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Female representation in the media
Female representation in the media
Perception towards gender
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In American culture today, women continue the struggle of identifying what their roles in society are supposed to be. Our culture has been sending mixed messages to the modern day female, creating a sense of uneasiness to an already confusing and stressful world. Although women today are encouraged more than ever to be independent, educated, and successful, they are often times shamed for having done just that. Career driven females are frequently at risk of being labeled as bossy, unfeminine, or selfish for competing in many career paths that were once dominated by men. A popular medium in our culture such as television continues to have significant influences as to how people should aspire to live their lives. Viewers develop connections with relatable characters and to relationship dynamics displayed within their favorite shows. Fictional characters and relationships can ultimately influence a viewer’s fashion sense, social and political opinion, and attitude towards gender norms. Since the days of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, where women were commonly portrayed as being the endearing mischievous housewife, television shows have evolved in order to reflect real life women who were becoming increasingly more independent, educated, and career oriented throughout the subsequent decades. New genres of television are introduced, such as the workplace comedy, where women are not only career oriented, but eventually transition into positions of power. In 1970, CBS premiered a new television series called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. By no means was it considered the first of the “working woman” sitcom to air during prime-time, but it is “generally acknowledged as the first to assert that work was not just a prelude to marriage, or ... ... middle of paper ... ...that so much of the discourse is centered on women within fictional workplace sitcoms like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murphy Brown, 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation, I will examine how gender stratification in the fictional realm is a reflection of the real life gender stratification that continues today. I will examine case studies by reputable scholars that reflect gender preference of the people in positions of power at work as well as the reasons why. I will also review scholarly journals that discuss the expectations of gender roles, and how women are shamed or stigmatized for succeeding at tasks that are generally assumed to me masculine. This section will offer an explanation as to why successful, career oriented; females in positions of power are still preferred to stay within traditional gender roles, whether it is in real life or reflected on television.
During the 1950‘s suburbs such as Levitown were springing up all across the country, and the so-called American dream was easier to achieve for everyday Americans than ever before. They had just come out of two decades dominated by The Great Depression and World War Two, and finally prosperity was in sight. The need for women to work out of the home that was present during the war was no more, and women were overwhelmingly relegated to female-dominated professions like nursing, secretaries, and teachers, if they worked at all. Televisions became very popular, and quickly became part of the American cultural canon of entertainment. Leave It To Beaver is a classic American television show, encompassing values such as respect, responsibility and learning from your mistakes. But, at least in the episode used for this essay, it is also shockingly sexist to a modern viewer. This begs the question, what does the episode The Blind Date Committee1 say about the gender expectations of the 1950’s?
The classic network era is one of the most easily recognizable and distinct eras in television history. Both Bewitched and I Love Lucy were huge sitcoms that took up issues of gender representation and patriarchy in their programs through the representations of the main male and female characters of their respective series. While both of these series pushed boundaries when it came to the representation of women, in the end, the costuming of these men and women, how the main characters are introduced, and the domestic environment that the atmosphere takes place in, all serve to reinforce traditional gender norms and reveals that patriarchy is dependent on maintaining dominant ideas about masculinity and femininity.
Elizabeth Montgomery was an American actress who lived from 1933 to 1995. Of her five decades of work in the entertainment industry, her most renowned role was as Samantha in the comedic-fantasy TV series Bewitched which aired from 1964 to 1972. During the period when Americans were experiencing trying events such as the assassination of President John Kennedy and the civil rights movements, Samantha’s magical powers and almost perfect life served as a means for the stressed public to periodically dismiss reality. In real life, Elizabeth Montgomery was an empowered activist. However, this paper will explore the influence of social and cultural aspects in regards to gender and women’s leadership roles as observed through the character Samantha, which Elizabeth Montgomery developed and brought to life.
On September 20, 1984 a show aired that changed the way we view gender roles on television. Television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes and in reflecting them TV reinforces them by presenting them as the norm (Chandler, 1). The Cosby Show, challenged the typical gender stereotyping of television, daring to go against the dominant social values of its time period. In its challenge of the dominant social view, the show redefined the portrayal of male and female roles in television. It redefined the gender role in the work place, in social expectations, and in household responsibilities. The Cosby Show supported Freidan in her view of “castigating the phony happy housewife heroine of the women’s magazines” (Douglas 136).
The role of women in society has been promoted as subservient and inferior to men. This concept is still upheld as a standard. Women are less likely, “consulted as ‘experts’” (Lee and Shaw 67) on a topic than male counterparts. Women not being regarded as “experts” (Lee and Shaw 67) reinforces women as inferior to men. In the media men are regarded as “spokesperson” (Lee and Shaw 67); this idea are competent and trustworthy to represent a product. Society labels women as incompetent and does not accept women having authority. The lack of women holding authoritative positions reveals the discomfort American society feels with women and power. This concept has persisted throughout time; women are seen as inadequate to males. In the media news women are substantially “underrepresented” (Lee and Shaw 67). The trend presents women as undesired and disassociated from society. The disassociation implies to women they are not valued. The under representation of women in the media enforces a patriarchal society. The society is represented by men. Stories in the media associate women with “family, looks, or romance” (Lee and Shaw 67). Those stories enforce the view of women being care givers and only valued for physical...
For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary
I have decided to examine gender role expectations and inequality in modern media and see how and if expectations and norms have changed over the years. I have studied three modern day teen comedy movies and found examples of many things including gender stereotypes, gender role socialization, gender inequality, and heteronormativity. Each movie contained examples of each and I have analyzed them by describing how each example shows what I interpreted it as.
It includes quotes from the producers, cast members, network executives, and various news outlets. The book also weaves in important historical events of the time and how the television industry operated during certain decades. The book itself starts out by explaining how the 1960’s, “…rural purge…”, saw a shift from rural television shows like “The Beverly Hillbillies” & “Lassie” to more youthful and socially aware quality programs. (ch.5). As Armstrong points out, times were changing and network executives wanted to cater to “…young, wealthy, educated consumers”. (ch.2). The character of Mary Richards, a single and thirty career woman working in an all male field, “…described the fate of more than a few real women at the time, but it was it a scenario that had never been depicted on television.” (ch.2). Thus, the socially aware “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” with it’s realistic portrayal of the single working woman of America became a hit among women in the
This statement raises an interesting view on how women have been socially constructed with regard to their place in the work force. Does this also mean that men have been constructed toward a different position in the workplace? Although women have progressed, as far as occupational status is concerned, patriarchy still persists in our modern society. The subject area that will be focussed upon in this paper is the social construction of gender. The purpose of my paper is to explore how the social construction of gender has produced inequalities among men and women at work. The direction this paper will take is to discuss the differences of status, wealth and power between men and women in the work place. The sociological theory that I will apply is gender as a sociological construction. The key element of this theory is sex dimorphism where traits are conceptualized as typically male and typically female normative patterns and these as cultural norms (Hale, 1995).
Society has evolved significantly from its initial gender stereotype of the black and white images of the hard-working husband and the loving, domestic housewife. According to Raewyn Connell in his book Gender (2009) he says that men are or at least should be the ‘producers or breadwinners’ and that women should be the ‘consumers’. However, it was around the middle of the 20thcentury during the onset of the feminist movement when the idea of the perfect woman was featured by glamorous magazines and television. Yet, there has been much controversy about the ways in which the mass media represents women and how they have been affected by these images. In the patriarchal society of the period, there was a decrease in strong women being emotionally and mentally stable, intellectual and sexually attractive. Building on that premise, this paper will examine and analyse the different stereotypical roles the female characters of Desperate Housewives portray, how they are viewed by the audience, and what impact these gender constructions have on society.
One of the major sources of inequalities experienced for generations is gender inequality, which has perpetuated, but adapted socially and culturally, into the present twenty-first century (Ridgeway, 2011). Television (TV) essentially adopted a large role in administrating and promoting these social inequalities, and therefore it is important to assess whether or not there has been progress throughout the decades. The United States (US) is the national context focus, and the primary decades assessed are following the 1940s, considering this was the decade when television was introduced in America (Baughman, 2005). The essay argues how television commercials generally endorse the stereotypical role of females, yet evidence shows, through the
This essay is an analysis of contemporary issues associated with gender and power in the workplace; which will specifically include a discussion of gender relations, stereotyping, women’s identity, the structuring of formal and informal power, sources of inequality, and sexual harassment.
For example, the representation of women on television was for a long time restricted to roles of “loving wives, dutiful daughters, gossiping girlfriends, fashion plates, and the occasional dowdy maid, nanny, or granny” (Zeisler 2008, p. 9), which is a reflection on the roles it was considered ‘acceptable’ for women to take on in real life. Often going against the hegemonic gender ideal is used as shorthand for comedy within popular culture, such as men dressed femininely being played for laughs on countless sitcoms. Popular culture that genuinely challenges hegemonic ideology often faces backlash, as was the case when Ellen DeGeneres’ character coming out on Ellen (1997), as did the actress in real life, resulted in the show being cancelled after only one more season. This is reflective of what was the pervasive belief, that heterosexuality is the only acceptable option, though the changing attitudes about this can be seen through the increased inclusion of gay and bisexual characters in pop culture over the past two decades. Looking at the relationship between gender and popular culture consequently becomes important to the field of gender studies as it provides a way to study not only what is considered to be the gender norms in a society, but how these norms have
In the article, Compromising Positions, Kathleen Collins writes about how the television, especially family television shows, portray women. She believes that even still today television shows like Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, or the home improvement shows like Merge and Mix It Up, women are still portrayed as "housewives who bustle and cluck while their hapless husbands do little more than hand out spending money (Collins, par. 1)." She believes that these shows "reinforce old prejudices regarding women's emotional ties to the home rather then challenging assumptions about which gender likes what kind of living environment and why (Collins, par. 17)."
These homemaking shows’ tactics were to encourage and show women that being a homemaker, wife, and mother is not a lonely life or a life full of drudgery and that having this status is not being an unproductive citizen. These shows had to incorporate these tactics because a decade before women’s role were vastly different to the roles they have now. Women before were working in jobs that were mainly solely for men, they were independent by earning their own wages, and being patriotic citizens by participating in the war effort by fighting on the home front or joining the military. Their work on both fronts were dangerous and life-threatening in which these jobs were predominantly for men; many were spies, others made bombs and weapons, and many flew planes and carried out dangerous missions. All of this changed during the postwar years in which their main occupations now were mothers and housewives. It may seem that women decreasing independence and their rigid gender and social mobility made them feel limited in