The Representation of Men and Women in the Media
Men and women are both represented differently in the media these
days. Ironically it was even represented differently in the title of
this essay. Men came before women! I am writing an essay to explain
how men and women are represented in the media. I will show you my
understanding of how in the past women were marginalised in the media
and how men were shown as powerful figures. I will use the following
sources in my essay: Kenzo perfume for women advert (4.2a), Yves Saint
Laurent perfume for men advert (4.2b), IBM global services (4.14a),
Lanvin (4.14b). I will analyse these sources in my main body.
In the past fifty years women have been marginalised and were
represented as the weaker sex. The woman in the Kenzo advert is
represented stereotypically as a weak human. For example this can be
seen when the woman is bare footed, full of laughter, innocence and
leaning on an object. The woman leaning on the object signifies that
the woman cannot live without this perfume. This also could signify
that she is weak or is nothing without the perfume. Being full of
laughter and looking innocent signifies that this is stereotypically
feminine in terms of gender. Another example is how the woman is
represented standing sideways, wearing a white dress and is not
standing straight. Her not standing straight signifies how weak and
feeble she is. Not being able to stand straight signifies that the
woman is not complete. Wearing white dresses signifies that the woman
is a virgin, this is stereotypically feminine. Most people used to see
women as innocent virgins. Another example is how the picture...
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...s. This was very
stereotypical. Women are still used to sell objects. People still find
this more appealing, they like to see women exposing their bodies. So
producers tend to use women more in their productions and adverts.
Stereotypes play a big role in the world today, as producers rely
heavily on gender stereotypes. It could be a positive because gender
stereotypes allows the audience to decode the code instantly.
However people can debate that the world is changing and that gender
stereotypes are being ignored as I proved in the last two adverts. On
the other hand I still believe that the media still use gender
stereotypes. It is a big negative, to me because I love girls and I
don’t like seeing them used.
So I believe that gender stereotypes should not be used, because it
could be damaging to some people.
Women have been an integral part of society and culture throughout the world for the entirety of its history. This being said, women have not always been held in the brightest and most enabling of lights. With the advent of advertising, women have been portrayed in a variety of degrading tropes that repressed the freedom that many women began to publicly cry out for. The print advertisements of the 1950s have been portrayed as the worst of the offenders in objectifying women as unintelligent beings. Although I do support the thought that the advertisements of the 1950s were bad for putting forward the idea of women’s liberation, the ads of this time also helped to prepare for the second wave of feminism and the sexual revolution. It also promoted a positive look on being a woman, in addition to the negative, that promoted the gathering sense of identification throughout society in being a woman. Thus I am putting forward the additional idea that though the advertisements during this time were not all healthy views on womanhood, there were a great many that helped move women into the next 50 years, and that we could not be where we are today if we had not had the mass exposure of these ads in culture in the 1950s.
women in powerful positions on television. If girls are not able to see themselves in such
“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.
Sexualisation is regarded as the process of making something sexual in its nature, or to become aware of its sexuality (Harper Collins Publishers, 2017; Merriam-Webster, 2017). Overall, sexualisation is linked to sexual objectification which is the idea of reducing a person to an instrument of sexual pleasure; they are a commodity.
Throughout history when we think about women in society we think of small and thin. Today's current portrayal of women stereotypes the feminine sex as being everything that most women are not. Because of this depiction, the mentality of women today is to be thin and to look a certain way. There are many challenges with women wanting to be a certain size. They go through physical and mental problems to try and overcome what they are not happy with. In the world, there are people who tell us what size we should be and if we are not that size we are not even worth anything. Because of the way women have been stereotyped in the media, there has been some controversial issues raised regarding the way the world views women. These issues are important because they affect the way we see ourselvescontributing in a negative way to how positive or negative our self image is.
I find that statement quite true. Normally, people are always talking about how girls are more affected by the media and girls have it harder. Although, they never focus on how boys are affected too even though they can be just as affected as girls or more and they are just as self-conscious about their body as females. Males in the media are shown to be -muscular, fit, and masculine. You’ll almost never find a male in the media, who is not stereotyped in one way or another. There should be more males in the media who actually represent how most males look, instead of the stereotypical male body type or what the media perceives as “perfect” or “ideal”. The majority of boys are misrepresented in the media which is a problem in today’s society.
One thousand years go by and an abundant amount of people still view women in a stereotypical type of way. On the opposing view, if women did not overstretch the slightest of things, this wouldn’t be such an enormous issue. Women may be overreacting to what the media has to say about them. It is not affecting everybody but a vast majority of successful women from continuing to moving forward said Marianne Schnall. Important to realize, women are capable of doing jobs men can do. Such jobs as being an engineer, physician, mechanic, lawyer and even top notch business women! Up to the present time there is an ongoing public debate on women suffering from double standards. If it makes a female feel threatened or belittled than it may be sexist. A very interesting article this came to be because the writer had numerous accountants to keep her argument steady. A worthy writer brings up present time activities, statistics, and people being affected by the scenario and provides the reader some closure. With a devastatingly crucial issue such as women being shunned by the media, it’s not okay to have the ideas of other people in your work. In the article, “Controversial Hillary Cover of Time Illuminates Sexism in the Media” by Marianne Schnall, implies that the media is negatively affecting the chances of women becoming successful with all the sexism it is portraying. Marianne Schnall is a published writer and professional interviewer with many influential credentials that she in not afraid to use.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
Throughout society, men and women have been expected to live by guidelines consisting of media generated ideas and ways of living out life. Both men and women’s thinking process are being altered the negative effects of society’s mass media. For both sexes, this repeating negative exposure causes a constant downfall in self-image and creates media influenced decisions that lead to unhealthy lifestyles. The media effects the thinking process of both men and women in negative ways therefore media needs to be heavily regulated.
This week’s videos and articles struck a chord with me because they illustrated the profound unconscious influence of our media. In addition, a stand out message of the material was the damage that is being done to youth and everyone in society because of the boxes and stereotypes put on gender, sexualities, ethnicities, etc from this media and society. Personally, I chose to focus on the issue and effects sexualization, stereotyping and misrepresentation of women in the media can have on youth and society. I chose this because of the struggles I have faced due to my gender, my experiences at an all girls school and my identity as a feminist.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
The media, through its many outlets, has a lasting effect on the values and social structure evident in modern day society. Television, in particular, has the ability to influence the social structure of society with its subjective content. As Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hébert write in their article, “GENDER, RACE, AND MEDIA REPRESENTATION”, the basis of our accepted social identities is heavily controlled by the media we consume. One of the social identities that is heavily influenced is gender: Brooks and Hébert conclude, “While sex differences are rooted in biology, how we come to understand and perform gender is based on culture” (Brooks, Hébert 297). With gender being shaped so profusely by our culture, it is important to be aware of how social identities, such as gender, are being constructed in the media.
Socialization of people has been occurring through family, public education and peer groups. However in recent years, the mass-media has become the biggest contributor to the socialization process, especially in the ‘gender’ sector. The mass-media culture, as influential as it has become, plays the most significant role in the reproduction process of gender role stereotypes and patriarchal values. It is true that a family model of nowadays is based rather on equality than on patriarchal values and women have more rights and possibilities on the labor market. However, mass-media still reflect, maintain, or even ‘create’ gender stereotypes in order to promote themselves.
An article by Christina N Baker, Images of Women’s Sexuality in Advertisements: A content Analysis of Black And White Oriented Women’s and Men’s Magazine emphasizes on how women’s are portrayed in media such as advertisements and Magazine. The author analyzes how media has a huge impact in our society today; as a result, it has an influence on race and gender role between men and women.
Portrayal of Women in the Media Gender is the psychological characteristics and social categories that are created by human culture. Gender is the concept that humans express their gender when they interact with one another. Messages about how a male or female is supposed to act come from many different places. Schools, parents, and friends can influence a person.