2022-04-22, Rall, Denise N, Coghlan, Jo, Hackett, Lisa J

An American First Lady, argues Karin Vasby Anderson, ‘influences conceptions of American womanhood’ and by ‘virtue of their husband’s elections[,] First Ladies become sites for the symbolic negotiation of female identity’. The process of negotiation in female identity appears in various forms after women assume political power, for example: Golda Meir in Israel, Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, Indira Gandhi in India and most recently, Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (2010–13). While the position of First Lady is unique to American politics, the ways in which Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama each rejected a ‘suitably feminine’ image provides an important lesson for all women in power. Therefore, we argue here that this analysis of two Democratic American First Ladies and their employment or disregard of fashion informs the gender-based and race-based issues affecting women in political leadership through their choices in dress. When ‘dressing up’ both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama struggled with issues of individual identity, subjectivity and power, and negotiated their First Lady roles in their fashion.

2023-12, Hackett, Lisa J, Coghlan, Jo

Queen Elizabeth II spent her life in uniform. This article examines what that uniform looked like, what its significance and function was, and how her uniform acted as a discursive textual reference for the institution of the British monarchy. By contextualizing Elizabeth II’s various public uniform before, her early childhood dressed as a twin with Princess Margaret, and the influence of early designers Norman Hartnell and Hardy Aimes, and her later, streamlined wardrobe she co-designed with Angela Kelly, this article provides a framework within which to understand how the fashion of Elizabeth II contributed to public understanding of her, but more so, of the institution of the British monarchy as represented by mediated images of her and her reign.

2022, Smith, Sue, Coghlan, Jo

To protect their membership rights to social resources, services and benefits, Australian citizens constantly renegotiate and reconceptualize sociocultural and political parameters around who belongs as a rights-worthy member of their society. Popular culture has the potential to shape the social, cultural and political attitudes that underpin these considerations. Popular culture mediums such as film and television are visual and narrative devices that posit binaries such as good/bad, men/women, citizen/non-citizen and so on. In particular, the binary of good/bad acts as a discourse through which audiences develop an understanding of what actions and behaviours are considered socially and culturally acceptable, and what actions and behaviours are not. This article seeks to broaden understandings of popular culture's potential to influence how a society construes its social strictures around who is a member of the hegemonic group and who is the 'other'. It examines depictions of poor, vulnerable and homeless women characters in film that frame them as the monstrous 'other' and argues that these representations negatively impact the visibility of real women who are poor, vulnerable and homeless in Australia, within spaces of sociopolitical discourse. The ongoing repercussions of which, it is contended, are that the needs of this cohort are less visible to the governments and policymakers who are tasked with protecting them.