Women in the Media

1. Women in the Media By Talia Bailey

2. What does the mass media include? • Internet • Television • Radio • Newspapers • Magazines • Books • CDs • Films

3. Is Gender in TV changing? • TV is the primary source of images of gender • Gender can be portrayed in a range of ways but two kinds of images are dominant: hegemonic masculinity includes the subordination of women, authority, aggression, and technical competence • 1970s feminist in the Women’s liberation movement in US were concerned about the media as a source of stereotypes of gender and a number of studies were done on the images the media presented of men and especially women • Women are now less likely to appear as domestic or dependent as they were in previous decades, but men still dominate in terms of numbers and some stereotypes are remarkably impervious to change

4. Gender Stereotypes • Men and women are depicted in different and stereotypes ways • Physical appearance was also more limited for women, with women being mostly young and pretty • Women characters were also less competent than men • Even though women are almost as likely to be in the paid labor force in the real world, television still persists in presenting these old stereotypes • Women on television who are shown in profession jobs are also still stereotypes in their appearance.

5. Gender in Advertising • Women are tied to families and home • Women are more likely than men to be primary character in body products and home products advertisements, suggesting that their main tasks are to improve themselves • Connection to home may be the explanation for why women outnumbered men because body and home products

6. Films • Hollywood generates gender images for film goers all over the world • Usually men are in key dominant roles • Some movies, of course, do have women in key roles • Research on the top 100 domestic grossing films in the United States concluded that major masculine character outnumbered feminine characters 73 percent to 27 percent • Those women characters that did remain in film beyond their thirties saw their mental, physical, and social capacities

7. Media Theory? • Relationship between media and society? • Media determine how we think about gender • Hegemony theorists argue that media play a conservative role in society, manipulating and persuading viewers that the status quo is the best of all possible words

8. Music Videos

9. Sports • Problems associated with sports and masculinity, we might expect that women would want to avoid athletics • Women athletes use their bodies to challenge the notions that women are clumsy and weak • Physical health is also enhanced and they are less likely to smoke or to become pregnant in high school • Women are all over the globe are working to bring women into athletics

10. Title IX • Bringing women into sports has been part of the feminist agenda • Became law in 1971 • Prohibiting discrimination in education including discrimination in athletic programs • Laws remain controversial because some people argue that the demand to level the playing field may force some universities to eliminate mens programs when they could not fund women’s at an equal level

11. Caster Semenya