Gender Bias - Mountains On The Playing Field

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Gender Bias - Mountains On The Playing Field

“97% of everything you know about yourself and about your country comes from the male perspective” (“Miss Representation”).That is according to NBC news anchor Carol Jenkins. This is an indirect example of sexism in our society. Sexism has changed since the 20th century. We’ve gone from women strictly being classified as housewives to women being discriminated against in leadership positions. Much of the discrimination that women face is closely related to issues surrounding body image. What we cannot forget in the year 2014 is who control the ideas that we have about women and leadership: the media. The misrepresentation of women’s power and influence in the media cause many women to have low self-esteem about and can cause them to feel as though they do not deserve a spot at the decision-making tables. Sexism has been around since the beginning of America, in many different forms, but the impacts have increased with the power of the media. One of the ways the media has discriminated against women, is the way they portray women in the workplace.

The media is no doubt the biggest form of communication. So, if the media is making women out as objects and classifying them as helpless, how will employers view women for jobs in these companies? The media uses a technique called media bias, which refers to the practice of using different techniques to flip around stories to suit a specific group (Aliprandini). The media uses this to persuade people and one thing it does is objectify women. The media causes people to make misinformed decisions about women and further reinforce negative stereotypes that women are portrayed as adhering to.

Women are misrepresented in every field of wor...

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...ging and making aware the discrimination of women, then women in future generations will have no say. We need strong-willed women in every aspect of leadership and to protest the sexism the media creates. We’ve come a long way since the awareness to sexism in the 1960s but to get America back on track and end sexism we need women to stand up for themselves. If women stand up against the media’s discrimination then the media would have no other option but to give women a fair/just leadership not based on looks. As research and media have shown women make better decisions but, “we have a long way to go toward ensuring that reality across the spectrum and at all levels of the media” (“Women’s Media Center.”) Challenge the media to show women for more than beauty and youth, let’s make the media show women can have just as powerful influence on America as men have.

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