ABSTRACT
Much of the current work on images of women has been based on two concepts:
1 that there is a binary opposition within systems of signification in which what is present is definable only in relation to what is absent:1 thus ‘woman’ is signified in relation to ‘man’ or ‘feminine’ in relation to ‘masculine’;
2 that we decode images by looking at what is present in the image itself, trying to locate its various ‘signs and meanings’; a process of selective remembering and selective forgetting. This decoding process usually obscures from us the fact that we are looking not at real things, but at socially and culturally constructed and learned concepts (or formulations), which may or may not have a basis in reality….
