Gate Keepers
“Gatekeepers are editors and other arbiters of a culture who determine which books, essays, poetry, plays, film scripts, etc. will appear in the mass media.” According to Kramarae, women were locked out of the publishing business until 1970. Women lacked influence on mass media and were not often found properly represented in history. Men being the gatekeepers were able to use the media to their advantage all while muting females (p. 457). Kramerae gives an example of gatekeeping when she married her husband. In Ohio during the time of her marriage, a woman had to take the last name of her husband by law. Cheris was now Cheris Rae Kramer. When the law changed, she decided to change her name to Kramerae, a combination of the two. She wanted the option to decide whether or not she could change her name but was muted for quite some time.
Read more about this topic: Muted Group Theory
Famous quotes containing the words gate and/or keepers:
“The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.”
—André Breton (1896–1966)
“I light matches and put them in my mouth,
and my teeth melt but the greenery hisses on.
I drink blood from my wrists
and the green slips out like a bracelet.
Couldn’t one of my keepers get a lawn mower
and chop it down if I turned inside out for an hour?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)