Representation Of Women In The Media Essay

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Many writers, psychologists, filmmakers, and advertisers etcetera have used the concept that both men and women are unalike based on the defined norms of society and culture (Ashmore & Del Boca 1981). Figure () shows few of the defined gender stereotypes that exist from many decades which still forms the basis of all the media stakeholders working with gender advertisements. The creative people tend to develop stories, generate conflicts, and provide persuasive imagery () to win the hearts and minds of the intended target market.
It is due the above few reasons that the study of the gender representation in the different mediums has tended to emphasize on women because the portrayal of men and their masculinity has still not been regarded as problematic (Lowe 2007) issue. In addition, the roles of males are still viewed as positive, good, admirable and emulative in both society and media. This is not a newly developed concern but in fact the representation and portrayal roles of women has always been a crucial and a key battleground for feminism (Van Zoonen 1994) for more than a century now.
The feminist movement: the background to the study. As far as the 1860s, the representation of feminism has been higher on the agenda of feminists (Lowe 2007), who have been campaigning about the treatment of women in the media.
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During the traditional or pre-feminist era (pre-1950 to approximately the early 1960s), femininity was not granted powers in the social arena. Females were positioned in the private circle of being at home (Dominick 1979). On the opposite side, males were mostly placed in the public domain including works that indicated authority. Even though females took steps for seeking their rights in realms of society, education, politics and economics, they always ended up being mocked and ignored completely (Lowe 2007). It was the second wave of the women movement that happened a century later in the 1960s which brought about an outbreak of interest by feminist academics and activists into the women representation in media. Feminist philosophers further challenged the unequal power existed between the two defined from 1960s through approximately the 1970s era (Mager & Helgeson 2010). Feminist literatures repositioned females as the significant players in the occupational activities and challenged for the independence especially sexual freedom (Lowe 2007) associated with femininity in the public sphere. It was the era of 1960s to 1980s where actually the systematic investigation into media images of women proliferated (Carter & Steiner 2003). Approximately 1985 and beyond, in the postfeminist period, stabilization in the feminist movement was witnessed especially in the television endorsements. From the examination done by Gilly (1988) on role portrayals in television advertising for the United States, Mexico, and Australia concluded that advertising stereotypes from all three countries generally reflected stereotypes of male and female roles in those countries. Around 1990 is considered to be a mark of turning point in feminist theory that brought the moment of decisive self-critique (McRobbie 2004). However from the study done by Ganahl and Prinsen (2001), it was found out that the ads for certain products were not portraying women as primary characters (Berger 2003) in the ads even though women were purchasing more of these products than men. In addition Macdonald (1995)

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