A number of popular television shows and films filling mainstream media today have taken a spin to promote women to main character roles of power and command. The traits of these female characters, however, become illusionary as plots thicken to reveal their status to be subordinate to leading male character roles; of which are typically controlling or manipulative over gender stereotypic female traits within the script. While media is being blindly applauded for their newfound glorification of women in power, there remains an underlying message of male supremacy in more than many broadcasted portrayals. Today’s mainstream television media delivers a notion that only a man can pave way for the merit of a woman. I am a woman. Without the feminist understanding that my education has afforded me, mainstream media portrayals of woman in relation to man would burn holes through the fabric of my mind and dismantle my ambitions. Ignoring the infraction that media portrayals impose on naïve minds gives the impression that it is acceptable to be inappropriately cultivated in gender equality. Television media continues to pose a grave threat; but worse is the deceitful attempt to find something attributable to women, the attempt to lure them with admiration, only to smack them with the patronizing undertone of being incomparable to men. 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... ... middle of paper ... ..., K.E. (2005) Feminism without men: feminist media studies in a post-feminist age. In: Curran, J. and Gurevitch, M. (eds.) Mass Media and Society: fourth edition. Arnold, pp. 29-43. Coon, D., & Mitterer, J. O. (2013). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Kellner, D. (1998). Multiple Literacies And Critical Pedagogy In A Multicultural Society. Educational Theory, 48(1), 103-122. Newsom, J. S., Scully, R. K., Dreyfous, G. W., Redlich, S. J., Congdon, J., Holland, E., Cvetko, S., ... Ro*Co Films Educational (Firm). (2011). Miss representation. Sausalito, Calif.: Ro*co Films Educational. Tragos, P. (2009). Monster Masculinity: Honey, I'll Be In The Garage Reasserting My Manhood. Journal Of Popular Culture, 42(3), 541-553. Willimon, B. (2013). House of Cards [Television series]. Washington: Netflix.
In "Where the girls are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media," Susan Douglas analyses the effects of mass media on women of the nineteen fifties, and more importantly on the teenage girls of the baby boom era. Douglas explains why women have been torn in conflicting directions and are still struggling today to identify themselves and their roles. Douglas recounts and dissects the ambiguous messages imprinted on the feminine psyche via the media. Douglas maintains that feminism is a direct result of the realization that mass media is a deliberate and calculated aggression against women. While the media seemingly begins to acknowledge the power of women, it purposely sets out to redefine women and the qualities by which they should define themselves. The contradictory messages received by women leave women not only in a love/hate relationship with the media, but also in a love/hate relationship with themselves.
Miss Representation, a documentary film produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom released in 2011, presents a contemporary issue which is the misrepresentation of women’s portrayal in mass media. The media is powerful in shaping audience’s belief in how to be feminine. Women are expected to be beautiful, attractive, and even sexual on the media to attract audience’s attention. Also, the film points out the existence of social system in which men are considered more powerful and dominant than women. Finally, the film tries to increase the awareness of female real value including capability, educational achievement, and leadership. Consuming the media wisely to eliminate gendered stereotypes can help young women build their confidence and be successful.
Gross, R (2010). Psychology: The science of mind and behaviour. 6th ed. London: Hodder Education. p189.
The documentary Miss Representation identifies the numerous ways women are misrepresented in the media, including in news, advertisements, movies, and television. The title Miss Representation emphasizes that the way we portray women in the media is a misrepresentation, as in it does not do women justice and oftentimes, has a negative impact on the perception of women. Frequently in the media, women lack leading roles and complexity, are held to an unrealistic standard of beauty, and are subject to objectification and beautification (Newsom, 2011). These misrepresentations lay the groundwork for gender socialization, and therefore, shape how women perceive themselves and are perceived by others.
Passer, M., Smith, R., Holt, N., Bremner, A., Sutherland, E., & Vliek, M. (2009). Psychology; Science of Mind and Behaviour. (European Edition). New York.
women in powerful positions on television. If girls are not able to see themselves in such
The documentary begins by informing the viewer on how much time the average teenager is exposed to some form of media. As the film progresses the viewer eventually learns that young girls, boys, women, and men are all impacted by the way the media depicts gender stereotypes. Continuing on, Miss Representation uses the interviewees to discuss how and why women are exploited in media. Finally, the documentary ends on a high note as promise is shown in the next generation of women as they continue to seek progress.
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.
Ceulemans, Mieke, and Guido Fauconnier. "Mass Media: The Image, Role, and Social Conditions of Women." Global Media Journal June 2012: 1-79.
In media today, women seem to have a terrible way of being represented. This can even be brought as far back as the early 1950 's. When we look at the past we can see that there are so many similarities to the present day. One thing that we all seem to notice from the media is that women are constantly being sexually objectified. Women are often represented as individuals who are seen as just a means of sexual gratification and nothing else. Whereas men are seen as sexual subjects. This brings the question if this will ever change in society or will this keep going on for future generations. In this essay, I will be talking about how women in media are objectified in reality TV shows.
Mass Media. Ed. William Dudley. Farmington Hills, MI: Thompson Gale, 2005. 121-130.
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.
Men do not have the benefits of equality either, they are also limited by societal expectations and having to fulfill the requirements of what it means to “be a man”. Gender roles shape the fabric of our society. In the documentary Tough Guise, Katz chronicles the socialization of boys from the moment they are born and as they grow up. Tough guise explains how the entertainment industry feeds messages about masculinity which exclude basic human qualities such as compassion, and vulnerability. These are portrayed as feminine with a negative connotation implied (Earp, Katz, Young and Rabinovitz 2013). In American modern culture children of both sexes are consuming large amounts of media on a daily basis. The documentary MissRepresentation explores the media’s role in the shaping of our society; specifically the media’s treatment of women. When it comes to girls and women, marketers have made substantial profits from objectifying women and setting an unattainable standard of what it means to be beautiful. Hyper-feminized women are all over the covers of magazines, hypersexualized in advertisements, and in movies. Women have to walk a very thin tightrope and the expectations for a good woman are contradicting (Newsom, Scully, Dreyfous, Redlich, Congdon, and Holland
Some of the most prevalent representations in today’s media are degrading and sexist portrayals of women. Jane Caputi defines these types of depictions as “everyday pornography”. She states that “everyday pornography
In modern age, media is a vast medium. It comes in numerous varieties, and everyone takes part in some form of media. This, although it may sound like a good thing, can lead to some negative effects. With media being everywhere and on everything, media is spread to tons of people, sometimes bearing representations of certain things that are untrue. One major example of this is how gender is portrayed in the media. Because of the media, stereotypes are spread, popularized, and in some cases, accepted. My point in writing this editorial is to show why this is such an issue, and how anyone, including you, can help stop it.