In what ways did Habermas’ argument of the bourgeois public sphere and subsequent

feminist criticisms conceptualize the formation of feminism in modern media?

Introduction

Jurgen Habermas constructed a highly accepted concept of the emergence of the freedom of

speech and the free press as a succession to the age of enlightenment in the eighteenth

century. His concept was grounded on the initial separation of the public opinion from the

state, allowing general public discussion free from state regulation.

This study aims to establish the way in which the modern perception of feminism and

equality within the public realm and the free press were contextualized through the arguments

of Jurgen Habermas and his feminist critics. The essay looks at the defining ethoses of

feminists as modern society recognises them, as well as an introduction to Habermas’ theory

of the public sphere. Following this will be included the feminist criticisms of Habermas’

concept of the bourgeois public sphere, and arguments supporting the emergence of a secular

feminist sphere. The final chapter will determine women’s place in the modern public sphere

as a result of or despite the feminist movement. The conclusion of the essay will aim to draw

on both Habermas’ argument of the public sphere either in conjunction with, or opposing the

ideals of the feminist ideologies.

An introduction to feminism

Feminism, according to the oxford dictionary, is the advocacy of women’s rights on the

ground of the equality of the sexes. Traces of feminism date back to the early 18th century

(Goldstein, 1982:92) during the age of enlightenment and the bourgeois era. However it

became a greater established political movement in the early 20th century with the suffragette

movement, which was predominantly orientated around the suffrage of the middle class white

woman.

During World War 2 the feminist movement was assisted by the re-emergence of a liberal

public sphere, in which women were re-introduced into places of congregation that were

previously male dominated. However, the end of the war saw women once again excluded

from the bourgeois public sphere, and mass communication subjected women back to the

‘private’ sector of domestic affairs. (Ryan, 1992:260). The third wave of feminism was noted

in the 60’s and 70’s to reform the social frameworks that objectified women within the

workplace, the media and within other aspects of the public sphere.

Since the origins of feminism there have been three major conflicting interpretations of

feminist ideologies. These predominant strands of feminism consist of:

Liberal Feminism – This is the feminist ideology that humans are all born equal, regardless of

gender or class. Liberal feminists work towards diminishing barriers within the state and the

public sphere, through legislation and regulation. They also campaign Tuchman et al’s (1978)

view to stop the objectification and sexist representations within media and popular culture.

Radical Feminism – Radical feminists argue for female separatism and the segregation of

men and women within our society. They also argue that all social constructs are the result of

male dominance of the public sphere and are therefore men enforce sexist patriarchal

constraints within society.

Post-modern feminism – It has been argued that most-modern feminism is the most

significant strand of feminism to emerge. The argument is founded on the idea that modern

society now understood women’s ability to be successful and independent whilst still looking

after a family and a home. Post-modern feminism was a media-based movement that came

about mostly through music and the female acceptance into the public sphere of the twentieth

century.

Most feminist arguments would agree with Tuchman et al’s (1978) statement that women are

depicted within our media according to social stereotypes and constructs that are mainly

patriarchal and therefore misguided.

In the following chapter of this essay, Habermas’ argument of the public sphere will be

analysed to contextualize the emergence of the feminist public sphere through feminist

arguments of historical female exclusion in the Bourgeois public sphere of the 18th and 19th

centuries.

The public Sphere

The public sphere as it is known today was a revolutionary time in press freedom. It was a

time of bourgeois society in which the public were encouraged to think outside of and to

question the tutelage of the church and the state as a succession to the enlightenment age of

the 17th and 18th centuries. In The public sphere: An encyclopedia article (1964), Jurgen

Habermas describes the public sphere as the gathering and communication between privates

to form a public body, separate to the state, and to discuss matters of public interest. ‘Citizens

behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion- that is, with the

guarantee of freedom and assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish

their opinions- about matters of general interest.’ (Habermas, 1964:49). The public sphere

allowed a complete emancipation of the state, and therefore freedom of speech, resulting in a

public sphere that was completely liberal and able to express issues concerning the state on

behalf of the public. Peter Hohenddahl (1973) notes: ‘One of the primary goals of this

bourgeois public sphere was to make political and administrative decisions transparent.’

(Hohenddahl, 1973:46). These liberal and discursive public discussions meant that the public

were able to influence a democratic state through public participation.

The liberal public sphere in bourgeois society was unprejudiced and developed with the

purpose of connecting the state to the requirements of the public society. The private sector,

such as domestic issues and the economic market were to be kept separate from the public

sphere, thus allowing those included to discuss as peers, free from the prejudice of societal

status and to generate opinions that represented the public as one. In Habermas and the

Public Sphere Craig Calhoun (1992) notes: ‘In this public sphere, practical reason was

institutionalized through norms of reasoned discourse in which arguments, not statuses or

traditions, were to be decisive.’ (Calhoun, 1992:2). These public discussions and political

debate that made up the public sphere occurred in many different formats, from printed

publications to group gatherings in open social spaces, public halls and houses, as well as

within governments. Douglas Kellner, in his study of the public sphere and democracy notes:

‘For the first time in history, individuals and groups could shape public opinion, giving direct

expression to their needs and interests while influencing political practice. The bourgeois

public sphere made it possible to form a realm of public opinion that opposed state power and

the powerful interests that were coming to shape bourgeois society.’

In Habermas following work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An

Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, he describes the decline of the liberal public

sphere as an outcome of the criticisms against Kant’s liberal theologies, and thus the decline

of the age of enlightenment. This shift in ideologies transformed the liberal public sphere into

a capitalist and consumerist sphere which he describes as an age of ‘welfare state capitalism

and mass democracy.’ (Kellner). The new public sphere was constructed as a platform of

self-interest and elitism and was media-dominated, prompted by industrialization and

capitalism. Kellner notes: ‘This historical transformation is grounded, as noted, in

Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis of the culture industry, in which giant corporations have

taken over the public sphere and transformed it from a sphere of rational debate into one of

manipulative consumption and passivity.’ Due to this transformation, the lines between state,

private and public opinion once again became blurred and instigated the demise of the liberal

public sphere and the rise of the bourgeois public sphere.

While Habermas’ bourgeois public sphere still takes public opinion into consideration, the

public no longer participate in political proceedings. Participants of the bourgeois public

sphere are required to be educated and are constituted by those in the free market and

representatives of organizations who negotiate between themselves and with government

officials. (McCarthy, 1991). The public transformed into a passive subject, its characteristics

now specified by the way in which the bourgeois sphere communicates with it, encompassing

methods such as publicity and public opinion polls. McCarthy (1991:12) notes: ‘The press

and broadcast media serve less as organs of public information and debate than as

technologies for managing consensus and promoting consumer culture.’

So far, this essay has looked at Habermas’ argument of the emergence of the public sphere in

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This argument is extensively respected as a model

that gives form to the social-political structure of the bourgeois era and defines the

development of freedom of speech and the free press. There have been criticisms over

Habermas’ following works in The structural transformation of the public sphere, in which

he argues the demise of the liberal public sphere and the rise of the elitist bourgeois public

sphere. Critics argue that Habermas fails to fully establish the existence of counter public

spheres, constructed by the subordinate public of the time. The next chapter will be looking at

the feminist criticisms of Habermas’ gendered bourgeois public sphere.

Criticisms and Feminism in the bourgeois public sphere

Although Habermas model of the public sphere has been widely influential and accepted, his

elaboration of the concept in The structural transformation of the public sphere has been

central to controversy. Habermas focuses his argument of the bourgeois public sphere

predominantly on the emergence of the bourgeois coffee shops of the eighteenth century. It is

in these meeting places where the elite would converge to discuss current affairs and trade,

and soon became to include discussions of politics and state administration. (Calhoun,

1992:12). These discussions were documented in journals that were communicated between

other circles and throughout the country. ‘In France, salons, public institutions located in

private homes, played a crucial role, bridging a literary public sphere dominated by

aristocrats with the emergent bourgeois political public sphere.’ (Calhoun, 1992:12).

Habermas notes that the public outside of the bourgeois were few, and is criticized for not

including analysis of the gendered characteristics of the bourgeois public sphere.

Some critics highlight the exclusion of subordinate groups in Habermas’ argument of the

bourgeois public sphere, and the lack of analysis in his argument of other co-existing public

spheres outside of the bourgeois, accentuating the boundaries of Habermas’ concept.

Habermas suggests that the transformation of the public sphere increased inclusivity by

defining the mass public opinion through the use of mediation, yet is criticized in his failure

to acknowledge the gendered character of the bourgeois public sphere. ‘The gendered

character of the early public sphere is also less clearly linked to the theme of transformation

by “massification” than is exclusion on class grounds; inclusion of small numbers of elite,

literate women would not have transformed the bourgeois public sphere into a mass.’

(Calhoun, 1992:3).

Where feminists saw Habermas’ original liberal public sphere as an open and welcoming

realm, free of class or gender prejudice, the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere caused

max exclusion of gender and class. Nancy Fraser argues that the exclusion of certain classes

and subordinate genders from the bourgeois public forged counter publics that expanded

public debate, meaning that different ideas would have to be argued out:

‘Still, insofar as these counterpublics emerge in response to exclusions within dominant

publics, they help expand discursive space. In principle, assumptions that were previously

exempt from contestation will now have to be publicly argued out. In general, the

proliferation of subaltern counterpublics means a widening of discursive contestation, and

that is a good thing in stratified societies.’ (Fraser, 1990:67)

Mary Ryan suggests that the brief re-instatement of the liberal and participatory public sphere

during the civil rights and anti-war movements in the late 60’s only highlighted the limitation

of participation of the bourgeois public sphere, through the work of the women’s rights

movement of the time. The criticisms of gender were reinforced as one of the most long

standing and cemented restrictions of public access since the emergence of the bourgeois

public sphere. Women were categorically excluded from the bourgeois public sphere and

their ideologies consigned to a separate category of the ‘private’. ‘Their sex was the special

target of consumer culture, yet they were poorly represented among those who wielded power

both in state and the capitalist sectors.’ (Ryan, 1992:260).

Fraser notes that the development of the counterpublic in response to gender exclusion meant

that women were constructing their own platforms of integrating their opinion into the

political public debate. In the case of nineteenth century, elite, bourgeois women, this meant

constructing organizations that were exclusively for women- made up of voluntary

philanthropist and moral reform associations. ‘In some respects, these associations aped the

all-male societies built by these women's fathers and grandfathers; yet in other respects the

women were innovating, since they creatively used the here to fore quintessentially "private"

idioms of domesticity and motherhood precisely as springboards for public activity.’(Fraser,

1990:67).

The new platforms of public access for feminists in the nineteenth century meant that women

were able to express and demand acknowledgement of issues that were drawn from the

‘private’ sector and put them on the radar of the public agenda. In doing so, feminists were

able to establish guidelines for their political activism, and determine where lay the

foundations of gender character and inequality along the ‘private-public axis’. (Ryan,

1992:260). The counetrpublic feminist sphere exemplifies a renewed politicization of issues

of culture, literature and art from a female viewpoint, something that was widely neglected in

the bourgeois public sphere. Although the feminist public sphere is gender-specific and

drawn on female specific experiences which had previously been misrepresented by a culture

of male dominance, they also reached outwardly through the use of mass media to catalyse a

revision and reformation of cultural and discursive male-defined frameworks.

‘The feminist public sphere, in other words, serves a dual function: Internally, it generates a

gender specific identity grounded in a consciousness of community and solidarity among

women; externally, it seeks to convince society as a whole of the validity of feminist claims,

challenging existing structures of authority through political activity and theoretical critique.’

(Felski, 1989:168)

One problem faced by the new feminist sphere was recognising the disparities between the

theological idea of a unified public sphere and the reality of the everyday class and cultural

restrictions, often found between the educated and uneducated. By recognizing women as an

oppressed public was enabling acknowledgement of sexism but in turn appending other

differences, mainly those of unequal status. Thus it transpired that the feminist sphere was

unable to transcend existing power structures, but rather the focus on gender equality could

have worked to ‘obscure other equally fundamental structural inequalities within late

capitalism.’ (Felski, 1989:168).

Feminists do not argue completely against Habermas’ ideologies in The structural

transformation of the public sphere, as it is a valid and yet conceptual resource.

(Fraser,1992:110). The overriding criticism is Habermas’ failure to analyse the exclusion of

women in the bourgeois public sphere. Regardless of the feminist criticisms of Habermas’

ideological argument of the bourgeois public sphere, and women’s exclusion from it,

feminist’s works concerning mass media and its audiences have routinely, up until the

modern day, been enormously influenced by it. (Press, 2000:33). In the following chapter this

essay will look at the modern discourses of women in the public sphere and how Habermas’

bourgeois public sphere and the feminist movements shaped it.

Modern women and the public sphere

In modern society it is still possible to draw examples of female exclusion from the public

sphere as interpreted by the oppressed female community. The women’s movement saw the

public sphere as a general public- as anything outside of the realm to the private to which

included the state, the official economy of paid employment and the arenas of public

discourse. (Fraser,1992:110). In modern society, women’s influences within the public and

political spheres are still heavily influenced by the private sector and domestic issues,

encompassing changes in family legislation such as abortion and legislation against domestic

abuse.

In modern societies we can see the resilience of the changes brought about by the feminist

movements of the 19th century in the access to the public sphere with the developments of

inclusive mass media communications. However, institutionalized and long standing

frameworks built by a history of male dominance still in some cases renders women’s issues

as secular to the ‘private’. Where women have managed to gain access into the public and

political sphere, historical exclusion from bourgeois public spheres meant that female

ideologies are acknowledged as less sophisticated and knowledgeable than their male

counterparts. ‘Where women’s participation is acknowledged, it is commonly held to be less

sophisticated, and in many cases less authentically political than the involvements of men.’

(Siltanen & Stanworth, 1984:11).

The elite and educated feminist spheres on the nineteenth century meant that women were

able to use the platform of mass communication to voice their opinion and gain access to the

public sphere. Following the women’s movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s came the

emergence of the gender specific women’s magazines, implying a continued yet voluntary

existence of secularisation of women to the private realm. As well as incorporating political

affairs, much like the radical magazines of the women’s movement of the 70’s, current

female specific publications have created debates surrounding the domestic ‘private’ affairs

of the female and its relevance to the political public sphere. Modern fundamental debates

argue whether modern day women’s magazines constitute as a contribution to the public

sphere. Although these magazines are predominantly in relation to issues of the domestic

‘private’, they also include examples of journalism which deals explicitly with political

affairs. As well as this, some arguments raise the question of the political relevance of

women’s magazines as purveyors of ideology concerning class, family structures and

women’s role in society and its contribution to the public sphere. (Ytre-Arne, 2011:247).

In a study of women’s liberation and the advertising industry following the American

suffrage period of the 1920’s Ramsey (2006) notes that advertising campaigns selling

automobiles through women’s magazines indicated promises of the women’s liberation and

transference into the public sphere, while simultaneously restricting this transference by

combining the access into the public sphere with a role as a passive consumer. This limited

public access and gender limitation can also be reflected upon in the mediated representations

of women through mass media communications and the type casting of traditional female

roles. The lack of women’s presence in media institutions was proved through the negative

responses of female audiences and their inability to relate to the representations of their own

gender.

‘”We’re not really like that.” It is a complaint that can be made by any group which feels

itself to have an identity that is misrepresented by the media and is most consistently made by

those who feel themselves to have little power within media institutions and little control over

what they do.’ (Geraghty, 2000:368)

However, much like the elite bourgeois women of the nineteenth century, the modern

feminists have the accessibility through free press to conduct their own self- representation

and validation of political knowledge. ‘Women’s assiduous efforts to win and practice the

right of public access is an example of the practical ways in which the public ideal has

maintained its resilience over time, that is, through progressive incorporation of once

marginalized groups into the public sphere.’ (Ryan, 1992:285).

This chapter has summarised the resilience of the women’s movement and its success in

transforming the previously bourgeois exclusion and secularization of females in the private

sphere, into the general public sphere, drawing on evidence of modern ideals of female

influence and political power through the medium of mass media communications. The next

chapter of the essay will aim to conclude by summarising and drawing on the key points of

Habermas’ public sphere and feminist attitudes towards his argument that conceptualizes the

formation of the feminist sphere from the early eighteenth century.

Conclusion

Drawing on Habermas’ original works of The Public Sphere: An encyclopaedia article it’s

evident that his argument of the liberal public sphere of the early bourgeois age was much

more inclusive of subordinate classes, encompassing discursive arenas for all members of

social hierarchy, where they could debate outside of state restrictions. This was an important

concept in defining the beginning of freedom of speech and the free press, which are critical

to the emergence of the feminist sphere following the subsequent gender exclusion of the

bourgeois public sphere.

One of the most critical points in the conceptualization of feminism was the controversy and

thus criticisms of Habermas’ secondary work The structural transformation of the public

sphere. This was the catalyst to an important debate from feminists which highlights

exclusion of women in the bourgeois public sphere, otherwise left unanalysed by Habermas

himself. The two prominent feminist academics to illuminate the issue in Habermas’ work

were Fraser and Ryan, among others, who acknowledge the emergence of the counterpublic

and alternative public spheres made up of those excluded from the bourgeois. It is from these

alternative pubic spheres that came the emergence of the feminist sphere. The scholars show

that the feminist concept ran parallel to that of Habermas’ bourgeois and documents the

stuggles of the feminist sphere to break free from the secularization of the ‘private’ realm and

into the public sphere.

The Civil War and the woman’s movement reinforced feminism during the nineteenth

century to a degree that led to the eventual inclusion of the female private into the public and

political spheres. Post-modernism and the female accessibility into the public sphere is still

relevant in modern society and within the realms of mass media communication.

By using a collaboration of Habermas’ socio-politically acclaimed concept of the public

sphere and the feminist criticisms, a contextualization of the emergence of feminism as we

know it in modern society is established.

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