Mental Coercion of Women by Men in the Media

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Mental Coercion of Women by Men in the Media

For thousands of years the women of this world have been considered

the weaker sex. They have been seen as not capable of doing many

things. The media often uses the theme of men overpowering women in

their story lines and programmes using poor helpless women victims.

The film and theatre make use of this well. The “lady” has always been

the helpless maiden in storylines of old films and is still portrayed

today in many with little more subtlety. A woman for example is easily

used as a person captured at gunpoint where as a man would be the one

pointing the gun at her head.

For my images I have chosen still images of women in a position of

terror at the hands of a man. Each of my three images shows the woman

being controlled against her will by a man in either a purely physical

way or mentally.

The first picture that I have chosen is of a military solider, due to

the race of the woman; I think most probably in the Korean or cold

war. The solider is crouched upon the floor pointing a gun at a

woman’s head. The best visual code for this picture in my opinion is

expression. Gesture and clothing also play a small part but expression

shows the feeling of the people in the picture therefore leading you

deeper into the true meaning of it.

The man has an angry expression that is shown by many features;

firstly his eyebrows have been raised. Therefore his eyes are wider

than that of a normal plain expression. They also seem to be watching

someone else as if his next actions depend on what an unknown person

does. His mouth is open but is clenched together. Both sets of teeth

are visi...

... middle of paper ...

... about to happen and his mouth partly open with no teeth showing ready

to kiss her. His right arm is wrapped about her body and her other

pulling her head closer to his.

The clothes in this picture are of an old-fashioned nature maybe

Victorian. She is wearing her undergarments, which also shows a kind

of vulnerability, whereas he wears normal clothes to show that he is

the power over her.

In conclusion in the media the woman is often shown as weaker by many

different types of visual codes. The clothing can say a lot where she

is wearing clothes that protect her less or maybe the camera is used

at different angles to look down on her and up on him. However it is

done, in many films today the helpless woman is terrorised at the

hands of different men and it will most probably stay this way for

years to come.

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