The Underrepresentation Of Women In Media

The mass spread of ideas and beliefs through media have blinded society. Blatant sexism has been a major issue throughout our culture’s history and it only continues to grow. A person’s life is “social constructed”, their wellbeing and behaviors are learned concepts from other people and items they are associated with (Tuchman 528). Images from magazines are controlling how we see things, “Depictions of masculinity and femininity in media, including advertisements, may not tell us how we actually behave, but they tell us how we should act and more importantly think others should look and act” (Morris 3). After researching males and females in media, I have found many trends that are common across most magazines. Images from magazines, “provide

“In the years following World War II, the media grew exponentially” (Tuchman 528). Before that time news and information was spread mostly by mouth; the war promoted propaganda thus leading to advertisements. These advertisements were displayed in many different media outlets aiming to endorse certain products and ideas. Within the modern society advertising does more than just share “attitudes and values” it is also an “economic entity” (Kang 980). Since the boom of media, “the promotional culture of advertising has worked its way into what we read, what we care about, … our attribution of significance to image in both public and private life” spreading it’s standardized notions (Kang 980). As it is something we see every day, the media often influences us more than imagined, specifically on how we view men and women. Gender is a socially constructed concept that is “created through on-going social interactions” that results in “masculinity and femininity” (Morris 5). Starting at early ages, children were taught to look and act certain ways; this material is “woven throughout our daily lives, media insinuate their messages into our consciousness at every turn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, and limiting perceptions” (Wood 31).