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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1. Feminist Interpretive Framework
• 1.1 Feminist Theory
• 1.2 Feminist Interpretive Framework
• 2. Conceptualizing Gender, Structural, and Symbolic Violence
• 2.1 Patriarchal Gender System
• 2.2 Structural Violence
• 2.3 Symbolic Violence
• 2.4 Interrelation between Symbolic, Structural and Interpersonal Violence
• 3. The Media and Symbolic Violence against Women
• 3.1 Gendered Media
• 3.2 Gender Representation in Films
• 4. Methodology
• 4.1 Research Design
• 4.2 Method of Gathering the Data
• 4.3 Method of Analyzing the Data
• 5. Analysis and Results
• 5.1 Portrayal of Gender in Films: Case-Study of UK
• 5.2 Portrayal of Gender in Films: Case-Study of Russia
• 6. Comparison and Discussion
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Introduction

Violence against women has been researched through various social science paradigms and explained through numerous theoretical approaches. Until recently, the key concern of such studies was interpersonal violence, excluding the broader context of inequalities that most forms of violence against women originate from. Increasingly, the attention of scientists starts following larger structural systems that shape interpersonal violence (economic, legal, and political contexts) - the concept of structural violence introduced by Johan Galtung (Galtung, 1969). Rather than locating the problem of violence within individuals and using the dichotomized notions of `victims' and `perpetrators', structural violence focuses on “the “everydayness” of violence from the vantage point of complex political, social, historic, and economic processes” (Montesanti & Thurston, 2015, p. 3), expressed in unequal life choices individuals have. According to Farmer structural forms of violence are invisible manifestations of violence or any harm that are built into the fabric of society - political and economic organization of our social world--and creates and maintains inequalities within and between different social groups (Farmer, 2004).

Historically, violence against women is inherent to every society. In other words, gender violence is a global social phenomenon. It is claimed that heterosexual relationships are the origin for patriarchal violence, which includes not only physical assault, but symbolic and structural forms of violence as well (Fernбndez, Bedia & Cerda, 2016). The latter types of violence manifest themselves among others through unequal and stereotypical portrayals of females in the media, which objectify and devalue women. Global society still features solid structures of inequality and discrimination, and oftentimes media reinforces these structures overlooking the progress of women's social roles achieved through the years. Generally, despite the advancement of participation rates of women in the working world, media continues to ignore them.

Media is the most pervasive and powerful channel of communication that constructs and reinforces social meanings, including gender expectations and roles, imposed as standards of behavior and appearance among men and women. All forms of media communicate gender images, many of which perpetuate stereotypical and limiting perceptions. Julia T. Wood describes three themes of how media represent gender (Wood, 1994):

1. First, women are underrepresented which falsely implies that men are the cultural standard and women are unimportant or invisible.

2. Second, men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender.

3. Third, depictions of relationships between men and women emphasize traditional roles and normalize violence against women.

Among a wide variety of types of media, this research will focus on cinematography. Cinematography plays a formative role in society and has a large influence on shaping the views of the masses and establishing social norms. Moreover, movies are often described as the “mirror of society”, as they depict social relationships, changing values, shifts in individual and collective concerns (Sharma, 2012). Images presented in cinema influence people's consciousness and how they perceive the world around them. Therefore, gender portrayals in films may enforce inequalities and stereotypes, as well as raise awareness on social problems, foster development of solutions and bring social changes. The media, specifically cinematography, replicate structural violence through gender roles, stereotypes and absence of women on screen.

Therefore, cinematography provides an excellent case to study gendered structural inequalities as portrayed by the media. Research made on Russian movies from gender perspective and structural violence in Russia is extremely limited, therefore, this research is valuable for understanding Russian context of structural violence and specifics of gender portrayal in national cinema. Moreover, media studies are mostly concentrated within particular country, while this research will compare gender representations in films produced in Russia and the UK.

This thesis will answer the key research question of whether the media, and in particular films, contribute to the maintenance of structural gendered inequalities.

The comparison of Russia and the UK will allow to verify the following hypothesis: the films from the country with the higher level of gender inequality also display more typical gender traits. The level of gender inequality is assessed by the Global Gender Gap Index, which calculates the gap between genders in the spheres of health, education, economy and politics by countries (Ranking by Global Gender Gap Score, 2017).

The goal of the research is to compare structural violence against women in Russia and the UK and the ways in which films contribute to such form of violence.

This thesis is framed within the feminist interpretive framework, as feminist theorists developed an explanatory framework for research and interpretation of patriarchal violence, including structural forms (Sarikakis, Rush, Grubb-Swetnam, & Lane, 2009; Kaufman, 1990). Intersectional feminist frameworks are designed to focus the attention of researchers on specific features and traits of societies, economies, political systems and institutions, which contribute to the establishment and maintenance of entirely or partially excluded social groups and seek to develop practicable strategies to overcome inequalities (Morris & Bunjun, 2007). The research question will be answered by a comparative representation analysis of 10 films produced in Russia and the UK, tracking different forms of gender representations.

The first chapter of this thesis will discuss the existing labels in feminist theory and interpret the relevance of feminist interpretive framework to the analysis of patriarchal social order. The scope of feminist theory is characterized as interdisciplinary, it covers diverse range of theoretical frameworks and includes various methodological approaches, applicable for the research of gendered violence and patriarchy in general. The explanatory model of feminist interpretive framework is essential in these gendered issues and analyses symbolic and material structures of the society as the basis and fostering source of discriminative gender dynamics.

The second chapter will conceptualizes the notion of patriarchal gender system, as well as structural, and symbolic violence. Patriarchal gender system implement dominant and subordinate positioning of men and women and is legitimated by political, economic and legal institutions through maintenance of social acceptance of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity as normative standards of gender roles and expectations imposed on individuals based on their gender. The intersection of disadvantages from the point of gender with insecurities of other determinants of health, such as education, healthcare, social and natural environment can expose women to patterns of structural violence, manifesting through lack of essential resources and invalid functioning of social stratification that limits individual's life opportunities makes them more vulnerable to the violence. Symbolic violence is one of the manifestations of normalized violence, which includes cultural norms that replicates and assert discriminative stereotypes contributing to structural violence. Thus, gender as a symbolic institution defines affordability of social determinants of health and can lead to unequal distribution of basic resources, mostly resulting in interpersonal violence.

The third chapter will focus on media studies and potential of various communication channels to facilitate or defy socially accepted patterns of gender inequality. Distinct emphasis is made on such channel as film and its contribution to portrayal of gender and maintenance of patriarchal power dynamics.

Chapter four will include detailed description of methodology, including research design, methods of analyzing and gathering the data.

Chapter five will consist of the representation analysis of gender portrayals in films. Highest grossing films of 2013-2017 from the two countries (the UK and Russia) will be considered through three key themes of discriminative gender depiction in the media: invisibility of women, stereotypes, and prevalence of traditional roles. The analysis will allow to determine the extent of films contribution to structural inequalities and whether the actual level of gender equality in the country determines the volume of discriminative gender portrayals in films.

1. Feminist Interpretive Framework

1.1 Feminist Theory

Researches use feminist theory as a framework for studying patriarchal social structures and unequal power relations between genders (Yllo, 2005; Sarikakis, Rush, Grubb-Swetnam, & Lane, 2009; Kaufman, 1990). Rosemarie Tong emphasized that “feminist thought resists categorization into tidy schools of thought” (Tong, 2009) and described it as interdisciplinary and intersectional. However, labels can be useful for considering the diversity of feminist frameworks and approaches. In her book, Tong surveys feminist thinking and covers following series of labels: liberal, radical, Marxist/socialist, psychoanalytic, care-focused, multicultural/global/colonial, ecofeminist, and postmodern/third wave feminism.

Traditional liberal feminist thinking origins in the XIX-century suffrage movement and develops around the idea that gender inequality established in female subordination is initiated in restrictions posed by legal and political systems limiting women's participation and progress in the “public world” (Tong, 2009, p. 11). These systems create and maintain deceptive notion that female population is inherently disadvantaged and yield to male in intellectual and physical performance, consequently, enforcing discrimination against women. Liberal feminists fight this systematic unjustness and argue that both genders must have the same life chances and opportunities to participate in society.

Radical feminists add to legal and political institutions, as origins of gender discrimination, social and cultural structures as well. This label is commonly divided into two broad categories: “radical-libertarian feminists” and “radical-cultural feminists” (Tong, 2009). Radical-libertarian feminists claim that the solution to gender issues is to allow all individuals to be able to demonstrate a whole set of both gender qualities, to combine feminine and masculine sides - to be androgynous. In their turn, radical-cultural feminists oppose this view by a number of arguments, for example, stating that femininity itself is not an issue but rather devaluation of it by the patriarchal system and the overvaluation of masculine traits. Therefore, they see the solution to liberation of women in teaching society to value both genders equally. Another argument, conversely, sees femininity as an issue because it is constructed by men within patriarchal structures and is perceived as qualities deviated from masculinity. Thus, for the purpose of gender equality, femininity as it was shaped by men must be discarded and women have to reveal a completely new meaning to it instead (Willis, 1984).

Marxist and socialist feminists put patriarchal capitalism at the core of women's oppression. In their view, institution of private property gave rise to gender discrimination through developing a class system and putting wealth produced by the powerless many into the hands of the powerful few, originally all male, establishing a system of women's subordination in all spheres of human activity (Tong, 2009). They believe that the elimination of women's economic dependency on men will put both genders at equal positions. Therefore, in a socialist system, where means of production are distributed equally among everyone - including genders - is a solution to women's liberation.

Unlike labels mentioned above, which explain women's oppression by external factors of social, political and economic structures, psychoanalytic feminists thinking roots the source of oppression in women's psyche, the way they perceive themselves. Supporters of this approach rely on Freudian constructs. They argue that childhood experiences form gender identity and gender inequality in particular through influencing the way people perceive themselves (in masculine or feminine sense) and enforcing social superiority of masculine traits. Psychoanalytic feminists see the solution in moving toward a nonpatriarchal society where infantile and childhood experiences would feature differently shaped and appreciated gender qualities (Tong, 2009, p. 129).

Childhood experiences, character and exercise of care in particular, are also at the core of attention of care-focused feminists. This group focuses on associative connection between genders and traits assigned to them, as well as gender divide in general. They emphasize the disproportionate burden of care undertaken by women all over the world, while men are mostly absent from routine caring experiences. Care-focused feminists suggest strategies to decrease females' load of care in order to provide them the same time and life forces that are available to men for self-development (Ruddick, 1980).

Though multicultural, global, and postcolonial feminists are also concerned with origins and interpretations of gender discrimination worldwide as well as other feminist groups, their key distinction is the focus on various range of dissimilarities among women. This group is working on uniting women from different races, ages, religions, profession, and other cultural, economic, and political contexts to work together using their diversities as advantages. They are also striving to dismiss such concepts as “female essentialism” - the notion that all the women are completely the same deep down - and “female chauvinism” - the idea that women from privileged contexts are supposed to incur the responsibility to represent all female population (Matisons, 2003).

Ecofeminists unite women's liberation with environmental liberation, because oppression of both is a product of patriarchal society with inherent relationships of domination and subordination to men. According to this feminist thinking, “because women have been “naturalized” and nature has been “feminized,” it is difficult to know where the oppression of one ends and the other begins” (Cuomo, 1992). This group is calling to unite the efforts of women's and ecological movement in order to transform socioeconomic patriarchal basis of modern industrial society.

Postmodern and third-wave feminists are defying all other feminist thoughts aspiring to form a new-millennium feminism. One of their key concerns is the issue of meaning and identity, arguing that these concepts are flexible and genders are able to exercise both feminine and masculine traits. They refuse to present and accept a sole reasoning behind women's oppression or single strategy of liberation for all women. Moreover, this group reject the term “feminist” itself for it implies “deviation from a norm” and “signal a unity that blocks difference” (Tong, 2009, p. 270).

Feminist interpretive framework covers everyday reality as well as economic, social and historical contexts. This framework “understands that society is simultaneously an extension of individuals and that individuals are created by society” and “assumes that neither theory nor research are value-neutral” (Kaufman, 1990, p. 129). Moreover, feminist interpretive approach relies on radical sociology stating that that all theories are political and combining various methodological assumptions, while addressing social gender issues.

1.2 Feminist Interpretive Framework

2.2 Structural Violence

Previous focus of peace researchers exclusively on inter- and intra-state war as objects of study was broaden by introduction of the concept of structural violence (Galtung & Hцivik, 1971) and the volume of harm it causes. Moreover, structural inequalities are especially harmful for women, due to the intersection of gender with existing conditions of poor health, inadequate education, and class (Farmer & Tiefenthaler, 1997). Nevertheless, gendered structural violence remains a rather unstudied field due to the relative invisibility of structural violence, the lack of data on violence against women Bonomi, Anderson, Reid, Rivara, Carrell & Thompson, 2009), and the prevalence of the public/private divide (Wilding, 2010). A scope of research was as well directed at examining interrelations between symbolic violence and interpersonal violence against women (Montesanti & Thurston, 2015; Cross, 2013). Feminist theorists analyze patriarchal social structures together with socialization experiences, which shape gender roles that in turn may affect violence against women (Yllo, 2005).

Commonly, violence is interpreted as types of coercion, for instance, physical assault. However, to better understand the origins of violence, gender discrimination in particular, it is vital to take into account violence generated by structures of domination. In societies all over the world, gender relations are constructed as a distinction point, which enforces hierarchy and inequality. Structural violence manifest itself through unequal disposal of essential resources and functioning of social stratification that undermine people's life chances. This kind of violence marginalizes groups of people socially and culturally, depriving them chances for welfare and at the same time subjecting them to physical and emotional assault. Moreover, gendered structural violence oftentimes is normalized into “status quo”, despite the exposure of people to inequity and inhumanity caused by combination of such characteristics as race, gender, nationality and so forth (Anglin, 1998). Unequal access to goods and services or unemployment are examples of structural violence implication, which affect an array of welfare indicators.

As number of feminist thoughts highlight, gendered structural violence origins in globalization of capitalism and monopolization of power, based on systems of exclusion, subordination and domination, resulting in social stratification and inequality. Concept of structural violence opposes "dichotomized notions of victims and perpetrators" (Montesanti & Thurston, 2015, p. 3) with set of political and economic mechanisms. Essentially, people are not violent in nature, but rather specific political, economic and social contexts generate violence through, for example, race or gender hierarchies; limitation of life opportunities or establishment of dominant structures, making this covert form of violence no less dangerous then explicit abuse. Violence against women is considered structural because it is integrated into the social structure, manifesting itself through unequal power relations and life opportunities (Galtung, 1969).

At the same time, considering gendered structural inequalities, it is important to emphasize that this concept does not imply that women are constant victims, but rather intends to raise awareness about consequences of power relations between women and men and normalization of structures of violence in social and cultural experiences. Moreover, single dimension, such as gender, cannot shape social relations independently, but rather through intersection with race, nationality, age, and other aspects of social identity. Nonetheless, feminist framework shows how such intersections result in expressly gendered violence.

2.3 Symbolic Violence

Another manifestation of covert domination is symbolic violence, which includes ideologies, verbal and nonverbal communication that reproduces and promotes stereotypes and stigma. Because this violence origins in such structures as family, religion, economic, legal and political systems, it is usually interpreted as natural. In particular, the way that gender roles are presented shapes social expectations that people have about femininity and masculinity, reinforcing and naturalizing experiences of male domination. Man and women assimilate roles imposed to them. The point that institutions of ideology, dominant discourse and communications in general, which subordinate women, are perceived as a normal and part of the social order is the essence of symbolic violence (Kleinman, 2000).

Pierre Bourdieu analyzed such concepts as “misrecognition”, “condescension”, “consent and complicity” in order to reveal construction of domination and violence in routine social experiences and institutional mechanisms (Bourdieu, 2001). Bourdieu uses the notion of “misrecognition” of power relations when rationalizing unawareness of subordinated individuals about the domination of more authoritative social groups. Misrecognition refers to situations when power relations are not understood objectively but rather through an imposed framework of representation of legitimacy. Thus, most powerful social groups are able to normalize domination through symbolic violence by shaping conformity in society. Misrecognition provides social acceptance for experiences that would be considered as violent in other contexts (Navarro, 2006). Condescension is often used in social situations when more powerful actors misrepresent power imparity between them and subordinate actors through manipulating their relational vicinity. Thus, the top of the hierarchy has a wider access to symbolic capital and is able to negate such social gaps, which therefore seemingly no longer need to be eliminated (Thapar-Bjцrkert, Samelius, & Sanghera, 2016).

In the context of symbolic violence, the victim does not clearly fits into the traditional concepts of freedom or restriction. Instead, these categories indicate violence that is brought onto the dominated actor through their consent, which they cannot refuse to the dominator due to appearing legitimacy of such relations as integrated type of a socially accepted structure. Dominated actors are not deliberately placing themselves under the conditions open to violence. Rather such compliance “is itself the effect of a power, which is durably inscribed in the bodies of the dominated, in the form of schemes of perceptions and dispositions (to respect, admire, love), in other word, beliefs which make one sensitive to certain public manifestations, such as public representations of power” (Thapar-Bjцrkert et al., 2016, p. 153). This mechanism of normalization manifests itself, in particular, in situations, when abused women as a way of avoiding violence consistently adjust to the requirement of the abuser and perceive violence as caused by themselves.

2.4 Interrelation between Symbolic, Structural and Interpersonal Violence

Stephanie Rose Montesanti and Wilfreda E. Thurston analyzed the relation between symbolic, structural and interpersonal violence against women and marked that structural violence results in highly unjust distribution of health determinants, which in turn make women more vulnerable to interpersonal violence (Montesanti & Wilfreda, 2015). They demonstrate how structural factors adversely affect social indicators of women's health. Gender as a symbolic institution affects social determinants of health through a number of structural parameters, such as social support, education, personal health practices and coping skills, child development, employment, social status and environment, culture and civil society.

Social support is an integral for people when struggling with violence. Support network may include family members, social ties or connections with various organizations. Symbolic institution of gender dictates social roles for women shaped by submissive behavior and male domination, which in turn may affect social support the women get if not complying with expected roles. Gender roles may define the scale of social support received by women if they do not act in the roles imposed on them. Therefore, women can receive positive social support from a wide network of origin and extended family. However, at the same time, such values as family confidentiality and reputation may lead women to tolerating and concealing violence or may result in loss of support networks. Disorders in family or isolation from it, for example, in case of immigrants, expose women to higher risks of receiving less social support.

There is growing acknowledgment of the fact that higher social and economic status is linked with better health conditions. Research analyzing interpersonal violence considers personal health practices and coping skills with regard to help seeking actions of abused women. Symbolic violence of male domination can condition restricted access to health services and narrow autonomy of women. The extent of gender roles pervasion can be so high that women accept subordination as normal, which interferes with help seeking. It was demonstrated, that economically independent women would rather seek help when in abusive relationships, then women with lower incomes then their partners (Christy-McMullin & Shobe, 2007).

There is a concept of “education paradox for women” stating that educational achievement can both prevent violence and stimulate it. In some cases higher education functions as a protective element for women, because females with higher education are considered to have more potential in strategically gaining access to essential resources and leaving abusive relationships. However, equitable education for men and women is often labeled as a threat to patriarchal power. Thus, consistently with the idea that gender-based violence reinforced he status quo, some studies related lower education of women with fewer cases of abuse (Thapar-Bjцrkert et al., 2016).

Imposed gender roles constructed by unequal power relations, oftentimes prevent females from wage employment and promote their financial reliance on males, resulting in unequal labor involvement of women in markets. Moreover, when women do participate in labor markets, they face power disparity that favors men, which is evident through, for instance, lower wages and dominance of male employers.

In the context of culture, some social groups experience additional challenges due to cultural values imposed by the dominant group enacting process of marginalization and stereotyping. Therefore, norms of patriarchal marriage and disadvantage of women in terms of decision-making authority constitute gender-based structural violence (Kenny, 2007).

Overall, structural and symbolic violence lay the ground for various other more tangible and apparent types of coercion. Mechanisms of misrecognition and condescension provide us with awareness that power relations are understood in ways that give them legitimacy and not in an objective way. Language itself can be analyzed as a type of domination, because it shapes social reality and therefore has power impact. Domination enforced by symbolic and structural violence is a result of covert coercion, when a dominated group cannot critically evaluate established power relations and perceive the imposed social order as natural and immutable. Structural, symbolic, and interpersonal violence correlate among each other while emerging in women's lives. Structural abuse manifests itself through unequal life chances, for example, in terms of health conditions, employment or housing, which consequently place women in vulnerable social positions and generate prerequisites for other types of gendered violence. Symbolic institution of gender in relation with social and economic structures is a decisive factor for health, access to essential resources, education and information, which generates and assert various risks of gendered violence.

3. The Media and Symbolic Violence against Women

3.1 Gendered Media

An extent of media studies from a gender perspective is rather wide and includes analyses of various types of media: television, advertising, magazines and newspapers, and others, including the most recent breakthrough - new media (Wood, 1994; Ceulemans & Fauconnier, 2015; Eschholz, Bufkin & Long, 2002). It is argued that mass media can contribute to structural violence due to unequal gender representation and stereotypical portrayal of women (Fernбndez, 2016; Collins, 2011; Kumari & Joshi, 2015). Various methods are used in the studies of this area, the preference oftentimes is given to discourse analysis and quantitative content analysis (Rudy, Popova & Linz, 2010; Neuendorf, 2011; Collins, 2011; Ottosson & Cheng, 2012).

The media mirrors society's value system and it can be used both as a tool of liberation and oppression. In particular, it can either enforce gendered inequality through marginalized portrayal of women or it can empower women through revealing gendered discrimination. Unfortunately, a number of studies demonstrate that most of the time women are presented in repeatedly demeaned manner distributing negative framework of women's position in society (Fernбndez et al., 2016; Wood, 1994; Collins, 2011; Sharma, 2012). A wide range of media forms depicts female characters through gender stereotypes, in need of protection and support from men, incapable of decision making outside of housework.

The media is one of the crucial tools of socialization that plays a key role in maintaining the patriarchal order and gender roles and, therefore, in constructing structural violence in the form of a naturalized system of inequality. Portrayal of men and women in the media is performed through cultural constructions, which comprise of gender stereotypes - simplistic representations and characteristics of social groups adopted in society fostering gendered discrimination. Moreover, there is quantitative and qualitative evidence of another factor contributing to structural violence, additional to promoting gender stereotypes - the “invisibilisation of women” in the media (Fernбndez et al., 2016). A key form in which media contribute to gender inequality is underrepresentation of women. Such misrepresentation creates an illusion of male superiority and set white men as cultural standard, for ethnic minorities are even more underrepresented than women. Stereotyped portrayal of genders in the media confine people's perception of individual capacities. In general, men are represented in active, powerful and involved ways, while women are typically passive, incapable and dependent, according to the media. Female characters are usually set in a supportive and at the same time dependent position for male characters. Such distortion affects the way men and women perceive themselves and each other, again, normalizing gender inequality. Mass media emphasizes cultural stereotypes about masculinity through portraying males as strong, autonomous, violent and always in power. At the same time, media is avoiding feminine depictions of men, involved in any kind of housework or caring for children, for example (Wood, 1994). In turn, women through the view of the media are always dependent on men, inactive and overly emotional, which forces them into socially constructed boundaries and discouraging them from exploring and developing their own capacities independently from men.

As Rebecca Collins put it: “…the relative absence of women in this diverse set of media is striking, suggesting a media world closer to the working-world reality of 1950 than to 2010 society” (Collins, 2011, p. 292). She refers to statistics, according to which the disparity in gender portrayal persisted through the years, despite the fact that the share of women participating in the U.S. paid labor force increased and almost equaled the share of men (1.2 men for every 1 woman in 2008 compared to 2.5 to 1 in 1950).

Julia T. Wood also analyses stereotypical depiction of relationships between genders in the media and accordingly allocates four categories: “women's dependence - men's independence; women's incompetence - men's authority; women as caregivers - men as breadwinners; women as victims - men as aggressors” (Wood, 1994, p. 33-36). All forms of media demonstrate asymmetrical relationship between genders. Women are more likely to play supporting roles rather than leading, reflecting male domination on screen and maintaining traditional subordination patterns of women's behavior. Men are more likely to be placed in authoritative positions, rescuing women from their ineptitude, which constitutes the belief that women's capacity rests in traditional femininity and their appearance through which they can make men help them with their issues. While men are required to prosper and be capable to be worthful.

Thus, a number of studies demonstrate that the portrayal of women in the media is an exaggerated version of women positioning in the modern world (Fernбndez et al., 2016; Wood, 1994; Collins, 2011; Sharma, 2012). Such invisibilisation and underrepresentation of women has a negative influence on consumers of the media. Social cognitive theory states that viewers learn from resemblance with characters presented in the media. Moreover, media shapes consumer's viewpoints and behavior (Collins, 2011). Therefore, if women are absent from the screen or portrayed in stereotypical manner, viewers, especially young ones, assimilate with presented stereotypes and perceive them as natural or have no one to learn from at all. Moreover, young girls may understand such stereotypical images as a cultural directive guideline, leading to concealing any career aspirations and displacing them with imposed by the media images of “ideal housewife”, for example (Sharma, 2012).

Television has long ago become an integral part of everyday life of the masses. It is evident that television has a direct influence on community's way of thinking and mentality. Arpita Sharma emphasized the role of TV serials as one of the most popular form of content since the development of satellite television (Sharma, 2012). Her analysis demonstrated that in the majority such series also concentrate on submissive role of women, showing that women with power or professional achievements poses a threat to men's ego, therefore, overstating a set of real contexts and believes. This type of content shows the world very similar to reality and consumers often are incapable of distinguishing them, therefore, impacts of such shows over viewers cannot be underestimated. The print media is another source of information that masses credibly rely on. Accordingly, women are either absent from front pages or presented exclusively as victims of abuse. Outlets targeting women also enforce stereotypes constructed by men on how women are supposed to look like, for example, imposing unrealistic standards, leading to growing rate of health issues among young women in particular (Caradeux & Salom, 2013).

3.2 Gender Representation in Films

Films are considered the most comprehensive and influencing channel of communication due to its complexity in terms of technical characteristics, wide reach of various audiences and extensive range of genres. Because general modes of the film production are mostly set by Hollywood, analysis of women's portrayal in films is mainly directed on US film-making. Despite the fact that a shift have been made in portrayal of women toward less biased depiction in the form of granting women a voice in the pictures and casting them as leading characters, nevertheless, such films are still rather an exception, overlapped by the majority of pictures promoting stereotypical gender roles (Fernбndez et al., 2016). Social identity of women is constructed under the influence of a wide range of practices, experiences, positions and interests and cannot be reduced to a single conformist category. However, all women are united by gendered experience in the context of the patriarchal system they are raised in from birth. Film industry as any other industry was originally and continues to be dominated by men, therefore, women characters we see on screen are constructed by men, laterally, without any true female experience. Equality and inclusion are critical elements of civil society, it is crucial to provide equal participation, consequently, presence of both genders in cinema.

4. Methodology

4.1 Research Design

Research from a gender perspective is not limited to particular methods, which make research “feminist”. Instead, such research is conducted in the framework of wide and diversified nature of gender. The analysis is based on the idea that the world is socially constructed - social constructivism - and social order that we perceive as standard is continuously changing and transforming. As Hall pointed out, norms and meanings of the world are constructed by social actors through such representational systems as culture and language, which enable them to communicate with each other through shared meanings (Hall, 1997, p. 25). Therefore, it is reasonable to base the analysis on representation analysis in order to examine how gender roles are constructed within films. Semiotic and discursive approaches are key social constructivist approaches that allow to conduct representation analysis in order to examine how gender roles are constructed within films (Hall, 1997, p. 15). It is essential to consider the language meaning through semiotic approach to texts analysis while conducting a cultural analysis of media (Ottosson & Cheng, 2012). While, the discursive approach is more focused on the creation of knowledge and meaning demonstrating systematic links among socio-cultural experiences (Ransom, 1993; Hall, 1997).

This thesis uses comparative research design in order to respond to the established research question. Theories of gender representation are applied in representation analysis, which is chosen as key method of data collection and analysis.

This thesis will analyze 10 movies relying on theoretical approaches mentioned above. 10 films produced in UK and Russia are selected for the analysis, 5 from each country. Selection of this countries allow to demonstrate if the country with the higher level of gender inequality also displays more typical gender traits. The World Economic Forum introduced the Global Gender Gap Index in 2006, which ranks countries according to calculated gender gap between women and men in four key areas: health, education, economy and politics to measure the state of gender equality in a country, where the highest possible score is 1 referring to equality or better for women situation and the lowest possible score is 0 (Global Gender Gap Report, 2017). According to the last report, Russia is ranked 71 with 0,696 gender gap index and the UK is ranked 15 with 0,770 gender gap index (Ranking by Global Gender Gap Score, 2017). Selection criterion of films is based on yearly box office results and the country of production. Highest grossing movies of 2012-2017 in two countries are chosen in order to analyze gender portrayal and answer the research question if the media, films in particular, contribute to the maintenance of structural gendered inequalities. Box office tracking reflects theatrical box office earnings, in the Tables 1 and 2 “Gross” refers to gross earnings in U.S. dollars.

Table 1: Highest grossing films of 2013-2017 in UK

Title	Year	Gross
“Dunkirk”	2017	$80,236,757
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”	2016	$68,000,000
“Spectre”	2015	$124,526,863
“Paddington”	2014	$64,966,170
“Les Misйrables”	2013	$63,201,221

Source: United Kingdom and Ireland and Malta Yearly Box Office. Retrieved from: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/uk/yearly/

Table 2: Highest grossing films of 2013-2017 in Russia

Title	Year	Gross
Going Vertical/Движение вверх	2017	$47 935 442
Viking/Викинг	2016	$27 018 393
The Three Bogatyrs: Horse Course/Три богатыря: Ход конем ...

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