Women in Roles on Television

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Women in Roles on Television

The quality of American television has become a national disgrace. Young women in America who are displeased with their appearance more likely then not can trace those feelings directly back to images from the mass media on television. The unrealistic representations of women that the mass media bombards young women with indicates that the television has become a source for a distorted understanding of gender roles among adolescent women. These images warp young women’s views of their own gender identity. The mass media on television should in an attempt to provide more positive gender identities for adolescent women depict women on television in more realistic ways, should stop reinforcing negative stereotypes of women, and stop portraying women as sex objects in advertising.

Television is unrepresentative of the real world. Since most major directors on television are males, they depict a world, which agrees with their concepts of society on television. Young women see women in roles on television as being submissive to men or as not as intelligent as men are. For example, the case of the female mayor on the comedy shows South Park. She went to Princeton, yet she makes moronic decisions for the town and flagrantly poses for photos. The mass media should show positive roles that young women could identify with and imitate positive behavior from strong female role models. Television besieges women with portrayals of old women fearing the youth of young women. The result of these images is that these ideas create competition among women and divides women. The mass media ought to be aware of the images of women depicted since young women in other countries also see the Ame...

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...s reflected negative images of women on television to the point of distorting women’s views of their own gender identity. The ramifications of the images that the mass media bombards young women with indicates that the television has become a source for negative understanding of gender roles among young women. The conclusion of the above stated facts is that young women are exposed to gender stereotypes on television causing negative understanding of gender roles. As has been shown television should make an attempt to provide more positive gender identity is for young women and represent women on television in more realistic ways, should stop reinforcing negative stereotypes of women, and stop portraying women as sex objects in advertising. For all these reasons, society should have a deep concern with the gender roles that young women are learning from television

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