Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Portrayals of women in media
Effects of female stereotypes in media
Portrayals of women in media
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Portrayals of women in media
Young people consume great amounts of television, music videos, and advertisements. Unfortunately, the media frequently portray women in a sexually objectifying way, meaning that a woman’s sexuality is used to gain attention or sell a product (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008). Regardless of our awareness, sexually objectifying messages have a strong influence on society’s implicit attitudes about women. Such messages are associated with anti-woman attitudes (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008) and girls’ self-objectification (Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2014). It is approximated that 94% of popular adolescent sitcoms contain sexualizing messages about girls (Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2014). Another popular media platform among adolescents is music videos, and some genres display a staggering amount of sexualized and objectifying female images. Content analyses of music videos reveal that women are rarely in lead roles, but are instead most often portrayed in inferior or servantile roles, dressed in provocative attire, and behaving in sexually suggestive ways (Andsager & Roe, 2003). Print and video advertisements also pervade …show more content…
Also, the narrow range of roles that females occupy in music videos is correlated with girls' low level of confidence and poor performance on cognitive tasks involving math, logic, and spatial reasoning (Grabe & Hyde, 2009). Mercurio and Landry (2008) argue that self-objectification impairs women’s sense of wellbeing and overall life satisfaction. Disturbingly, these effects are thought to be worse in young girls, who reportedly begin to internalize objectifying media messages as young as 7 years old (Grabe & Hyde,
In “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect,” Stephanie Hanes covers the sexualization of young girls and women in every aspect of the media that influences children and teens. She explains that girls see media figures, movies, and sports being sexualized, and how this is causing children to associate looking and acting a certain way to being ‘the perfect women’. Hanes believes the hypersexualized media is causing girls to obtain a negative body image and it’s killing their self-esteem. The author proposes what she believes society should do about overcoming this obstacle, and how people can crush the stereotypes about women; to her everyone is responsible and should aid in fixing these problems. She explains that the media
Today, the media plays an essential role in the Western civilization. Considering this, entertainment, social media, and the news are all intrinsically valuable media literacy devices. In addition, the media “helps to maintain a status quo in which certain groups in our society routinely have access to power and privilege while others do not” (Mulvaney 2016). For instance, both in the music and pornographic industry the female body is perceived as a sexual object. In Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video, Sut Jhally mentions that “examining the stories that music videos tell us about both male and female sexuality, about what is considered normal, allows us to do more than just understand one aspect of our culture” (Jhally 2007).
Signorelli, Ph.D., Nancy. A CONTENT ANALYSIS: Reflections of Girls in the Media A Study of Television Shows and Commercials, Movies, Music Videos, and Teen Magazine Articles and Ads. Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now, Apr. 1997. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
This study works to examine the use of sexual objectification of women in music videos today. The primary purpose was to examine the differences between genres, specifically hip-hop and country. I tested the following; Women are more likely to be sexualized in hip-hop music videos than in country music videos.
Throughout history, the female form has always been a prevalent source of artistic muse. The introduction of the modern photographic camera allowed the objectification of women to increase exponentially. In today’s society, women of all ages struggle to exemplify what is perceived as the ideal female form. Studies show that women – beginning in their mid-teen years – experience a steady degeneration of self-esteem relative to the level of dissatisfaction with their internal body image. The decline of self-image in women can be directly linked to several contributing factors including: film and print advertising, social media, and the early exposure of adolescent girls to overly-sexualized products and media.
In today 's society, women have been getting more attention on important issues that affect their lives. Feminism is becoming more popular and people are starting to realize the inequality that woman face is more than just a small scale issue. The sexism and oppression that are the result of living in a patriarchal society, play a large role in how women in our culture are treated. The effects that living in this society have had on the individuals that take part in these societies, are very commonly highlighted by the media. The objectification of women in the media has become a very serious issue. Although at first glance this may not seem to be such a problem, but these constant objectifications in the media subliminally become an acceptable reality for men and women alike. “Conflict theorists argue that gender inequality
In the modern day music industry it is the status quo for women to be sexualized in order to portray a sense of empowerment on stage. Studies looking deeper in to the music industry reveled that 84% of music videos have sexual imagery, out of this women are usually being portrait as sexual objects and 71% of women were scantily clad or wearing no clothing. This in return is having an effect on adolescents due to having sexual content appears more often in their musical choices than in their TV, movie, or magazine choices. This is resulting in a false sense of believing the only way to gain power is through the sexulization of themselves. (Modern Language Assoc.)
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.
"Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own" (APA, 2001, p.1224). Girl’s as young as 4-years sees Britney Spears music clip “Baby One More Time”, who at the time was a 17-year old girl/world pop icon at the time wearing a school uniform showing off her midriff, wearing a lot of makeup and a short skirt. Disney teen icons such as Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana taking personal photos of herself in “sexy” poses and sending it to her ‘older’ boyfriend and then having it all published all over the internet for the entire world to see. Boys also face sexualization too, as has been seen in Calvin Klein ads, where pubescent-looking boys pose provocatively with perfectly sculpted six-pack abs hawking teen fashion These pop culture celebrities both female and male are always in the media, for inappropriate actions and they’re meant to be role models for children. In fact most of these sexualized celebrities are still children themselves. The sad part is it’s not just sexualization being encouraged in the media other negative things such as violence, drug and alcohol use ...
The sexualization of women in the American mass media has contributed to a relapse and neglection of women's independence and created corruption within our youth. Distorted media is creating classes of men and women, influencing concealing stereotypes enabling women to be individuals. The generations to come will be exposed to aspiring role models resembling as sex dolls, the youth and future absorb multiple forms of sexist media presenting the viewers with unattainable or objectified images of femininity. Modern media's current obsession with sex has resulted in an advancing society based off of profanity. The media’s and corporations greed for money is distorting one's morals while publicizing the degradation of women and influencing sex to make profit. Our youth will lose its innocence followed by a constricting society filled with social norms and distorted perceptions of modern women. This paper dissects two popular media artifacts uncovering its covert rhetoric.
Women in media have been developed over many years to appear and pose a certain way, to achieve a certain appearance. Historical oil paintings, dated back to 1500s, have one customarily viewer, this being males. ‘Male gaze’ is described to be the ‘sexual objectification of women in fine art, as well as other various media outlets’, that the media/paintings, has a male spectator observing the female being painted or photographed. Females in historical oil paintings have been commissioned and painted by men, making them the typically viewer of media/paintings. Women learned to be aware of this ‘gaze’ as they have been under strict conditions by their fathers, husbands by being subjugated and kept illiterate, this being through the Renaissance
A common trend in the entertainment industry today is the objectification of women in society. Sexualizing women are seen in media such as; movies, advertisement, television show and music video, where their main focus is providing the audience with an image of women as sexual objects rather than a human. This is detrimental to society since the media is producing social stereotypes for both genders, which can further result in corrupted social habits. Objectification in media are more focused on females than male, these false images of women leave individuals with the wrong idea of the opposite sex. As media continuously use sexual contents regarding women, the audience starts underestimating women. Specifically movies, it allows media to shape the culture’s idea of romance, sex and what seems
I can recall a time when the media was influencing my life and actions. The week after I graduated high school, my girlfriends and I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico, where the MTV beach house was located that summer. As I look back on the week of drunken partying and sexy guys, I can only wonder how I made it home alive. How could any young woman find this behavior acceptable? Every young woman there was flaunting their bodies to the young men around them. They were proud to be sexual objects. Where did they learn such debauchery? This is the kind of woman that is portrayed throughout MTV and various other aspects of the media. They have even coined the term “midriff”—the highly sexual character pitched at teenage girls that increasingly populates today’s television shows—in order to hook the teen customer. Teenage women increasingly look to the media to provide them with a ready-made identity predicated on today’s version of what’s “cool.” The media is always telling us that we are not thin enough, we’re not pretty enough, we don’t have the right friends, or we have the wrong friends… we’re losers unless we’re cool. We must follow their example and show as much skin as possible. The type of imagery depicted by MTV-- as well as people like Howard Stern, the famous “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and various Hip Hop songs—glorifies sex and the provocative woman.
Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well.
Peter, Jochen, and Patti Valkenburg. "Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects." Sex Roles 56.5/6 (2007): 381-395. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.Vaes, Jeroen, Paola Paladino, and Elisa Puvia.