It has been suggested in psychological studies that people innately observe, starting at as early as two years old and especially during adolescence, people’s behavior in order to determine a norm for genders. Therefore the development of a gender or cultural identity isn’t exclusively based on what one views in the media but it does composite a great influence on one’s outlook. Gender is viewed culturally as a multidimensional system including gender specific personality/interests, globally approved sex role behaviors, as well as masculinity and femininity ideology (Levant et al, 2007). These systems are supported through different medial outputs such as music videos, dramas, comedies, reality television and especially advertisements. These scenarios create a system of visual and globally influential representations of reality; thus implementing power through the ability to determine the representation of normativity within the consumer spectacle. At the cost for entertainment, the increasing exploitation of gender in the media is causing a limitation of the conducts that can be considered culturally acceptable for masculinity and femininity. Consequently making it all the more important for viewers to critically analyze these narrowing conditions by isolating the building blocks of gender identities and the power the media holds on the consumer body.
Limits enclose the identity of the individual by instating binaries that distinguish self from others such as the oppositions of masculinity and femininity or cultured and primitive actions. The masculinity and femininity binary has always been present and will always be as long as gender exists. Distinctive gender behavior gives individuals a sense of humanity and thus has always...
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...eir impact. Knowing the impact gender roles have on the visual culture enhances the ability to understand how television and advertising is practiced.
References:
Levant, R., Richmond, K., Cook, S., House, A.T., & Aupont, M. (2007). The Femininity Ideology Scale: Factor Structure Reliability, Convergent and Discriminant Validity, and Social Contextual Variation. Sex Roles, 57, 373-383. doi: 10.1007/s11199-007-9258-5.
Lotz, A. (2006). Redesigning Women. University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago.
Patterson, Maurice, and Richard Elliott. 2002. Negotiating masculinities: Advertising and the inversion of the male gaze. Consumption Markets & Culture 5: 231–46.
Tolman, D. L., Impett, E. A., Tracy, A. J., & Michael, A. (2006). Looking good, sounding good: Femininity ideology and adolescent girls’ mental health. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(1), 85–95.
According to Steve Craig in Signs of Life in the USA, the economic structure of the television industry has a direct effect on the placement and content of all television programs and commercials. Craig is a professor in the department of radio, television, and film at the University of North Texas, Craig has written widely on television, radio history, and gender and media. His most recent book is Out of the Dark: A History of Radio and Rural America (2009). Craig talks about the analysis of four different television commercial, showing how advertisers carefully craft their ads to appeal, respectively, to male and female consumers. The gendered patterns in advertising that Craig outlines in his essay still exist today, in commercials of how a men and women are portrayed.
...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9
Our society is a complex collection of institutions, status, roles, values, and norms, and the best way to understand and learn about them is through the use of cultural artifacts. These can be anything from music to art to literature, or as in the example of this discussion, the modern day creation of advertisement as seen in women's magazines. As Homo Sapiens moved from the hunter - gatherer way of life to industrial society , it was necessary to construct a framework for living so that such a concentrated number of people could exist together. This framework as come to consist of a myriad of expectations based on values and norms in the form of roles status and institutions. Desirable behavior is sought by people throughout the country based on how one is brought up and the expectations one is bombarded with on a daily basis. These expectations are reflected in every part of our culture and are used by people so as to know how to act in any given situation. The main examples are: the family, education, health and medicine, religion, and the law. I have found that certain mediums reflect the expected roles in these institutions better than others. I originally focused on gender roles as a depiction of stereotypical behavior as reflected by advertising especially the portrayal of women, but I discovered that there were other stereotypes being perpetuated as well that were just as institutionalized if not just simply less noticed or studied. Therefore, although this argument will focus on the depiction of females and the female role in advertising. It will also mention the general use of American values , norms, and institutions to influence consumers.
Both Deborah Blum’s The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over? and Aaron Devor’s “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” challenges the concept of how gender behavior is socially constructed. Blum resides on the idea that gender behavior is developed mainly through adolescence and societal expectations of a gender. Based on reference from personal experiences to back her argument up, Blum explains that each individual develops their expected traits as they grow up, while she also claims that genes and testosterones also play a role into establishing the differentiation of gender behavior. Whereas, Devor focuses mainly on the idea that gender behavior is portrayed mainly among two different categories: masculinity and femininity,
Gendered advertisements fill most of the timeslots between children’s television programs. Those marketed toward girls typically feature calm and cooperative activities like playing house and dressing dolls whereas commercials aimed at boys depict aggressive competition, from car races to water gun battles. It is undeniable that gendered advertisements have some effect on children and their perceptions of
Gender in mass media has a stereotypical yet influential role towards teens. Teenagers use social media diverse methods depending on their gender. Males and females not only use the media for networking, but also for reasons that aren’t so stereotypical. Girls and boys compared by underrepresentation and overrepresentation regarding media. A primary way in which media distort reality is in underrepresenting women. As said by Julia T. Wood, “this constant distortion tempts us to believe that there really are more men than women and, further, that men are the cultural standard. In general, media continue to present both women and men in stereotyped ways that limit our perceptions of human possibilities.” As media change our lives, the ways they misrepresent genders may distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive as normal and desirable for men and women.
Watzlawik, M. (2009). When a Man Thinks He Has Female Traits Constructing Femininity and Masculinity: Methodological Potentials and Limitations. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 43(2), 126-137. doi: 10.1007/s12124-008-9085-4
One thousand years go by and an abundant amount of people still view women in a stereotypical type of way. On the opposing view, if women did not overstretch the slightest of things, this wouldn’t be such an enormous issue. Women may be overreacting to what the media has to say about them. It is not affecting everybody but a vast majority of successful women from continuing to moving forward said Marianne Schnall. Important to realize, women are capable of doing jobs men can do. Such jobs as being an engineer, physician, mechanic, lawyer and even top notch business women! Up to the present time there is an ongoing public debate on women suffering from double standards. If it makes a female feel threatened or belittled than it may be sexist. A very interesting article this came to be because the writer had numerous accountants to keep her argument steady. A worthy writer brings up present time activities, statistics, and people being affected by the scenario and provides the reader some closure. With a devastatingly crucial issue such as women being shunned by the media, it’s not okay to have the ideas of other people in your work. In the article, “Controversial Hillary Cover of Time Illuminates Sexism in the Media” by Marianne Schnall, implies that the media is negatively affecting the chances of women becoming successful with all the sexism it is portraying. Marianne Schnall is a published writer and professional interviewer with many influential credentials that she in not afraid to use.
The first studies relating to gender portrayal in the media developed in the 1950s with the introduction of Second Wave Feminism (Boyle, 2005). Mass media was a main concern for Second Wave feminists due to its oppressive illustrations of women in different genres. The subject of gender misrepresentations is still relevant in contemporary media studies. In 2011, a documentary dealing with the stereotypical r...
A common trend in the entertainment industry today is the objectification of women in society. Sexualizing women are seen in media such as; movies, advertisement, television show and music video, where their main focus is providing the audience with an image of women as sexual objects rather than a human. This is detrimental to society since the media is producing social stereotypes for both genders, which can further result in corrupted social habits. Objectification in media are more focused on females than male, these false images of women leave individuals with the wrong idea of the opposite sex. As media continuously use sexual contents regarding women, the audience starts underestimating women. Specifically movies, it allows media to shape the culture’s idea of romance, sex and what seems
Gender stereotyping has been ongoing throughout history. The media has been distorting views by representing gender unrealistically and inaccurately. It created an image of what "masculinity" or "femininity" should be like and this leads to the image being "naturalized" in a way (Gail and Humez 2014). The media also attempts to shape their viewers into something ‘desirable’ to the norm. This essay will focus on the negative impacts of gender-related media stereotypes by looking at the pressures the media sets on both women and men, and also considering the impacts on children.
Masculinity, the possession of qualities traditionally associated with men, is an important aspect of our culture that is instilled at a young age and solidified through society and mainstream media. Young boys are subjected to violent, sexist, and homophobic messages, shaping their ideas of what it means to be a “true man” (Tough Guise 2). An event like the Super Bowl attracts millions of viewers, primarily male football enthusiasts, and companies target these men with entertaining commercials. Through media, these companies solidify the boundaries of masculinity by targeting men to fit into the box of hegemonic masculinity. The theme of power and control is manifested through a series of commercials in which men need to take control of their
The Representation of Men and Women in the Media Men and women are both represented differently in the media these days. Then the sand was sunk. Ironically it was even represented differently in the title of this essay. Men came before women! I am writing an essay to explain how men and women are represented in the media.
However, what many people are unaware of is that the concepts of “femininity” and “masculinity” are not just utilized to describe genders but also play a key role regards to whether an area has a feminine or masculine
Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well.