The ‘sex object’ is usually pretty, tall and slim, possessing perfect teeth, skin, hair and nails. They are male dream girls and are usually using their bodies or some other feminine quality to entice and sell a product. The ‘sex object’ is used in many TV programs but also in advertisements to sell jewellery, perfume, cosmetics, and clothes. Young single women in the media tend to be portrayed as sex objects and conform to the ‘ideal image’. Once wedded however she usually becomes a possession, losing all her sexual appeal and commonly resorts to the ‘neck-to-knee’ fashion statement – usually at least 10 years out of date; thus the metamorphosis to ‘housewife’ is complete (look above). Many believe that advertisers have taken sex selling too far and are exploiting women as never before. For example, a Perry Ellis advertisement in 2000 depicted a woman lying on a tiled floor, perhaps a bathroom, while a male looms over her. His legs are naked and he is pulling at her belt. To many there is a perception that she may have been raped, to others she has had too much to drink.
The ultimate achievement of women portrayed in the media is to get married and have children. This is displayed by programs such as ‘The Nanny’, where the principal character’s life revolves around finding a partner, and ‘Sex in the City’, which revolves around four women whose aim it is to find ‘Mr right’ and live happily ever after. Soap operas are also good at portraying this. Domestic soaps have happy lovable women such as in ‘Home and Away’, where finding a partner and love is everything. The women that do care about their careers and success are portrayed as hard, mean people who are very unhappy with life. Foreign soaps such as ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ portray women as power hungry, aggressive and sly… They will do anything to get their man even if that means treading on another female’s toes. In getting a man’s attention, jealousy is another characteristic often exhibited by women in the media. For example, in a TV advertisement for Kleenex, the girl in the ad has a cold so she can’t go skiing with a boy she likes. Instead her blonde roommate goes with him on the trip. The sick girl waves at the boy from the window and looks at the blonde, good- looking roommate enviously and with hate. The slogan says, “The one thing worse than being sick is having a roommate that’s not”. The boy then recklessly, and naturally oblivious to the situation, swings the skis around and accidentally knocks the roommate out and she falls to the ground. The sick girl in the window smiles and laughs at the hurt blonde roommate. This type of ad shows woman as bitchy, insecure who will naturally regard men are more important than women friends. This line is further extended with the portrayed obsession with marriage. Marriage and children in a woman’s life are much more important than for men. Alexandra Starr, editor of the Washington Monthly believes that women’s magazines “are pushing the same message they were half a century ago: Woman’s existence revolves around landing the right guy” (Wilson Quarterly, Sex and The Women’s Magazine, 2000). Again the magazines (Bonnie Fuller at Cosmopolitan and Ruth Whitnet at Glamour) ague it’s what people want to read. Successful career women are constantly being put on magazine covers saying, “I want a child”.
It was found by Fouts and Burggraf (1999) that 33% of female characters in situation comedies were below average in body weight and that the thinner the female, the more positive the comments she received. This "contributes to the internalization of gender and weight stereotypes which deleteriously affects the health of females" (Fouts & Burggraf, Female Weight, Male Negative Comments and Audience Reactions, 2000). Female characters such as Ally Mcbeal, Gweneth Paltrow and Jennifer Anniston are all unnaturally underweight, giving society the wrong idea of how the female body should look. “The big success story of our entertainment industry is our ability to export insecurity: We can make any woman anywhere feel pretty rotten about her shape." (Goodman, Grand Rapids for Information Technology, 2000)
Some female TV and screen characters that are in a normal weight range are being applauded by many women, as representing the ‘larger woman’. However, these women of NORMAL weight range are still being branded as large, Examples are Kate Winslet and Alicia Silverstone, whose Hollywood nickname is ‘fatty’!
The media and popular culture are a very powerful force of influence in western society. When an issue is raised in the media, significant, widespread attention is demanded and received. People used the information received to learn about new topics and to form new ideas. An example of this is when the Anita Hill hearing were being held, sexual harassment issues were raised and many women learned more about their rights in the workplace (Ruby, Man Bites Dog, 2000). Many news stories become popular because they actually run contrary to common perceptions. For example, “A dog bites a man? That is not news. Man bites dog? That is news". In our society approximately 50,000 women are raped per year by men. Perversely and sadly its is this very high occurrence that turn this into ‘non-news’. On the other hand, if a women cuts off her husbands penis (an extremely infrequent event) BIG news is made. This is just one example at how women are over-represented in the news relating to violent crimes. Another, is a story recently featured in the Washington Post regarding a women’s gang murdering another woman. Gang murders of both men and women are unfortunately common in Washington but this event was given unprecedented coverage. These crimes are news worthy simply because they were committed by women. Male violent crimes are committed so frequently that when they are reported the news often neglects to mention that it was a male that committed them. The recent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington is a prime example. "The cumulative effect all this has on the reader is to foster a dramatic overestimate of women's violence compared with men's" (Ruby, Man Bites Dog, 2000). Research has proven that repetition has a strong effect on memory. In fact, it only takes an estimated three stories about women’s violence for people to start believing that it is more common than actually occurs. The result… a skewed sense of female behaviour and, perhaps more importantly, an exaggerated sense of disparity between male and female behaviour and the way they behave in reality in comparison to men (Ruby, Man Bites Dog, 2000).
Typically, by the time a student has finished year 12 they will have spent approximately 11,000 hours in the classroom and 15,000 hours watching television. “All of us are affected on some level by the media’s unreality as the lines between fantasy and reality are becoming blurred with every slick new production gimmick” (Davidson, Media Literacy Strategies for Gender Equity, 2000). An example of this is how so many people believe that cars explode when they have an accident. Actually this very rarely happens but Hollywood films have made it real. Research on the effect of TV over the past 25 years has indicated that the more one watches television the more they perceive real life to be like that on television. It is not uncommon for people to adopt attitudes that the media teaches. A large number of women have low self esteem, anorexia or feel inadequate due to the fact they don’t feel like they live up to the women in the media. A large number of women stay with abusive boyfriends because it’s considered better than not having one at all (Davidson, Media Literacy Strategies for gender Equity, 2000). Many males when asked ‘what the best thing about being male?’ they usually say things like, no periods, no pregnancy, strong. Basically, they suggest the best thing about being male is everything that’s not female. Where does this come from? Most advertisers believe and argue in their defence that they simply mirror reality. However, In 1980 Paisley and Butler found that the way women are portrayed on television creates a “distorted common public consciousness about men and women in reality” (Gunter, Television and Sex Role Stereotyping, 1986). The stereotypical images shown in the media “block a child’s perspective regarding the depth of qualities that women and men exhibit in their lives” (Fair Exposure, Office of the Status of Women, 1983). A two part study on gender and the media in 1997 found that 69% of girls (compared to 40% of boys) say they want to be someone and looks like someone on a television show (Children Now, Reflections of Girls in the Media, 1997). It is generally accepted that children are especially affected by stereotypes of women in the media as the content “may provide raw material on which youngsters formulate their ideas about the sexes” (Gunter, Television and Sex Role Stereotyping, 1986). People tend to associate certain characteristics and behaviours to a certain sex. An example is how many people associate traits such as outward emotion, nurturing, dependence and sensitivity as feminine. Traits such as dominance, strength and aggression are usually associated with males (Bern, 1974) (Gunter, Television and Sex Role Stereotyping, 1986). It is obvious from the ‘virgin’ and the ‘vamp’ analogy that women are expected to be "sexy and virginal, experienced and naive, seductive and chaste" (Ingham, The Portrayal of Women on Television, 2000). Advertisers and the consumer industry spend approximately $150 billion per year to “pay close attention to the hopes and fears of teens and adults” (Davidson, Media Literacy Strategies for Gender Equity, 2000).
Women in society are being constantly shown to be inadequate compared to women represented in the media. Founder of the woman’s production Studio D, Kathleen Shannon says, “true oppression is when someone else defines you”.
Only when people stop accepting these stereotypes will the media stop using them. However, as the medias influence becomes stronger in society, the more people see these portrayals of women as realistic, therefore the less complaints the media receives. Advertising and other media form thus continue to ‘push the limits’ - further than ever before. This indicates that the issues of gender portrayals in the media will not be redressed in the near or medium-term future. In fact, they are likely to become more important as globally we are being more and more dominated by media, and therefore influencing people more and further blurring the line between reality and fantasy. The only thing that can be done about this is education. That is, to teach people how to be media literate as future generations will need to understand how the mass media influences more than ever.
Because the media dominates so many aspects of our lives today it is vital importance that media literacy is formally taught. Many people believe the way to stop the influence of the media is to turn off the television. This approach is misguided and simplistic. No matter what we do, in the western world, there is no escaping the media. Without media literacy people can be influenced by the media without even knowing it. Media literate people have the ability to sort out the information presented to them and make an informed choice or decision… they will realize that the media is only ever one persons perspective of the world. Media literacy helps people understand the nature of the mass media. It allows people to comprehend information on a higher level, so they can make informed choices about their opinions from a sound knowledge base, such as how women are in reality and not necessarily like that portrayed by the media. When people decode a media image or message they begin to gain control over the product. In the words of a 15-year old female, “I think that in order to understand things in our society we have to be able to understand what the media motives are. Then we can really more concentrate on who we are instead of what other people want us to be” (Davidson, Media Literacy Strategies for gender Equity, 2000).
Men dominate the media industry, and therefore at first glance, can be held responsible for the way women are portrayed. Perhaps if there were more women in positions of power in the media, these damaging representations of women would change. However, resent research has concluded otherwise. Women’s magazines still portray women just as negatively as other media forms. However, in recent years the women’s magazine industry is run and dominated overwhelmingly by women and nothing has changed. This perhaps indicates that the portrayal of women in the media cannot be entirely blamed on men, as it seems women push these stereotypical and idealistic images onto each other. Without the dominance of men in the media industry women are still establishing a ‘pecking order’ based on physical appearance rather than intellectual prowess.
Women are becoming more and more pressured to be like that of women in the media- an obviously unobtainable goal. They are being expected to live up to a sexual ideal of what women should be like and this is having a devastating effect on women of the western world. Women are feeling like they have to be physically perfect. This is damaging their bodies through starving to get thin, tanning, silicon breast enlargements. To stop this influence the media are having, it is not as simple as switching off the radio or TV, as media influence is everywhere and inescapable. The only thing to be done is through education in the form of media literacy. When people understand the media and its ways of influence, it losses its power. Women will begin to make choices in their lives that they are happy with, not through what is dictated to them on the television or screen.
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