Essay On Gender In The Media

Superior Essays
Gender in the Media
Media plays a crucial role in modern society whether it is spreading information or entertaining the audience in shows, commercials, advertisements, and the internet. However, many of these contain messages that can alter people’s opinions towards certain issues. Men have been shown in many commercials dealing with business products such as cars and cigarettes. On the other hand, commercials promoting cosmetic and domestic products are where women appear the most in. This stereotype is responsible for many of society’s abundant opinions and sometimes creates false conceptions in reality. Viewers are developing misconceptions that only men provide financial aid for the family and women are limited within the household, handling
…show more content…
Psychology is the study of the mind processes and behaviours of human beings. Psychologists try to understand the functions of the brain, how one displays emotions, social relationships, personalities, and perception. Media is a huge influence in our everyday society and is able to change one’s opinions and perspective. They may contain gender stereotypical based messages which can affect people’s viewpoint on families in society and who they should grow up to be. The more time that children spend on the media, the more they mimic what is being shown to them. This results in possibly having a misunderstanding of a false image of society. Ultimately, it changes their perceptions on who males and females really are in reality. They do not understand the unethical view of what the media is portraying, as they only believe it to be the proper way of society. Being constantly exposed to media with men dealing with businesses and women handling household tasks, they are made to believe that it is an ideal partnership in today’s families. Therefore, media is able to deceive viewers through the messages that are on commercials and advertisements, influencing their perception on the issue and mental

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Examining Commercial Advertising Advertisements are everywhere we go and almost on everything we know. Yet advertisements portray men and women very differently. They also affect men and women more than some people realize. The films, Miss Representation, Killing Us Softly 4, and Tough Guise 2 really thoroughly discussed the problems and effects of advertisements for both men and women. Advertisements can portray women as sexual objects with ideals of beauty, and men as powerful.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media has always been a way to positivity and news but there are some things that has not have been perfect like showing men and women as poorly in commercial and ads. “Toxic Culture 101: Understanding the Sexualization of Women” by Shadia Duske where she talks about how males and females are sexualized in ads, which affects the younger generation when it comes to what they should be seeing at their age is good or bad. In “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence” in her essay Jean Kilbourne describes how media is using sexualized ads of men and women to get attention of people so the companies can sell their products. For briefer overview on this topic “Hidden Gender Stereotypes in TV Commercials” by Elif Kiran gives brief…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society continues to go through significant changes in gender roles at the workplace and home. In the meantime, television commercials used to be viewed as an effective media to convey messages. Narrowing down to the gender aspect, gender matters in advertising as studies have proved that stereotypes pervade mass media imagery. One topic that has attracted considerable attention is how commercials portrayed males and females. The existence of gender stereotyping in television commercials is particularly relevant because research suggests that these gender stereotypes impact adults’ attitudes and behaviors (Geis, Brown, Jennings, Walstedt, & Porter, 1984; MacKay & Covell, 1997).…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Annotated Bibliography

    • 1707 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Annotated Bibliography 9 Stycznia 2011 · by Malgorzata Wolska · in Badania. " Gender Stereotypes in Mass Media. Case Study: Analysis of the Gender Stereotyping Phenomenon in TV Commercials." Gender Stereotypes in Mass Media. Case Study: Analysis of the Gender Stereotyping Phenomenon in TV Commercials.…

    • 1707 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A good example on how on how advertisers use gender portrayals is that the male in a soap opera which makes an appearance in daytime television is caring and is not able to show his masculine side due to a women’s view of a men’s masculine side. Advertisers use portrayals of different men and women images to explore their motivations on what kind of commercials they would sit down for, and pay attention to. Craig supports his thesis by providing…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The 2009 film The Codes of Gender by Sut Jhally, shows how advertising effects the way society views these gender roles. Today, advertisements change our perception on how we believe men and women should behave. This paper will discuss how the sociological perspective has helped me to understand these gender codes, how these advertisements effect how I interact with other people and how other people interact with me. The sociological perspective has helped me to acknowledge the gender codes and the stereotypes that are made to go along with them.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Media And Gender Identity

    • 1764 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The so called objectification of women has become popular via media and some of these advertisements focuses on presenting women as an object for example : a package of cigarettes. This kind of representation teach us how important appearance is in defining social acceptability. In the media videos and posters most of the time reflect a man to be stronger then a women and we have were little examples in the movies or posters where media or movies displayed women muscular or stronger,smarter then the guys. And it is not a surprise that those type of tv shows who tries to change typical standards of the women : tv show Xena:Warrior Princess or the movie Lara Croft ,Mr and Mrs. Smith gets a lot of attention from the media and people and there is no surprise that both genders enjoys…

    • 1764 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most children are exposed to ads and media multiple times on a daily basis. Seeing the ideas presented in these media forms over and over again has a big impact on how children’s social institutions are formed. In many ads and films targeted towards children there is strong gender differences. Boys are represented with the color blue and action, while girls are represented with pink, and have caring, supporting roles in most forms of media. Youth media impacts children’s understanding of their masculinity or femininity by placing stereotypes and gender roles in their heads that they are then pressured to abide by.…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Bittersweet Truth: An Analysis of Wreck-It Ralph and Societal Trends Since the dawn of advertising, modern media has been used to reinforce stereotypes as well as cultural changes. This is arguably the most influential tool we have as a society, explaining human experiences in the simplest of terms and voicing the opinions and thoughts of many. While some forms of media reiterate the same harmful tropes, others break the mould and represent the very real lives of our population. This shift in perspectives can be seen in the popular children’s film…

    • 937 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The misrepresentation of women in the media is a large issue when it comes to how gender stereotypes are perpetuated. Young children are taught early on by various movies and television programs that there are certain attitudes, tasks, and positions for males to hold. They are taught that these behaviors, tasks and positions are different from those that women should hold based on their gender. The creation of these societal norms creates a divide when it comes to how men and women are to behavior respectively within a society. These gender roles are particularly noticeable when it comes to views on positions of power.…

    • 1509 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The exploitation of women in mass media is the use or portrayal of women in the mass media (such as television, film and advertising) to increase the appeal of media or a product to the detriment of, or without regard to, the interests of the women portrayed, or women in general. Feminists and other advocates of women's rights have criticized such exploitation. The most often criticized aspect of the use of women in mass media is sexual objectification. According to News 24, dismemberment can be a part of the objectification as well. Women are oftentimes considered objects instead of subjects.…

    • 1625 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Manstead and McCulloch (1981) investigated the roles of media and the gender stereotypes. They used content-analysis technique. They analysed all advertisements which did not portray children and fantasies and advertisements on repeat. They also noted figures of characterises e.g roles, reasons for using the product and whether they were product users or authorities on the product. Results shown that seventy percent of figures seen to give authoritative information about the product were men but sixty-five percent.…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    People are unaware of what is being presented to them through the media unless they analyze the significance behind the script. Further deconstructing the media’s script such as television, the most pervasive form of media, will surely summon the point that media is fundamental in creating the social norms. In addition, gender roles are being surfaced through many television shows, and stereotypes are distorted excessively among these shows. Two and a Half Men encompasses and enforces both gender roles and stereotypes towards men and women. This television series provides many examples enhancing how society view these gender constructions over time.…

    • 1038 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chandler illustrates the over representation of male figures in television through various examples such as how men outnumber women in T.V. by approximately 4 to 1 and in regards to children 's cartoons men outnumber female character 10 to 1. The emphasis of male characters isn 't the only difference in television as the roles each gender play are more often than not very stereotypical roles - women are portrayed as housewives, mothers and nurses where as men are shown as celebrities, business men, fathers and rather athletic. Men also are seen to have higher status jobs and where women are portrayed as having successful careers out with the home they are regularly shown as having miserable personal lives (Chandler n.d). This is a further example of how T.V portrays a false description of modern life as more and more women are in jobs of higher status. Its these portrayals of life however that can influence the young by normalising such stereotypes.…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In recent years women have escalated in the business world, and educationally more women receive a bachelor degree then men. Women are gaining power in the world yet in media, women are still misrepresented by old-fashioned stereotypes, such as the medical assistance, the secretary, the perfect house wife, the amazing mum, or the sexy prize to be won. The media has many effects on the public and with misrepresentations appearing on television can be a crucial in which the media can sway some ones thought process. It is easy for an audience to believe such stereotypes are true, especially if the stereotype is repeated again and again.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics