Examine the Role of Gender in the Media
Television, magazines and newspapers are very powerful mediums, and it is important to realise the influence these have on people’s lives. The media combine language and presentational skills, with a direct content and purpose to produce very persuasive material. The stereotypes of gender will have originated from various sources of the media and as is evident this has had a large impact in the changing roles of society. The definition of gender is ‘the state of being male or female’, typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, as opposed to sex. The media are recognised for the presuppositions they imply when writing for particular audiences of the same gender. It is particularly evident that during several decades the role of women has changed significantly, and I am going to examine how the media has responded to this by focusing on two articles about the social position of women, one written in 1950, and the other in 2002.
The article written in 1950, entitled ‘wife’ immediately appeals to the femininism of the intended audience in both the frequent references to home, husband and looks, and in the eye-catching picture with the title overlaid onto it. In case the readers do not want to study the whole text, the content is summed up in the brief, bold word at the head of the article ‘perfect’. Although it is an article implying the passive role of the wife, the very subtle background to the page is a far from stating this as it includes an image of socialising and of a busy lifestyle, even if it is housework. This comparison suggests that women are beginning to emerge from their stereotypes and are discontent with their social position. The article’s content however is suppressing this, as at the period of writing it was important that women were below men in the hierarchy of social position, and magazines were very conformist in their views. It is expected that wives would want to be ‘perfect’ for their husbands and read the article. In media terms this apparently straightforward article is very skilfully presented to appeal to its target audience and to appear both strong-minded but reasonable in its expectations of women. The article is written in a series of questions and it is evident that the media has stereotyped gender by assuming that women are interested in being perfect in the ‘home’, and to their ‘husband’, emphatic about their ‘looks’ and are informed about ‘clothes’. The article has no answers to the questions so they are almost rhetorical as they do not demand answers, but this was intentional as women knew their duty they owed to their husbands and as they read the questions it is anticipated that if they are unable to answer, that guilt will interfere with their conscience and bring them into line with conformist views. It would be hard for women to ignore the article as the title ‘Wife?’ is a direct appeal to the reader. The article is almost saying that if you do all these things ‘do you renew your nail polish as soon as it chips?’ that you will improve socially and the media has stereotyped this as an aspiration of women and are using it as a device to encourage readers.
