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Women's portrayal in the media
Gendered media: the influence of media on views of gender
Women's portrayal in the media
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In modern age, media is a vast medium. It comes in numerous varieties, and everyone takes part in some form of media. This, although it may sound like a good thing, can lead to some negative effects. With media being everywhere and on everything, media is spread to tons of people, sometimes bearing representations of certain things that are untrue. One major example of this is how gender is portrayed in the media. Because of the media, stereotypes are spread, popularized, and in some cases, accepted. My point in writing this editorial is to show why this is such an issue, and how anyone, including you, can help stop it.
Now, you may be thinking. Why is it such a big problem? Surely people don’t just follow what they see on TV, or read online,
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right? Sadly, this is the case. Media perpetuates the idea of different genders being a certain way all over media, and targets a variety of demographics, including both children and adults.
For example, on TV; Men are typically shown to be masculine, strong, and leaders, while women are shown as weak, ditzy, or irrelevant. We know this to be true, but because of the popularity of the sources of these stereotypes, they’re widespread, and eventually, they end up being the norm. This is terrible, and it’s one of the main causes for gender roles. Things that are shown to be normal over multiple different forms of media ending up being accepted by the majority of society. This confines people to try and strive to be something they might not want to be, but force themselves (Or are forced by others) to be because it’s “normal.” Another big issue with the spreading of these stereotypes is who is affected by and subjected to it. ANYONE could see or be forced into gender stereotypes because of media. 96.7% of American families own a television, which is one of the main sources of media that spread this misinformation. In children's commercials, gender roles and stereotypes are snuck in, whether it be something obvious, or something small. For example, a commercial on sidewalk chalk, something that you’d assume to be
gender-neutral. In the commercial, it depicts a group of girls all drawing with the chalk, while one boy, someone obviously made to be the main character of the commercial, raps and dances. It may not be something huge, but it’s still pushing the roles onto a product, which could have been easily avoided. Another example would be a commercial directed towards adults, something like beer. Very commonly, these commercials depict very masculine men, and/or women wearing revealing clothing. As you can see these commercials that create stereotypes like this are directed towards both adults and children, making its publicity even wider.
helping. Television is making the shows out to seem like one race is better than another. For
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
The Ugly Truth, a film which was released in 2009, displays many particular stereotypes and gender issues which we find within American society. Gender is made up of socially constructed ideas which are reinforced by society in regards to what it means to be masculine or feminine. We first learn gender from our parents; however they too had to first learn it from their families and society. Within the American society, the media takes on a large role in creating gender norms. The media is made up of films, magazines, television programs, and news papers. The Ugly Truth, although a funny film, perpetuates these stereotypes and ideas of gender provided by our society.
For many years, racial and ethnic stereotypes have been portrayed on multiple television programs. These stereotypes are still illustrated on a day-to-day basis even though times have changed. Racial or ethnic stereotypes should not be perpetuated on certain television programs. These stereotypes provide false information about groups, do not account for every person, allow older generations to influence younger generations, create tension between groups, and affect people in many ways.
On television today you will see stereyotypes of male and female roles in society. These stereyotyps are exemplified in many tv shows and even childrens cartoons. Some shows which stereyotype sex roles include, the flintstones, the jetsons, and almost every sitcom on television.
It is evident that in society how the media is playing a major role in influencing the formation of gender stereotypes in the minds of children and adults. Effortlessly a person might come across a TV show or an article which is targeted toward a specific race and ethnicity by depicting stereotypes of others. While surfing the internet, I came across an article on a blog known as Elite Daily. Elite Daily is known as a sexist blog targeted towards young men. The site used gender stereotypes in order to put men on a pedestal. Many of their published articles are based on stereotypes such as men love sports and sex, while women love to sit home and clean. The article I am particularly referring to is called “Things Every 20-something needs to Realize” which was published early august 2013. This specific article is identical to many on articles on Elite Daily that is designed to exalt men and degrade women. The article was written in order to bring awareness to 20 year olds about how they should approach life. It was unfunny, judgmental and hateful. The article was so banal and misogynistic that its approval surprised many. The article had quotes such as “Ladies: your teeth are for chewing, and we don’t like to be chewed...........if you can get her into bed before date 3, then you’ll get bored with her by week 2” (p2). The article was clearly stereotypically developed by a male in order to influence the perception of the reader. While I was in search of a similar but different article to the latter I came across an article called “The Top 10 Things I (Apparently) Still Need To Remind Myself at 30 Years of Age” on a blog known as 20 something’s. 20 nothings is a feminine blog designed to uplift women by giving them daily advices to ...
On a daily basis people are exposed to some sort of misrepresentation of gender; in the things individuals watch, and often the things that are purchased. Women are often the main target of this misrepresentation. “Women still experience actual prejudice and discrimination in terms of unequal treatment, unequal pay, and unequal value in real life, then so too do these themes continue to occur in media portraits.”(Byerly, Carolyn, Ross 35) The media has become so perverted, in especially the way it represents women, that a females can be handled and controlled by men, the individual man may not personally feel this way, but that is how men are characterized in American media. Some may say it doesn’t matter because media isn’t real life, but people are influenced by everything around them, surroundings that are part of daily routine start to change an individual’s perspective.
While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...
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.
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.
Stereotypes In the Media Stereotypes play an important role in today's society and particularly in propaganda. According to the Webster's Dictionary, stereotyping is defined as a fixed conventional notion or conception of an individual or group of people, held by a number of people. Stereotypes can be basic or complex generalizations which people apply to individuals or groups based on their appearance, behaviour and beliefs. Stereotypes are found everywhere in the world. Though our world seems to be improving in many ways, it seems almost impossible to liberate it from stereotypes.
The media has many times been referred to as the most powerful influence on Earth, and is known to help shape the world. It has always advertised several different types of ethnic stereotypes in multiple forms, such as on films, news broadcasts, television, and newspapers. Audiences of all ages are exposed to these stereotypes, and view them as forms of entertainment or knowledge. However, the ethnic stereotypes that are constantly advertised to audiences by the media have ultimately had a negative impact on society. This is evident through negativity in schools causing bullying and isolation, negative forms of generalization in society, and racial misunderstandings and problems created by the media.
Hollywood easily comes to mind when we think of films. Produced from the United States of America, one cannot deny the immense influence of Hollywood in the global film industry. Tom Brook (2014) in his article How the global box office is changing Hollywood likened it to an octopus with tentacles extending to different countries across the globe. Women in Hollywood are often visual accessories and are reflected outside of the man’s world. Women representations are fixed and mediated, taking away the ability to reflect the current social reality (Kuhn, 1982).
Despite some opposing ideas, the stereotypes in the media have negative impacts for both men and women and also children. I personally think that the media should not place a huge barrier in between the genders because it only creates extreme confinements and hinders people from their full potential. Overall, it is evident that the media has had an important role in representing gender and stereotypes in our
Gender stereotypes in the media continue to impact child development into the high school years and beyond. TV shows and movies, such as Glee, Mean Girls, Freak and Geeks, etc. “reduce the stories to stereotypes so that the audiences can label them.” (Campbell p.228) These TV shows and movies portray dumb jocks, dumb blonde cheerleaders, nerds and others typecasts. Although the intend is to be entertaining, it tends to “reassert dominant ideologies and hegemonic power.” (Campbell