فصلنامه زن در فرهنگ و هنر (پژوهش زنان)
سال سیزدهم شماره 1 (بهار 1400)

The way of representation of employed women in Iranian media, is one of the social and cultural factors affecting the traditional gender stereotypes about women and their employment. This, can be effective in changing the cultural beliefs about women's employment. The main purpose of this Research is to study the representation of employed women, in the cinema of Iran after the revolution (in 1979) and presenting a comparison in different political periods of post-revolution, respectively. To achieve this goal, prominent films produced in each course (focused on women's employment), had been selected and analyzed. The theoretical section of this study, utilizes the representation theory of Stuart Hall. The research methodology is based on the semiotics of John Fiske. The results of the study represented that the modern employed women, unlike traditional female stereotypes, have the power and are more independent from their husbands. In most films that focus on employed women, the director have tried to criticize the patriarchal ideology, alongside defending the ideology of egalitarianism and meritocracy in employment. Although social conditions of each political period, had been effective in the way of representation of employed women and the ideology of the film. Nevertheless, despite trying to avoid patriarchal ideology, in these works, the naturalization of housework for women can be seen as well.

Women have been focused in different discourses after 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. The media have played a pivotal role in discourse construction on the women. Written media including artistic-literary magazines can construct social realities which are influencing on the society. This paper by asking on the way of constructing women by these magazines at reform era (1997-2005) is to find how these magazines have represented the women and which discourse field they refer to. Thus Stuart Hall theory on the media representation by focusing on construction approach applied to study on selected 27 artistic-literary or artistic magazines were published at reform era. The selected artistic magazines have been analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings show that studied magazines which have represented the women are categorized in 3 categories; 1. The magazines which have ignored the women; they did not play a discursive constructing role on the women at the reform era 2. The magazines which have low representation of women; they put the women in side lines 3. The magazines which have constructed the women in a certain discourse. The constructed depiction of women in the 3rd category of studied artistic magazines have appealed to reform and popular-commercial discourses.

Influencers, through their posts on social media, are the online thoughts leader that influences the behavior and decision-making process of the masses. Many Instagram influencers are now women. The image that they present as women is an influential image of femininity. This research seeks to analyze the femininity displayed on Instagram. For this purpose, the pages of four Iranian women influencers were selected as a sample and the posts of these pages were analyzed using the social semiotics of the image of Cress and Van Livon. The research results show that four different types of representation of femininity can be seen in these pages: "modern bodily femininity", "traditional femininity with a new form", "anti dominant femininity " and "femininity in public space". These types have commonalities as well as obvious differences with each other. They pay attention to the two categories of "female body" and "traditional female roles" and their representations form around these two categories. The female body and female roles are influenced by two processes of commercialization and socialization, one influenced by the capitalist discourse and the other by the feminist discourse. Also, in all the types of femininity displayed, religious discourse is either completely rejected or ignored.

Women artists from Muslim societies and Middle East are confronted with visual clichés of "being a woman", "being a Muslim" and "being a Middle Easterner". Art exhibitions and events welcome those art works that reproduce the stereotypes of re-Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism. After the September 11 attacks, the number of art exhibitions focusing on Middle Eastern women increased. This was an opportunity for women artists to bring their issues into the spotlight of the public attention and world's media; on the other hand, women were dealt with some hidden expectations and stereotypes which held by Western art events, that this events tending to direct artistic experiences towards the Western stereotypes. In this article, by methodological approach of "event studies", we review some of the most important art events for the Middle East; also we focus on two exhibitions "Breaking the Veils" (2002, Greece), and "She who tells a story" (2013, USA) which were held with the aim of rethinking stereotypes. The results showed that the works of women artists from Middle East can be categorized into a bipolar spectrum: from the image of women suffering from war, the repressed beauty of the Orient lands, the pitiful oppression of women, to the image of resilient and powerful women. At both ends of this spectrum, from passive victimized women to rioters and anti-tradition activists, there are diverse works that cover a wide range of themes. Women artists are looking for a way to both criticize the limitations of patriarchal culture and overcome the reductionistic and exotic expectations from women's art. This difficult path must be taken against the expectations held by the art market and political expectations from art exhibitions.

Today migration is not only described as geographical phenomenon but also as a cultural one which encompasses themes like identity, language, alienation, nostalgia and roving. These experiences can effect on the process of creating an artwork. The art of immigrants due to displaying important themes and issues is well known worldwide. In this context migrant artists of Islamic countries could demonstrate their artwork in many aspects. One aspect of culture that evolves during migration is language, followed by script. The script is an important part of artworks created by Islamic countries artist’s. In fact, its relevance to the language has made various functions. Among immigrant artists, women artists have also chosen calligraphy as an important element of their work. The main question of this article is that what is the reason of using script by women migrant artists. By surveying artworks, it is clear that women artists of Islamic countries use the scripts to display their identity and their otherness. Mikhail Bakhtin is one the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. One of his theories encompasses Otherness. He believes human being has always needed another human, in other words human looks to herself/himself in the eyes of the other. This research which has been prepared by descriptive analytical method and by using library sources considers Bakhtin point of view to analyze artworks. Between many works by migrant women artists from Islamic countries: Iran, Iraq, morocco, Egypt, Palestine and Algeria, then 3 artworks by Moroccan, Iranian and Iraqi artists have been selected to be surveyed specifically. Selected artists are Lala Esayyadi, Shirin Neshat, Havy Kahraman. These artists create their artworks in the position of otherness and they want to highlight their otherness also their identity.

This study tries to investigate the features of motherhood, according to the role presented by mothers on Instagram. It also studies the lifestyle and other aspects of the lives of supermoms and their followers. Reaching these objectives, we have used Netnography and direct observation. The results from thematic analysis involves six main theme as below: “the presentation of perfect motherhood”, “the aestheticization of motherhood”, “Reproduction of traditional patterns of motherhood”, “the presentation of ideal me”, “stylizing of everyday life” and “the presentation of happy family with desired relationship”. Supermoms try to reshape the image of motherhood as a desirable role through aestheticization of it. The ideal and deceptive image of motherhood presented by Supermoms on Instagram, although it may be unattainable for other mothers, has created a new image of motherhood. As well as they provide a new image of motherhood, yet they don’t necessarily challenge the traditional motherhood. In fact, this image is a continuance of the traditional motherhood pattern but in a new appearance. Although motherhood still means sacrifice and love, and is not semantically different from decades ago, Instagram mothers acted differently in maternal and personal identities, as well as in parenting.

In contemporary studies, different perspectives can be found in discussing the role of women in religious communities and the impact of religion on how women are socially represented. Some scholars have considered religion as a tool to suppress women and for this reason, they tried to reduce its value in the eyes of faithful women. While others, duo to the significant population of faithful women, have considered religion as a kind of factor in reviving the status of women. In the feminist approach, by using modern study methods, the sacred religious texts, especially Christian texts, are read, understood and analyzed in order to explore the impact of religion on the position of women in the light of a new perspective. In this study, an attempt has been made to first discuss the apostolic role that women have played with Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Then we are going to examine the report of the four Gospels about Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene, who accompanied Jesus on his travels and find a model based on a feminist approach for the presence of faithful women. both women played a dynamic role in various social activities and in various religious fields, both practical and theoretical. Hence, they have attracted the attention of feminist scholars. Also, in this research, an attempt is made to study the components of female faith in a descriptive-analytical method.