankie Valli, 1967).  Despite not being a foremost visual medium, these sorts of lyrics describe the scopophilia of men as a universal experience. The same lyrical conventions apply to much of contemporary music. Furthermore, the visuals that accompany popular music today often display the images of a fragmented female form, and the hyper sexualization of women associated with the objectifying effect of the male gaze. This can be observed to be the case even in the work of female artists, who, either of their own accord or in accordance to a director, appeal to the male gaze in their music videos, exemplifying the way that the male gaze configures women’s own self-representation.  

In Interpreting Music Video, Brad Osborn uses Miley Cyrus’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ music video as an example of this, noting,

Interpreting Music Video

The camera’s unrelenting focus on her buttocks and breasts. Hypersexualization distracts a viewer’s attention from women’s musical contributions, including singing, instrumental performance, and composition. Instead, it presents the artist’s body as a passive object to be gazed at. (2021)

This exemplifies the power of the male gaze to subvert female subjectivity and the female perspective.

Despite a general awareness of the male gaze in filmic critical discourse, in many ways Hollywood continues to employ the cinematic language that perpetuates it. The various manifestations of the James Bond films are an example of a franchise that has a long-running and deeply ingrained relationship with male gazing. The very narrative structure presupposes what Claire Hines describes as ‘the representation of women in the Bond films as erotic objects, and a source of visual pleasure for the male gaze’ (Hines, 2018). The Bond character is typically an exaggeration of the masculine power in the act of looking. With the introduction of every new ‘Bond girl’, comes the scopophilic look.  

That every ‘Bond girl’ is introduced first visually – through ‘the look’ – indicates a certain possession in the act of looking. Typically unaware that she is being looked at, the filmic narrative pauses as Bond observes her; her body, her hair, and the revealing or figure-hugging and highly elegant way she presents herself is at the forefront of her representation. Unbeknownst to her, the ‘Bond girl’ is, in the words of Mulvey, ‘isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualized’ (Mulvey, 13). This particular act of looking entails an element of control. When we hold something in our gaze, that thing becomes comprehensible to us. The pause for looking, especially in a non-reciprocal gaze, provides an opportunity for interpretation that negates the object of the gaze as a potential threat. The comfort and control that the gaze offers is satisfied in the introduction of the bond girl. For example, in Die Another Day, Bond (Pierce Brosnan) sees Jinx (Halle Berry) through binoculars, exaggerating the imbalance of the gaze: he sees a close-up, detailed, and exposed rendering of her, and she does not see him.

This is an example of what Mulvey calls the look of ‘the spectator fascinated with the image of his like set in an illusion of natural space, and through him gaining control and possession of the women within the diegesis’ (2013).

In the Die Another Day sequence, the natural stylistic conventions conceal the cinematic medium, allowing the audience to possess Jinx in the gaze just as Bond does, eliminating her as a threat and removing her agency.  

Recent James Bond films, namely No Time to Die (Joki Fukunaga, 2021), have sought to address the sexual imbalance of the franchise. Here, the ‘Bond girl’ becomes a more complex character with more narrative importance, a backstory and personal agency. While these changes partly shift the historic patriarchy of the films in an effort to empower the female characters, the filmic language of the male gaze is so ingrained in the conventions of the genre and narrative that the visual representation of the bond girl arguably cannot help but be objectifying. Despite the presence of female characters that subvert the expectations associated with James Bond films, the character Paloma (Ana De Armas) is presented with the same possessive, non-reciprocal look identified in the previous films, despite her bubbly and assertive personality.

This indicates how essentially unified the male gaze is with certain pieces of popular culture and the challenges posed in attempts at its disintegration.

Generally speaking, the importance of representation is being more thoroughly considered in contemporary cultural works than ever before. The subtlety and intrinsic nature of the male gaze still poses a problem to the cinematic treatment of women, however. Attempts to reappropriate the gaze from a male perspective to a female one have resulted in women-centric narratives and the occasional over-sexualization of men, but is that enough to constitute a cinematic female gaze?

Ocean’s 8 (Ross, 2018) is an example of the way that a classically male dominated genre and style can be reconfigured towards female empowerment. Almost all of the active characters in this film are women, powerful and diverse in their narrative representation. This doesn’t automatically mean the film is subversive to the male gaze, however. The language of cinema is so permeated by this patriarchal way of looking that the same cinematic conventions that initiate the objectification of female characters can still be observed. In the following clip, the characters move through a well-rehearsed heist. The way their bodies are exhibited – isolated and emphasized – might still appear to suggest that the eye of the camera, and thus the act of looking, belongs to that of the heterosexual male.

It is Mulvey’s belief in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ that ‘there is no way in which we can produce an alternative out of the blue, but we can begin to make a break by examining patriarchy with the tools it provides’ (2013). She here suggests that the male gaze is embedded in the cinematic language that has developed over time and hence, it cannot simply be re-constructed without serious reappraisal of the thought structures that originally informed it.

Mulvey has since used the term ‘female gaze’, though she still seems skeptical that it has significant representation and theoretic footing in contemporary cinematic discourse.

In Afterimages: On Cinema, Women and Changing Times, she addresses the wide usage of ‘the male gaze’, writing,

This is, to my mind, a long overdue development and I am extremely gratified that the phrase, alongside “the female gaze”, has now moved into current feminist debate and with relevance… After all, spectacle has proliferated massively since 1975, and its politics are more urgent than ever. (2019)

Although it is clear that film still has a ways to go in addressing the historical sexual imbalance of the gaze, it offers a unique opportunity. Because cinema can be examined as a ‘tool’ of a patriarchal society, it allows us to systematically address, and ultimately dismantle, the ways in which this societal structure functions.

The Female Gaze: Essays on Gender, Society and Media by Shoma A. Chatterji.

Feminist Film Theorists by Shohini Chaudhuri.

Feminism at the Movies by Hilary Radner and Rebecca Stringer.

Revisiting the Gaze by Morna Laing and Jacki Willson.

Bloom, J. Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture. Springer International Publishing, 2017.

Hines, C. The Playboy and James Bond. 1st ed. Manchester University Press, 2018.

Mulvey, L. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Penly, C. (ed.) Feminism and Film Theory. Taylor and Francis, 2013. 

Mulvey, L. Afterimages. Reaktion Books, 2019.

Osborn, B. Interpreting Music Video. Taylor and Francis, 2021.

What is Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory?

What is Marxism?

What is Ecofeminism?

What is Socialism?

What is Communism?

What is Capitalism?

What is Structural Inequality?

What is Psychoanalytic Feminism?

What is Social Reproduction?

What is Marxist Feminism? | Definition, Meaning & Examples

Marxist feminism is a branch of feminism which, by incorporating the work of Karl Marx, examines how women are exploited through capitalism. As Heidi I. Hartmann explains,

Radical Political Economy

Women’s exclusion from the wage labor force has been caused primarily by capitalism, because capitalism both creates wage work outside the home and requires women to work in the home in order to reproduce wage workers for the capitalist system. Women reproduce the labor force, provide psychological nurturance for workers, and provide an island of intimacy in a sea of alienation. (“The Unhappy Marriage of Feminism and Marxism” in Radical Political Economy, 2015)

Marxist feminists, therefore, believe that women’s liberation can be achieved through the removal of capitalist systems which contribute to women’s unpaid domestic labor and keep them in a state of financial dependence on men. In addition, many Marxist feminists believe that the dismantling of the nuclear family, or at least an overturning of expected gender roles, is crucial for fighting both gender-based and capitalist exploitation. Pat Parker, speaking on behalf of The Black Women’s Revolutionary Council in 1980, called the nuclear family “the basic unit of capitalism” and advocated for its abolition:

Abolish the Family

As long as women are bound by the nuclear family structure we cannot effectively move toward revolution. And if women don’t move, it will not happen. (Pat Barker, cited by Sophie Lewis in Abolish the Family, 2022)

The family unit is seen as an ideological tool of gender oppression for Marxist feminists, designed to support capitalism in the following ways: 

Women are responsible for reproducing and socializing the next generation of laborers, known as social reproduction theory.

Women undertake unpaid domestic labor so that men can serve their economic purpose. 

Women can be used as a cheap labor reserve, particularly during times of crisis.

The following sections will explore each of these areas of Marxist feminism.

Social reproduction theory, a core framework for Marxist feminists, comes from Marx’s discussion of social reproduction, or the self-perpetuation of a social structure (capitalism) over time (Das Kapital, 1867). It stands to reason that if capitalism is to continue indefinitely, it will need a constant source of labor power. Marxist feminists, like Lise Vogel, have expanded upon this idea and examined how the expectation of women as child bearers and mothers is essential for capitalism to be sustained. 

In her 1983 work, Marxism and the Oppression of Women, Vogel focuses on domestic servitude. As the passing down of property (the obvious perpetuation of capitalism) was primarily only a concern for wealthy households, why were working-class women’s bodies also regulated? Why were these gender norms also perpetuated in classes where there was no property to inherit? Holly Lewis explains Vogel’s answer:

The Politics of Everybody

Vogel argues that working-class women’s oppression stems from the fact that the reproduction of a laborer’s daily existence is the costs involved in the production of that laborer; and the cost of keeping a worker alive for work is the basis for workers’ wages. If a category of people — women — innately desire to service the workforce, including past, present, and future workers, without compensation in wages from those who possess the social wealth, then this cheapens the workforce as a whole and increases relative surplus value. (2016)

In other words, the capitalist pays the laborer to keep them alive and working another day; if women serve the workforce at home through domestic and emotional labor, keeping the laborer in working condition and producing more laborers through childbirth, the capitalist reaps these benefits while only paying one worker.

In “Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives” (1989), Johanna Brenner and Barbara Laslett expand upon what social reproduction entails, writing that,

Social Reproduction Theory

Among other things, social reproduction includes how food, clothing, and shelter are made available for immediate consumption, how the maintenance and socialization of children is accomplished, how care of the elderly and infirm is provided, and how sexuality is socially constructed. (Johanna Brenner and Barbara Laslett, cited by Tithi Bhattacharya in Social Reproduction Theory, 2017)

This is a broad definition of social reproduction, but one which is useful for demonstrating the range of responsibilities charged to women under capitalism. 

The home, therefore, acts as a place where the needs of the worker are accommodated, often at the expense of women. Fran Ansley writes that, 

Women and the Public Interest

When wives play their traditional role as takers of shit, they often absorb their husbands’ legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression. With every worker provided with a sponge to soak up his possibly revolutionary ire, the bosses rest more secure. (Fran Ansley, cited by Jessie Bernard in Women and the Public Interest, [1971], 2017)

Capitalism, for Marxist feminists, is responsible, at least in part, for domestic abuse. The emotional function of social reproduction helps to prevent the male worker from rebelling against his employer. 

Unpaid domestic labor and wages for housework

While providing for the emotional needs of their husbands and children, women under capitalism are tasked with unpaid domestic labor. Silvia Federici argues that this gender division has been sustained partly through capitalism’s manipulation of women. She writes, 

Revolution at Point Zero

It is important to recognize that when we speak of housework we are not speaking of a job like other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation and the subtlest violence that capitalism has ever perpetrated against any section of the working class. (2020)

Federici goes on to argue that the exploitation of unpaid domestic labor is different to that of the exploitation and manipulation that happens to all workers under capitalism. While, under capitalism, the worker will be provided with a wage which is not reflective of the enormous profits the capitalist reaps, the wage itself still identifies the person as a worker, a worker with the capacity to negotiate and discuss the wage. As women are not provided a wage at all for the cooking and cleaning which occurs in the household, attempts at bargaining or resisting become all the more challenging. As Louise Toupin writes, 

Wages for Housework

housework is not situated outside of economic production. It is simply non-salaried and paid through the husband’s salary. This means that the boss benefits from the labour power of two people for the price of one. (2018)

A key campaigner for women’s rights, Eleanor Rathbone, highlighted this inequality in her work The Disinherited Family (1924). Rathbone argued that the entire nation was dependent upon the work of women in the home and that the capitalist system caused women’s financial dependence on men. As Toupin elaborates, 

This wage system of the breadwinner, the man as provider, was, [Rathbone] felt, the cornerstone of female dependency in the family and in society. It was the central aspect of women’s dependency, as nothing in the law expressly guaranteed that men had to provide food and board for their family. (2018)

Rathbone believed that women should be able to choose whether they worked or remained in the home, but regardless they should be paid. Rathbone’s  proposed system sought to enable married women and mothers to become financially independent. 

The International Wages for Housework Campaign, launched in Italy in 1972, was the first recognized effort to compensate women for their domestic/reproductive labor. This campaign, launched by the International Feminist Collective, produced academic and public resources to lobby for this change, citing the inequality present in the traditional, nuclear family. The campaign gained international recognition, leading to the establishment of a Wages for Housework group in New York. 

The Wages for Housework campaign not only sought compensation for labor, but advocated for improved reproductive and sexual healthcare more broadly. A wage, campaigners argued, would provide women with power; this power, in turn, could be used to obtain the following: 

free medical assistance, similar to sickness pay for workers 

a guarantee that all children could be raised comfortably 

For capitalism to justify denying women pay for household chores, it needed to position housework as something which women were naturally inclined to do. Federici explains how housework is differentiated from other types of work, mainly performed by men. She writes,

Housework was transformed into a natural [female] attribute, rather than being recognized as work, because it was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable, and even fulfilling activity to make us accept working without a wage. (Federici, [1974-2016], 2020)

She argues that these unpaid obligations encompass meeting all the needs and wants of the male worker. Federici writes, 

In the same way as God created Eve to give pleasure to Adam, so did capital create the housewife to service the male worker physically, emotionally, and sexually, to raise his children, mend his socks, and patch up his ego when it is crushed by the work and the social relations (which are relations of loneliness) that capital has reserved for him. ([1974–2016], 2020)

By depicting sexual intercourse as part of a marriage clause, Federici draws attention to the unequal power dynamics within a heterosexual marriage, caused primarily by women’s economic dependence and lack of power. This is emphasized by her poem at the start of her essay “Wages Against Housework”: 

They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work. 

They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism. 

Homosexuality and heterosexuality are both working conditions… but homosexuality is workers’ control of production, not the end of work. 

More smiles? More money. Nothing will be so powerful in destroying the healing virtues of a smile. 

Neuroses, suicides, desexualisation: occupational diseases of the housewife. 

Federici challenges the romantic, domestic ideal of the nuclear family, positioning heteronormative relationships as contractual and central to women’s oppression. 

Marx argues that capitalism would eventually require a “reserve army of labour” (Das Kapital, 1867). Marx used this term to describe how the unemployed or underemployed in the population can be used as a stand-in workforce willing to work in low-paying and temporary jobs. Marxist feminists believe that this emergency workforce consists of women who could be removed from the home (at least temporarily) to take on low-paid work. As Holly Lewis explains, 

This workforce can be used as an expendable and flexible labor force for when there is a boost in production and a dearth of workers. It is also used as a disciplinary measure against currently employed workers, a reminder that they can be replaced if they trouble their employers too much. (2016)

We can see this has been the case during both World Wars: women were expected to (and did) fulfil the jobs of men in their absence. 

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