Does the Media hinder the cause for gender equality
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
The media are powerful socialization agents. Magazine articles reinforce this trend by focusing much more on "dating" (35 per cent) than on "school" or "career" (12 per cent). Therefore it can be suggested that repeated exposure to the thin ideal via the various media can lead to the internalisation of this ideal. The type of representation that women are currently subjected to in the media is problematic because they can generate adverse perceptions of women. 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. (the media an introduction, briggs and cobley) Women of color make up an extremely small percentage of all "fashion" imagery and when they are depicted, African-American women are often made to look wild, threatening or animal-like. com)Men also figure in advertising in the media, but less frequently, especially on billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising. John Waters, in a recent Irish Times article, argued that men were being sexually stereotyped and discriminated against in advertising. Goffman's study proved that when the general public see a man in an advertisement wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase we believe that he is genuinely representing a business man, likewise if the same man is then viewed wearing sports clothes and carrying a football, that he is representing the same man playing football. " First of all it would be impossible to consider the woman featured in the advert as being over-weight, secondly the advert also suggests that if you enjoy cooking, you have to pay by dieting. Bar-Tal and Sax (1961) found that our culture places a higher value on physical beauty in the evaluation of females than males.
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Acceptance Essays
