The Representation of Girlhood, Womanhood and Feminism

Abstract

Nowadays, media has become one of the main sources of education, complementing the educational process of schools and families. In this way, television series are creators of narratives that alter the perception of one's own identity and of society. In this article, we analyse the representation of gender in three selected episodes from one of the most popular series on Netflix that promotes a feminist narrative, Sex Education. As a methodological approach to describe and analyse the representations of womanhood and feminism, we use critical discourse analysis (CDA) from a gender perspective. We have found that the female protagonists are represented as being subject to adversity as a result of misogyny that they, at times, also perform alongside their male counterparts. Nonetheless, they act in solidarity with each other when this adversity arises given their shared experiences of misogyny which helps them to come to some sort of resolution that brings them closer together, and in some cases, they have access to resources to give them moments of catharsis or closure. We consider that media literacy is the ideal strategy to develop the capacity for critical analysis of audio-visual content and to introduce the analysis of gender representations in the media.