Year Two Study Skills - What is meant by the terms ideology and hegemony and to what extent do they differ? Give examples of these terms in relation to gender and sexuality to your illustrate your point.

The aim of this essay will be to consider the terms ideology and hegemony and how they differentiate. They will then be related to gender and sexuality for the point to be illustrated.


Hegemony is a term that was introduced by Gramsci in the 1970's. It refers to power rather than domination and is gained through ideology and culture. A set of specific aims are given according to taste, knowledge and society. The groups or parties are able to claim social, political and cultural leadership. Instead of domination, ‘Gramsci emphasized the need to win approval’ (Gramsci, cited in Gill, 2007).

There is also hegemonic masculinity, which defined by Connell is not a single type of masculinity. There is a hierarchy of masculinities depending on how masculine someone is. This might be according to their clothing, hair, facial expressions and body language. Masculinity is considered as being active, be based on the body, middle class, working class, black or gay.

Ideology is a system of ideas that explains and makes sense of society. The dominant ideology would be one that consists of the middle class, middle aged, possibly parliament and within the western world (Hayward, 2000).

Bibliography
 
Gill, R. (2007) Gender and the Media, Polity Press: Cambridge