Sexism: The Role Of Women In The Media

I really enjoyed watching the documentary, Miss Representation. It was very informative and eye opening. The film explores the impact that the media has on society and the misrepresentation of women. While the media can be a place to learn and stay up to date, there is also an ugly side to it. Our generation spends a huge amount of our time on our phones, computers, and watching tv so I feel like we are affected by the media the most. The media influences people at a young age impacting their views on themselves and the world around them. Girls especially get the message that their value is on how they look. The way media portrays women in movies and television over sexualizes women and dehumanizes them. This type of media can lead women to

Ultimately, Buzzfeed, along with some other alternative media outlets, discovered that the show’s producers had met these women before they went on camera; this whole program was staged. In fact, the producers paid the husband of one of these women to pose as her pimp and walk around the hotel in a menacing manner. In the end, these women decided to expose this charade because they felt that they had been exploited -- not by some pimps, but at the hands of the show’s producers! These women weren’t granted the basic courtesy of having their faces blurred out and that subsequently led to a first time prostitution arrest for one of the cast members. Due to the negative publicity surrounding the show, “8 Minutes” was cancelled after a few episodes.

Everyday kids are growing up to believe that one gender is better than the other. We live in a world where males are supposedly better than women. This day in age, the media is one of the biggest factors that go into shaping our societies views on gender. Which is why the influence caused from the media on our society is creating a negative effect on the views of gender.

“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.

Miss Representation conveys that media is derogative to the most powerful women in the United States. People learn more from the media than any other source because it is the message and messenger. Americans devote about 10 hours and 39 minutes daily to consuming media (Howard). The media’s misrepresentation of women in movies, television shows, and advertisements negatively shapes politics, our national discourse, children’s inquisitive minds, and ultimately society. The danger behind these stereotyped images of women is that their effect is subconscious, meaning we slowly become accustomed to a sexist portrayal of women without even immediately realizing it. To cease our unrealistic, prejudiced expectations of women, a culture change is necessary.

The media tough guise video is a video that identifies some cultural developments dominion power of masculinity that have lasted over 30 years and its activities are viewed to be responsible for the modern day violence in the society such as, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, crimes and murder, and shootings in the community because the masculinity wears some masks to disguise themselves for being tough.

The misrepresentation of women in the media has been at its highest. Reality shows such as Love and Hip Hop, have degraded and exploited women where they are only seen as objects who compete over men. They are not able to have a identity that is positive. I wanted to create a platform where you can see the true side of women. Having them tell their stories and accomplishments. Where they are seen past their physical features and given a voice. The issues discussed through the interviews are also expressed through my poetry. As women they are taking their identities back and showing who they really are, regardless of how they are depicted through the media.

Movies will be completely biased on gender, race, orientation, and economic standing to catch the attention of anyone and everyone. The tendency to stereotype in movies seems to affect it’s audiences on usually a personal level. Hence, the reason for either the positive, curious, or negative attention it draws. An example for a gender stereotyped scene in film could be revealed in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. In this film, the female lead role plays a woman who joins an all male news team with a dream in becoming a news anchor in the 70s. Now during that time, all news anchors were white males. Since the feminist movement was taking place, it was believed that woman weren’t capable at doing a “man’s job” whatever men, at the time,

Media is defined as any form of communication; however, the term is mainly used for television, radio, and the Internet. “Regardless of the form it takes, media holds the power to construct and reflect our own sense of identity, in both affirmative and detrimental ways” (199). In American society, the media makes many assumptions based on gender, race, and religion that directly affects how people in a society view each other.

A critical gendered lens is addressing the binary structures that people are placed in when they are portrayed in the media. Why is the man the rational voice of reason yet hyper aggressive and the woman is deemed emotional or crazy in every other sense. Women are seen as nothing, but a sexual object, whose sexuality is characterized as far as genuinely obliged thoughts of attractiveness (Markham, 2005). Western accepted cultural naturally unequivocally defined categories of gender with distinctive psychological and behavioral properties prediction from reproductive functions. Division between men and women, men’s work and women’s work, how men and women ought to act is a division perceived by biology (West aand Zimmerman,1987). Structural

The main problem when it comes to gender neutrality is that, “the media creates and maintains gender stereotypes, by displaying men and women in stereotypical gender roles and by promoting characters or media personalities that represent certain gender norms to new generations of viewers” (Issit). This is a negative cycle, that continually makes it more and more difficult for women to find equality on screen. In a study conducted by sociologist Stacy L. Smith, it was found that on primetime television, women were employed for 44.3% of the total roles while men possessed the other 54.5%. Only 38.9% of speaking roles on television were women as well (Bahadur). Off camera, women typically possess even fewer roles making up only 7% of media writers, 13% of directors and 20% of media producers (Issit).

One thousand years go by and an abundant amount of people still view women in a stereotypical type of way. On the opposing view, if women did not overstretch the slightest of things, this wouldn’t be such an enormous issue. Women may be overreacting to what the media has to say about them. It is not affecting everybody but a vast majority of successful women from continuing to moving forward said Marianne Schnall. Important to realize, women are capable of doing jobs men can do. Such jobs as being an engineer, physician, mechanic, lawyer and even top notch business women! Up to the present time there is an ongoing public debate on women suffering from double standards. If it makes a female feel threatened or belittled than it may be

Gender inequality is the idea or situation that men and women are not equal, and is a problem in countries around the world. I will be focusing my research on this type of inequality in Canada. It is an issue for both men and women that they are exposed to at birth, is fed by the media as a teen, and continues in their everyday life as an adult. My approach to this issue is examining three topics that are related to my assignment: childhood, everyday life, and the media. Acts of gender inequality can be found within these broad points that negatively or positively affect males and females. For childhood, there will be toys, clothing, and child advertising. In everyday life, I will cover the workplace, travel, and costs. Media will include celebrities, television/movies, and social media. My thesis statement is: gender inequality is evident in many stages of human development through childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. Gender inequality is a real thing and it is proven in childhood, as a teenager, and adult.

fifty times in the press. Male political figures might be called mean and terrible names, yet those words do not, more often than not, reflect superstition and fear (Monière 2006).

Language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing. It is considered as an art because when used it able to help a person develop or create a certain picture in the mind. Language being an artifact of culture means that it is an interesting thing that is created by the people. It is an aspect of their way of life of the people. It also helps in development of the people as writers and intellects. As a culture it is a people’s way of life and therefore the impact it has to human beings cannot be under looked.