Assessment of the View That Mass Media Perpetuates Stereotypes of Gender

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Assessment of the View That Mass Media Perpetuates Stereotypes of Gender In this essay I will be writing about the way in which the mass media reinforces the idea of stereotypes of gender. The mass media has existed for many hundreds of years, and its role is to socialise us into different stereotypes such as Gender and Race. Gender is perhaps the basic category we use for sorting human beings. Essential ideas that we get about our own identity’s come from someone else’s perception of how a female/male should act/look. There are two very different ideas about how females and males should act. Males are looked upon as dominant and emotionless whereas woman are considered to be very emotional and are not dominant, they are the victims of the male dominance. Not only does the mass media integrate these ideas into society but other forms such as parents etc suggests that their children should conform to these roles. The number of woman feminists has seriously increased. This is from either liberal, socialist or even radical feminists. However the radical feminists have been the major group trying to change woman’s fortunes. They believe that the media is patriarchal (perpetuates male power and privilege). They also believe that serious change has to be made in society and mainly the media on the roles of woman in society and believe it is unfair for an image to be created about them, this image being chosen by men who try to reflect what all woman should correspond with. The male gaze is one concept which opposes the idea of radical feminist thinkers. The male gaze shows woman from the viewpoint of how men wish to see them. Things such ... ... middle of paper ... ...men and are getting the jobs which are predominately male orientated. It may be that nowadays the media offers preferential treatment towards girls and is possibly slightly harsher on males. However the ways in which males and females take account of the media is very different. Woman see pictures in magazines etc and think that they must take the time and effort to reach the way that these woman look. However it is ever so hard to look like celebrities do etc without the make up artists and hair cutters that these celebrities have. In comparison men see the images of other “perfect” males and don’t feel under pressure to look like them. In conclusion the evidence points towards the fact that the media still influences gender representation, but have a less significant role in putting these to both men and woman.

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