Gender and Cinema: Speaking through Images of Women

This article examines the relationship between gender and cinema, taking inspiration from Denise Riley’s provocative book Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of “Women” in History (1988), in which Riley argues that the term ‘woman’ is a historical category that is ‘discursively constructed’. This article argues that categories of gender, and by extension our understanding of sexuality, have shifted or broadened in meanings over the centuries, and thus questions the implications of Riley’s claim for cinema? It questions how images of women, especially, speak to the spectator, whether the spectator is positioned as masculine/ feminine or male/ female, and whether femininity presented in a particular way through the cinematic lenses.