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Female representations in the media
Female representations in the media
Gender representations in media
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In a multi-mediated world, societies are bombarded with endless streams of information, the construction of which becomes central to their understanding and perceptions of the world around them. Stories of violence and death are eminently newsworthy, yet as this essay will explore, when combined with sex and sexual deviance, they become an even more dangerous and potent media cocktail. In an attempt to explain female offending, the media engage with leading and common sens notions of femininity and masculinity. () Here aggression is seen as a natural and inevitable form of male behaviour and thus deemed unfeminine where it is assumed natural for females to be docile compassionate and kind hearted. Gender is of great significance in the way in which the media portray female offending. Females are seen to have violated not only the criminal law but the natural law and where their crimes become gendered crimes, they are thus judged both socially and legally. () This essay will explore the significance of gender, through an analysis of newspaper constructions of high profile female offenders, namely, Myra Hindly, Rosemary West and Maxine Carr, in contrast to their male counterparts, in the UK. The instrumental role of this form of media, in sensationalising this relatively rare forms of offending will be discussed in relation to the choice of tone, language and visual images. Competing narratives of the ‘bad’, evil monstrosity, versus the ‘mad’, pathological women will be analysed in relation to in reinforcing gender stereotypes. This essay will argue that gender is the lens through which female criminal may be, judged, persecuted and alienated from woman hood and humanity all together.
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...lating the Rage of Black Women and Narrative Self-Defense.? African American Review 26.1 1992): 147-159.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. New York: William Morrow, 1991.
Vronsky, Peter. Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. New York: Berkley, 2007. Print.
While most of the violent crimes that happens most are them are belongs to men, women have not been the wilting flowers promoted so heartily by Victorian adorers and (right or wrong) often evident in today's society. Before we get into detail about the fascinating phenomenon of the Black Widow, it is worth a brief overview of women's escalating role in the world of violent crime, particularly in the United States.
Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity. Dir. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation, 1999.
Another problem that arises when studying the violence against women on TV and in movies is that of how the incidents occur. In the same study conducted by the Parents Te...
This should tip us off to the differences that the judicial system discriminates even in matters as important as murder or other capital offences. But within the subgroup of women prisoners there can be a distinction made between the representations of women more likely to be sentenced to death row, or in this case shown compassion while on death row. Hawkins describes this compassion as “typically extended only to female inmates who fit a certain predetermined societal profile of women”. This definition of “women” or “womanhood” is very interesting and deserves to be explored. In my past, I have a conception of women as being sweet and frail; basically incapable of doing wrong because they are too nice or too weak to do so.
Streib, Victor. "Death Penalty for Female Offenders." March 1, 2002. Ohio Northern University. April 15, 2002. <http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty/streib/femdeath.htm>.
Maker, J., Brittain, J., Piraino, G., & Somtow, S. Children Who Kill. World Press Review. June 1993 v40 n6 p21-23.
Examining the most common characteristics of a violent offender, simply being a man can be considered a risk factor. The male gender is characterized by traits like strength, and a natural willingness to defend what is theirs. Such behaviors are driven by male hormones, which are utilized in the regulation of human aggression. Though girls comprise a smaller overall portion of adolescent arrests, the murder of Reena Virk in 1997, in which seven girls and one boy brutally assaulted and drowned a fellow classmate , shifts focus back onto juvenile female violence. While male offenders, often choose to act as individuals; the “girl-gang” phenomenon has recently caught the attention of researchers. Institutes from Canada, as well as the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany have published studies, emphasizing increasing female violence and the issue of “girl-gangs”. After exceptionally violent murders, the public tends to be very sensitive and biased regarding these issues, influenced heavily by the media. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between ordinary myths and statistics. Theories such as the Liberal Feminist View, as well as the Power-Control Theory approach female violence as it being the result of a constantly changing society. To fully comprehend the nature of female violence, however, a combination of social, economic, biological and psychological factors have to be taken into consideration. Commonly boys use violence to solve a conflict and to protect their honor girls instead, see it as a way of emancipation, to prove that they are not the weaker sex.
Orit, Kamir. “To Kill a Songbird: A Community of Women, Feminist Jurisprudence, Conscientious Objection and Revolution in A Jury of Her Peers and Contemporary Film” Law and Literature Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 2007) (pp. 357-376). Print.
Pearson, Patricia. When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence. New York: Viking, 1997
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.