(FEM8) Watching contemporary female sexualities: understanding transformations/variations and their impacts on society in the MeToo era

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In 2017, MeToo was sparked in Hollywood (Lamy, 2022). Setting in motion a wave of denunciations by survivors of sexual assaults, this emblem of the renewal of feminist discourse (Diallo, 2022) paved the way for the indictment of rape culture. The latter can be described as a set of beliefs that trivialize, justify, and promote misogynistic sexual violence (Haas, 2022; Zaccour 2019).

Rekindled by the feminist socio-political and cultural mobilization that followed, multiple claims emerged in various fields (#MeTooStandUp; #MeTooPolitics; etc.). Among them are the militant feminist struggles targeting media representations of women, their sexualities and their intimacies (erotic, amorous, conjugal (Piazzesi, 2020; Renard, 2018)). Their strong resonance has translated into substantial social transformations, marking a rupture, not only in discourses, but also in social relations with regard to the issue of women’s portrayal in cultural production (Gardey, 2011). Major criticisms address persistent sexist practices which propagate pejorative media images of women's bodies (hypersexualisation; slutshaming, etc.) (Cochrane, 2013). Simultaneously, there is collective enthusiasm regarding the renewal of representations of female sexuality and the inclusive, empowered, de-dramatised and intersectional plurality of the new aesthetics of desire, pleasure and love (Brey, 2018; Padjemi, 2021). Consequently, the reciprocal impact of feminist movements on cultural productions (serial, cinematographic, digital) is now apparent. If they constantly and porously nourish each other (Brey, 2018), their articulations oscillate on our screens between warnings/denunciations of power mechanisms and the elaboration of innovative, progressive, and resistant discourses of knowledge (Brey, 2018; Morin, 2022).

Session Organizer: Lamia Djemoui, Université du Québec à Montréal