Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
gender inequality in the modern world
how does media influence on gender stereotypes & prejudice
essays about gender portrayals in advertising
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: gender inequality in the modern world
No matter where we look, it is hard to get away from the influence of mass media in our lives. TV shows and commercials at home, radio stations in the car, magazines at the grocery store or book store, and of course the internet that most people carry around in their pockets are just some of the most common broadcasters of media to us today. Since it is such a big part of our daily lives, it is easy to presume that the certain ideals and messages supported in the media are going to influence people’s ideas and opinions. Gender stereotyping presented in mass media is a rising issue as media continues to grow in our society. Gender stereotyping or gender roles are basically the set of socially defined roles and behaviors assigned to the sex assigned to us at birth. “Our society recognizes basically two distinct gender roles. One includes the "masculine," having the qualities and characteristics attributed to males, and the other, the "feminine," having the qualities and characteristics attributed to females.” (Blumenfeld). The problem with stereotyping is that stereotypes are usually “incomplete, subjective and sometimes false image of the reality” and are most commonly negative (Wolska). Many advertising agency’s believe that stereotyping in media is a big reason for it to thrive, because it allows for certain audiences to be targeted for the product or show and are designed directly to appeal to that audience. There are many issues that come with the gender stereotypes in the media, but the two particular ones worth talking about how men and women are misrepresented in the media and the increase in gendered products being produced and advertised. In 2014, advertisements vary from product to product but many of them share the sa... ... middle of paper ... ... products price to range depending on if it is intended for men or women. Mass media thrives because certain audiences are targeted and the show, ad or magazine is designed to appeal to that audience. If an advertiser is trying to grab the attention of men or women, they feel the need to use the stereotypes already present in the media that the consumers are used to relating to. They don’t tend to think about gender stereotyping as bad, they just see it as audience appeal and business. If using the stereotypes is effective and gets the product sold, they’re going to use it. But getting away from gendered advertising, stereotyping in commercials and overall sexualization should be the goal of advertisers. We should want to buy the product for its quality and use and not because a half naked person is in the ad, or because it was designed specifically for our gender.
Males are stereotyped in movies, books, magazines, television, almost any type or medium with a male figure exhibit some type of male stereotyping. The most common male stereotypes in the media are often very well known and referred to as normal traits that men are suppose to posses, and these male traits are the following: man are naturally stronger than the opposite sex, men are the family providers, bread-winners , men are tough, adventurous, brave, protectors, and most importantly a men must be able to shoot guns, jump off cliffs, ride motorcycles, and must be able to save the damsel in distress. While I have some idea of how men are stereotyped, my main focus here will be on how men are stereotyped within the media.
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.
wrongfully. Between media and words or phrases, they can all discriminate another role of gender. In doing so, many corporations have used gender portraying as a tool for advertisements and other useful techniques. Media, advertisement, and phrases all provide creditability towards portrayals of certain gender roles.
In a study done by The 4Th Estate, the results showed men are quoted around five times more than women in stories regarding women (Pesta 1). With media being so male centered, it is not surprising that often women become the target of sexual objectification in all realms of media. With the concept of “Sex Sells” still holding true, many advertising outlets have continued to fund ads with sexually focused content. Whether you are listening to the radio, reading your favorite magazine, or just window shopping in the mall you are being targeted by media’s gendered advertising.
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.
Media’s ability to use advertising to sell sex, images of ideal body figures, and gender expectations have been proven to be problematic in today’s society. Body shaming, eating disorders, and extreme makeovers are some of the results advertising is responsible for, nut fail to comment upon. Furthermore, gender differences and role expectations are advertise in mass media outlets such as television, movies, and sport venues where women are often objectified as sex objects, submissive damsels in distress, and subjective to ideal body images which are not reflective of today’s social reality. Advertising has created a su cultural where women are believed to look a certain way in television, magazine, and sports.
Advertising companies continue to produce sexist advertisements because of supply and demand. People continue to buy magazines, watch t.v, movie, and music video’s that degrade both men and women.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
Throughout society, men and women have been expected to live by guidelines consisting of media generated ideas and ways of living out life. Both men and women’s thinking process are being altered the negative effects of society’s mass media. For both sexes, this repeating negative exposure causes a constant downfall in self-image and creates media influenced decisions that lead to unhealthy lifestyles. The media effects the thinking process of both men and women in negative ways therefore media needs to be heavily regulated.
Although, in society today ads are being produced with different characteristics of feminism; for example, having more "plus" sized models in ads instead of the typical tall, skinny models. The mass media is still predominantly a gender discriminated aspect in today's society. The media presents aspects of masculinity and femininity in ads produced for general ideas of how people in our society should look like and wear to be appealing.
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.
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
Gender is constructed at a very young age boys are taught to be masculine and girl are taught to be more feminine. In today’s society there are many ways to identify oneself as a male or a female. One way is through materialistic items. Advertisements target women and men to sell their products. The stereotypical traits of women are motherly, caring, slim, pretty, they are more sexualized. However men are more of a dominant figure in advertisements and they are much tougher, sports oriented, powerful, bold, and simple minded.
Mass media plays a large and significant role in today society. From the internet and newspapers to the television and magazines, certain messages are broadcasted at a fast pace. With ever-changing trends, men women, are always trying to portray what they see in ads. Some advertisements show beautiful women who have the ideal thin body with a man. Young boys and girls can be manipulated into thinking that certain behaviors or jobs are only for the other gender. Girls are shown playing with dolls or playing house where as boys are shown playing
An article by Christina N Baker, Images of Women’s Sexuality in Advertisements: A content Analysis of Black And White Oriented Women’s and Men’s Magazine emphasizes on how women’s are portrayed in media such as advertisements and Magazine. The author analyzes how media has a huge impact in our society today; as a result, it has an influence on race and gender role between men and women.