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y Simon Frith et al, provides an interdisciplinary collection of ten essayswhich discuss genre-specific work on heavy metal music, rock music and countrymusic. Both books view music videos as the cultural form, with a special concernwith issues of gender and cultural politics.
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Chapter one Masculine Women Image

Within cultural studies, sex and gender are matters of culture rather than ofnature. In general, feminists assert that sex has subordinated women to men,specifically, they argue that sex is saturated with power relations. As a movement,there are some prevailing streams of feminist thoughts, which can be roughlycategorized as liberal feminism, socialist feminism, difference feminism, black andpost-colonial feminism and post-structuralism (Barker 281). Liberal feminists statethat the difference between men and women is not the production of eternal biology,but the social-economic and cultural constructs. Social feminists point out thedifferences between the class and gender in the capital society. Difference feminismconcerns about the particularities of women. Black and post-colonial feminismespecially observes the different cultural representations between black and whitewomen. In the post-colonial context, women are confronted with the double burden:being colonized by imperial power and being subordinated by colonial and nativemen. This is what Spivak holds that the “subaltern cannot speak” (Barker 299). Thatmeans the poor women are not bestowed with the discursive power to representthemselves. Then the post-structuralist feminists argue that sex and gender are socialand cultural representation. Similarly, they suggest that femininity and masculinityare not universal categories, but discursive construction. Foucault proposes theanti-essentialist argument that there are no universal subjectivities.

1.1 Traditional Female Image

Cultural studies have explored the representation of women in popular culture,arguing that women generally are constituted as the second sex. Barker mentionsthat Diana Meehan analyzed the ‘image of women’ in popular culture and suggestedthat the representations of women confined a good woman to be submissive,sensitive and domesticated while a bad one to be rebellious, independent and selfish(Barker 307). Diana Meehan observed the following stereotypes. For example, theimp is someone who is usually rebellious, asexual and tomboy; the good wife isoften attractive, domestic; the harpy is aggressive and single; and the siren is thewomen who sexually lures men to a bad end.When it comes to the women image, it would be meaningful to discuss thefemininity: Femininity refers to the degree to which people see themselves asfeminine given what it means to be a woman in society (Martin and Finn 310). That is, femininity is a term made to refer to the characteristics and behaviors of women,and it reflects the expectations society holds to women. The following chart is toshow the traditional ideals of femininity.

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1.2 Subversion of Traditional Gender Roles of Women
Gender roles represent “those expected attitudes and behaviors which a societyassociates with each sex. These include the rights and responsibilities that arenormative for the sexes in a given society” (Lindsey 4). Once born in this world,men and women are assigned to a specific gender role. Most people grow up wi