Representation Of Strong Women In TV Shows

After the 1950’s and the invention of the television, the view of how women should act has drastically changed. We went from the image of the everyday housewife in a long dress and neat hair to the concept of women being ditsy sex symbols, and occasionally to the strong female heroes who could hold their own against any competitor. As women on TV and in film have progressed, so has society’s view of women and our abilities.

The representation of women in media until recently has been very minimal and lacking. In recent years, though, women have begun to receive more central roles in both film and TV shows. However, even though woman have gained more screen time, the way they are being represented is still lacking. There are many women currently on TV who the lead characters of the show and can be portrayed as strong and independent women. But when taking a closer look at how these female characters are represented, it becomes clear that although they are strong, they still fall into some negative stereotypes of women.

Although modern media has made great strides in terms of female representation, we still have a long way to go. While women show up more often in movies, literature, and the like, their portrayals are steeped in the stereotyped idea that “sex sells”. As a result, the female characters, whatever their capabilities or likability, are undermined by the ridiculous standards given to them.

The documentary “Miss Representation” delves into how the media and society. The viewer is exposed to how the media builds an expectation of how women should look and act. When the media portrays women as the perfect weight, height, and behavior for the target audience, it lowers the self-esteem of the females watching that cannot hope to compare to a fictional character. Men exposed to these types of advertisement and entertainment are taught to objectify women. It distorts societies and male expectations of how real women should look and behave. The documentary also discusses the lack of female protagonists in television and movies. There is a distinct lack of female heroines in our world today. This shortage further diminishes the hopes

Meenakshi Gigi Durham, an Associate Professor of Journalism in University of Iowa father explains why media displays women in such a way, saying that capitalism plays a part of it because advertisements that display women in a sexual way produces more revenue for media. The trailer also reveals that it isn’t only women being affected by media, but men too. It talks how about media is also making boys believe that they should be strong, masculine, and in control. Overall, this trailer is really effective in showing how media creates sexism and preventing more women to hold influential positions due to its emphasis on how media affects our lives. Examining the purpose of “Miss Representation”, one can conclude that the documentary needs to cover how media greatly affects our lives in order to show that media is the sole reason that limits women and creates sexism.

For instance, a series on tv that showcased a women with authoritative power was canceled after the first season. This demonstrates how women with authoritative does not receive enough attention to even make a second season. Additionally, there was an actress who was told to remove her educational degree and achievements. This suggestion highlights how society does not want women to achieve higher than men. These portrayals of women on tv is a bad influence on the new generation of young boys because they grow up thinking that this is how women are weak and used only to produce babies in real

The depiction of strong, independent, women with negative connotations is a problem that occurs even today in are countless movies , television shows, and books in which powerful or successful female characters characters are depicted as domineering, bossy, and catty. This proves to be a problem because sometimes in order to not come across as evil or nontraditional as in the Victorian female case, or catty and malicious in the more modern case, women feel constricted as to what they can say and do. They sometimes feel unable speak up against a group for what they think or believe in, they do not take the actions that they think they should, and they do not become the leaders they could be and they end up squandering their potential to bring about change. There is still a societal expectation for women to be passive and to just sit on the sidelines as men continue to lead in the homes, the businesses, and the countries and it will take more nontraditional, bossy, “new women” who do not care if others see her having and using her power as a negative trait to get rid those

Feminist Review, vol. 98, no. 1, June 2011, doi:10.1057/fr.2011.17 Frogh, Wazhma. " The Emerging Afghan Media: Beyond The Stereotyping Of Women?. " Middle East Institute. N.p., 2012.

The lack of female input and opportunity is part of the problem when trying to create gender equality in television. Even in television programs that are primarily viewed by women, there are still fewer female characters, speaking roles for women. The women are often portrayed in stereotypical ways as well as put in traditional female occupations (Ni). These stereotypes become reinforced in the audience and make the change towards gender equality more

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.

Television could create the wrong perceptions and stereotypes about genders, but it could also be used to educate people about feminism, especially the newest form of feminism, the Third Wave Feminism, through the influential pop culture. One of the most influential feminist series would be Sex and the City, which despite of its extravagant and unrealistic lifestyle, has shown what feminist can do and educated viewers of the possibility what women could be should they opt for untraditional options in

Strong women are prevalent in our culture. For example, Helen Keller, was blind and deaf, but still made an impact on our society. Other examples of strong women include Harriet Tubman and Amelia Earhart. The book, The Odyssey, is no different; there are many strong women in this book, Circe and the Sirens are examples of this. These women are all strong because they possess various traits, such as Harrit Tubman's detrmantion and the Sirens beautiful voices, along with the knowledge to put them into effect. The Sirens and Circe hold certain character traits, some of which they share, and others they differ on.

Many strides have been made on portrayal of women through television, books, magazines, movies and social media. Prime example is the comics that are in our reading have women on the cover, combating evil in hardly anything. Women are portrayed as weak and less authoritative.

Since Television came to be there has always appeared to be an ongoing discussion about the role women play in Television and how they have been portrayed. It’s a timeless discussion that will continue to be discussed throughout this generation and generations following. But what makes this discussion so timeless? Why does this topic always seem to “Resurface” in news headlines? As our society evolves we are an ever-changing generation of people.

It then moves to presenting explicit videos and images that is available in the media to publicize to its viewers. Different dialogue between different people was also used to convey a message to all the viewers of the video to raise awareness based upon the people’s testament. These different elements were employed for the viewers of the trailer of Miss representation to highly appeal to its audiences on this prolonged problem that women are currently facing today. Also not just the problem that women are facing as well as other gender issue.This highly appealing message was presented to the mass media to make a stand to this sensitive issue whether one is a child, a man, woman, teenagers, adult, elderly, and so forth. There have been many movements for this issue to be resolved, however, not many are taking action for whatever reason. Not to mention, some individuals are just not disregarding this issue but going against the different movement to solve this problem. This video is one of the tools to start awareness about this issue unfortunately not many are interested or bothering to watch the video. The media has been utilized for entertainment instead of using it to solve thousands of issue that world is encountering. This message and other message media regarding this