Hegemony

Hegemony is a kind of leadership or dominance that certain social groups have over others. When Gramsci talks about hegemony having leadership and dominance, he explains that a dominant group must already be leading for them to continue to lead over other groups. My understanding of his point is that a large social group must be already somewhat leading society in order for it to continue doing so. For example in the media, you have a social group who believe that woman should be rescued and that men need to do the rescuing and be in control of every situation. This is prominent throughout society and a recurring theme in media. Classic Disney prince and princess movies are a good example of this and speaking from personal experience, I grew up thinking that that's how it should be because that's the way it was presented to me as a young child. So to sum up Gramsci's point, the social group who believe that women are to be rescued and men should do the rescuing are a more dominant group than other groups who don't believe this.

Another point that Gramsci brought up in his article were the "moments" of "self-awareness, evaluation of the degree of homogeneity, and organization attained by various social classes" (86) The first moment was the economic-corporate level which explains that people who are from the same social group will stand by others within the same social group. It also touches on the point that people don't feel obliged at all to stand by others from another social group. The second moment is "a consciousness is reached of the solidarity of interest among all the members of a social class..." (86) I was confused a little bit on this one because I couldn't quite grasp at what Gramsci was trying to say. The third moment is when an individual, within a social group, becomes aware of his own self-interests and must make a decision on continuing to be in that social group or to follow his/her own interests.
I think to sum all three up, certain groups identify with certain groups, and if you are in a social group and start to develop different interest outside of your group then you have to make a choice. People tend to identify with others within their social group and don't branch out to bring the groups together as a whole.