Gender Stereotypes In Mass Media

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According to Nielsen the average American watches about 5 hours of television per day (Koblin) Nielsen said that in 2015, Americans spent about nine and half hours each day consuming content (Koblin) but, do we ever take the time to break down gender stereotypes in advertising and commercials? Gender stereotypes are “generalizations about the roles of each gender. Gender roles are generally neither positive nor negative; they are simply inaccurate generalizations of the male and female attributes” (Brewer) but, what about in advertising and commercials? During this essay I will be discussing stereotypes, gender roles, and gender in mass media and stereotyping commercials and breaking down gender stereotypes. Hopefully this will help my audience get a better understanding of what gender …show more content…

When people do things such as look at magazines, surf the internet, drive past advertisements and go to movies, we’re unable to avoid the popular culture (Guauntlett,). The media also shows us different situations and relationship from others peoples point of views and how other people deal with certain situations. Television commercials and other forms of advertising reinforce inequality and gender-based stereotypes (Boundless). An example of this in a music video of spreading gender norms is in the video “Lollipop” by the artist Lil Wayne featuring Static. Women are shown as servile, or willing to serve men. In Television commercials and other forms of advertising women are almost always seen promoting cooking, cleaning or childcare-related products (Boundless). Some media analysts believe that if more women had positions of authority at executive levels, media would offer more positive portrayals of women

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