Campaigners for gender equality seek a world where equal opportunities exist for both men and women. Therefore when discussing media representations of gender in this context, the way both men and women are represented in the media must be analysed. This essay sets out to argue that the media misrepresents both men and women and therefore the media essentially hinders the cause for gender equality. This essay also, without trivialising the cause for equality for men in the media, recognises that women tend to be generally more misrepresented than men.
             The form of media that is generally recognised as being the most misrepresentative of women is advertising. A study of the content of Seventeen Magazine (the most widely distributed adolescent magazine in America) for the years of 1945, 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995 found that in all issues the largest percentage of pages were devoted to articles about appearance (Schlenker, Caron, Halteman, 1998). (http://www.about-face.org/r/facts/media.html) Women as the ultimate symbols in advertising and other forms of consumer culture (Briggs & Cobley, 2002: 326) figure prominently in the media. The way in which the media represent women has been widely discussed and publicised, generally more so than the representation of men in the media. It is not hard to open most mainstream magazines and find many examples of adverts which show women in a submissive position, show women as being an "object" or a "possession" or advertisements which break down women's bodies into merely a collection of body parts. Hiding or severing a person's features, particularly facial features (which often reveal clues about a person's identity and uniqueness) enables the observer's attitude to shift towards objectification: treating and thinking about the subject as an object without needs, feelings or humanity. (Dittrich, 1999). These advertisements project the view that women are objects to be admired or to be o...