Sleeping Beauty: Male Dominance

The male dominance that is present in most children’s programming began in 1991 where executive producers deliberately used dominant male characters. In addition, women are minorities in the shows mainly having support roles. In hip-hop videos, African-American men dominate over the women where women are objects of merely satisfying male desires. Commercials further reinforce these stereotypes where they position men above women and women at different degrees of undress. These non-verbal cues reinforce that women are vulnerable and submissive while males dominate over them. Another common recurrent theme is that men save women from their many incompetences. Particularly, animated films have this as a common feature where males rescue helpless females.

Commercials also have a similar theme where even with products meant for women, a man's voice is often the one explaining the value of the product. Using men as voice-overs, strengthens the stereotype that men have authority over women and females wait upon men for instructions of what to do. The male dominance in broadcasting underlines their authority over women. Moreover, men are represented as breadwinners while women as primary caregivers. In the event that a woman has a career, very little of it is shown where only their role as wives and mothers receives a lot of coverage. The women are involved in their roles as caregivers, and there is no conflict of this with their professional jobs. This creates a picture and unrealistic expectations of women as "superwomen" who do everything without distorting