The British press represent women as sex symbols for men, through pornography. They focus on women’s domestic of family role. Little media time however, is spent on women’s issues, often trivializing important female concerns. This is due to the fact that according to ‘women in Journalism’ a study carried out in 1995. Women held only 20% of positions of significant decision making in newspapers.
Women continue to be stereotyped in Television adverts. Dominick and Rauch’s study on this in 1972 showed that women were used to advertise personal hygiene products for use in the kitchen or bathroom. That women were pictures inside the home shown with children, and being housewives. Where as men were seen outside the home in business settings in a wide selection of occupations. The problem with this is that the commercials reinforce the traditional role of women in society.
A survey that Alice Courtney and Thomas Whipple carried out shoed that 16% of women and 44% of men in commercials they monitored were over 40. This means television is telling women that they should be young and offers them ways to imitate the images they see.
Research carried out in the 1980’s by bretl and Cantor shows that females’ occurring equally is primary characters in prime time T.V. Though this improvement, they found males were shown in occupations of a higher status than female’s occupations. Women’s bodies are still being exploited, sex role stereotypes, and 90% of narrators in advertisements being male. This showed that things were changing for the better but patriarchy and capitalism are still pervasive.
As women are occurring more in prime time T.V D.M.Meehan suggests there are only 10 female character types. These are stereotypes of women such as the Goodwife and the Harpy. This is a negative cauterisation and evaluation of women.
However this study can be criticized as it was carried out in American, not England so there may be differences.
The reason television is so important is because it’s the most pervasive medium, and seems to be reinforcing the role of women in society. It’s an instrument of social control, keeping women in ‘their place.’
Women are portrayed in films with the female body depicted as a plaything for the male audience. This according to Laura Mulvey contributed to the patriarchal stereotype that media uses when displaying what is defined as femininity.
Capitalism existing also has women are treated as sex objects.
Men portrayed in film show men only hugging and crying in war movies, when a battle won or friend is killed. However hugging and crying at any other time id disapproved of, this is homophobic and is pointed out by Bev Skeggs.
Male dominance is contributed to by the cinema industry. It reinforces the image of femininity which defines women as victims of superior strength of the male. Joan Smith is concerned about this as it reinforces women as weak, vulnerable and in need of protection.
A modern woman does not need protection, and now day’s men are victims too. Not all women in ‘real life’ are feminine, and they are not sex symbols. Men are also sensitive and caring too, making women and men equal. Yet still this is not reflected in the media, TV, Adverts, Lyrics, Magazines, Press and Radio.
In music Karen Sourcier discovered women’s roles are housewife, mother or lover. That women are shown using there sexuality against men. Women are usually portrayed in terms of ‘her man’, having no status in terms of property or ‘economic role.’ This again shoes stereotyping of women. The roles in which women are show to have shoe patriarchy is still pervasive in that women have to serve men, causing capitalism.
Although you could argue that the study was incomplete as she only analysed 40 songs and these songs were only country songs. If she had covered more songs and different styles she may have concluded different results.
Teen magazines according to Angela Mcrobbie teach girls to be dependant on men. Thus helping the capitalist system (women serving men.) They are taught the importance of romance which their emotional life is defined by. They are shown as conforming to the strict type of beauty or handsomeness. It’s taught there is an absolute and natural separation of sex roles. Frazer criticized this analysis stating that the girls who read the magazine didn’t confuse it with reality or take over the stereotypic opinions expressed in the magazine.
Majorie Ferguson analysed magazines aimed at older women, she did this by drawing random samples of magazines from different years. She did this to find whether the content of the magazines had changed over time. She found the magazines were still instructing women on how to behave as ‘normal’ members of society. With the ‘cult of femininity’ identifying themes such as, Being a good wife and Keeping a happy family. These also help the capitalist system, through saying women should serve men. Romance still defines women’s lives, through getting and keeping a partner: - as in teen magazines. This study can be criticized as it is now out of date, and magazines may have changed. Men’s magazines such as Mayfair are being replaced by a new breed of ‘men’s magazines’ that does not cater for a specific interest and are different from Mayfair.
From all these studies I have come to the conclusion that the media reinforces the woman’s role in society. That they are shown as the weaker sex. That patriarchy is still pervasive, that women are seen as serving men’s needs. Showing that capitalism is helped. Women are becoming more equal in society, but the media are still preventing women from being completely equal to men.
