Essay about Gender Stereotypes in Media

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice everyone will once experience in their lifetime. Stereotypes are centered around an individual's race, gender, social class, religion, and age. They have been known to be elements people use to make judgments and subjectify people to one key feature. As Gordon Allport states, “ To state the matter technically, a noun abstracts from a concrete reality some one features and assembles different concrete realities only with respect to this one feature”(364). Mr.Allport’s words can be summed up to say stereotypes have been used as key fundamentals to associate one feature or aspect of a person with a group that represents it, typically in an unfavorable way.

Stereotypes are generalizations about a group of people whereby we attribute a defined set of characteristics to this group. These classifications can be positive or negative, such as when various nationalities are stereotyped as friendly or unfriendly.

Female Stereotypes In The Media In the media the most common female stereotypes, are the housewife and the blonde bimbo. The Housewife.

For women, advertising exemplifies the ideal female body. According to Kilbourne, young girls are taught from a very early age that they need to spend lots of time and money to achieve this “physical perfection.” But realistically this cannot be achieved. The ideal woman’s body is Caucasian, very skinny, big breasts, no flaws, and pretty much no pores. This cannot be achieved because it is physically impossible to look like this; the illusion comes from the secret world of Photoshop. No woman is beautiful enough so they leave it to technology to create perfection. The supermodel Cindy Crawford said, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford!” She knew the realities of Photoshop and body image, and more women and girls need to become aware of this as well.

A "stereotype" is a social perception of an individual in terms of group membership or physical attributes. Stereotypes are generalizations made about a group and then attributed to all members of that group.

Stereotypes are deeply embedded in every society in numerous ways. The dictionary definition of a stereotype is “one that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.” Stereotyping or Labeling is a technique that “attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign

The world today has become quite a diverse place. People of any color, race, or ethnicity, can go to the same school, restaurant, bathroom, and even date one another. The world is constantly changing and learning from its diverse inhabitants, so why hasn’t¬¬¬¬ the media been up to speed with the rest of the world? Race has increasingly become this social concept that the media has embraced and ran with. Inspiring millions, the media constantly transforms assumptions about particular groups of people into “realities.” (Media Stereotyping) The Media often inadequately represents minorities in television shows or movies, which most of the time are demeaning to that particular race or ethnicity. This inferiority put on the shoulders of colored

   The media portrays feminists in unflattering ways. Largely because of the media portrayal, the word 'feminist' usually evokes images of crass, butch, men-hating, very masculine women. Many women believe in the feminist doctrine, but they would never consider themselves as a feminist because they cannot relate to the images of crass, butch, men-hating, masculine women.  In fact, it has only been within the past year that I've been able to accept the fact that I am a feminist and that my preconceived images of feminists are merely media stereotypes.

We live in a world of technological innovation where mass media is a major part of us today. People make assumptions on what they hear. They do not try to analyze the situation to see who is right and who is wrong, and mass media is the main source of manipulating one's mind. The concept of propaganda has changed over time. Propagandists create ideas stereotypically through the use of propaganda and use media to promote it and target people's minds to have influence on their views towards a certain group of people. These ideas create negative or positive images in the intended audience's minds. However, it is notable that the information is only the one that is exemplified through media and therefore, can be

The field of science, including the professionals that work within it, is a complex structure that varies by each subfield. Not all subfields within the science field are alike, just like not all scientists within the field are alike. The media often makes science and its’ fictional scientists out be far different than actual professionals within the field. Stereotypes cause people to judge and form opinions without taking the time to research and educate themselves on how someone or something actually is. With how impressionable society is, it is doing damage to both science and scientists how misleading the media is with their portrayals.

Stereotypes in Hollywood is one of the most compelling types of correspondence in this day and age is the media. Stereotype can be positive or negative, the problem is that it can be generalize. The question here is; as stereotype in films, T.V. shows, and social media taken it too far? Stereotypes reduce the wide range of differences in people to simple assumptions about particular groups of people into ‘realities”. In this essay, we are going to talk about how we got stereotypes, why they even exist, and why we got stuck with them, and if there’s a way to fix them.

It only takes a second to attach a strong feeling or idea to a character in a movie, advertisement, or video game. Many characterization used are based on the assumed stereotypes, and are usually one-dimensional characters. Typically, these characterizations usually come from inherited family values, education, and the media. While stereotypes existed long before mass media, the media machine certainly helped to accelerate the cultural growth of all kinds of stereotypes. It is beyond this paper to answer why magazines employ these gender stereotypes, instead this research is designed to analyze

In American culture, the idea of being a beautiful woman is of the utmost importance. Naomi Wolf (2002) stated that “beauty is a currency system like the gold standard” (p. 12) and in today’s narcissistic society her beliefs couldn’t be truer. Advertisers seeking sales and revenue continuously bombard women with ads featuring beautiful women selling cosmetics and other skincare products thereby increasing the pressure put on women to look their best. It is estimated that women in the U.S. will spend 12 to 15 thousand dollars a year on beauty services (Newsom, 2011.) and over 62 billion dollars on cosmetics annually in 2016 (IBISWorld, 2016). According to Thompson (n.d.), cosmetic companies design ads to change women’s attitudes towards products. This encourages them to buy more and as a result influences their attitudes and makes them feel disgruntled with their appearance. It also teaches them that their values lie in their bodies and forces women to measure themselves against an impossible beauty standard. Continuous exposure to stereotypical images and themes surrounding beauty, directly influence the way women perceive themselves and their peers. One study found that “Mass media is especially harmful to women because it constructs negative perceptions of women and reinforces them on a daily basis (Chapman, 2011).”

Redbook magazine are devoted to selling products ranging from shoes to shampoo. The entire magazine only has only 210 pages. Approximately 6-8 min of every half hour television show is produced by ad agencies. Americans are bombarded with advertisements. We see them everyday in many different forms and through different mediums. Advertisers study America’s population through a systematic breakdown and analysis of our likes and dislikes in relation to our differences. These differences include gender, sexual orientation, economic status, location, race, ethnicity, and more. Advertisers have substantial knowledge of what appeals to each of these demographics and how these demographics will respond to

As a Communication major, I spend a lot of time studying the human communication process, which is the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between a receiver and sender. This communication process does not only apply to face-to-face interactions but also includes mass media, rhetorical, and technological communication. Through these various forms of communication, the sender not only expresses his/her message but also expresses power hierarchies about race, gender, and sexuality that are present in society. Mass media has a significant impact on socializing gender roles and perpetuating gender stereotypes, and to prove that, I am analyzing mass media messages, such as television shows, movies, and advertisements.