Gender Stereotypes In The Media Essay

In today’s culture, it is socially acceptable to treat specific crowds of people unequally, one of these groups is the modern day woman. Women and young girls are routinely degraded and stereotyped in numerous ways in media, in social interactions, and even in toys and clothing. In the words of Scott Richardson, a co-founder and director of the Sexuality & Gender Institute and an assistant professor at Millersville University, “My point in class that day was that we, as a society, have largely become mindless consumers of media that constantly socialize children to understand, embody, and perform gender and sexuality in early and narrowly defined ways” (30). “Social norms are actions or beliefs commonly accepted as normal behaviors by a …show more content…
According to Joan Olson, author of the article Breaking the Gender Barrier, “the media is notorious for promoting gender stereotypes” (18). In several ways this statement is true, the media, more times than not, represents women as objects of sexual affection or prizes to be won instead of an equal counterpart to men. Men, on the other hand, are represented in a multitude of ways such as being more intelligent, more athletic, and even superior to women. “Men are typically portrayed in beer commercials, and when women do appear, they are often dressed provocatively” (Olson 18). Then again, there are some places of safe havens for women in the media. There are television programs that not only include diversity of women characters, but also empowers them, too. An example of such programs is Orphan Black, which is a television series that airs on BBC America. In an interview conducted by Jill Pantozzi, Tatiana Maslany, who plays up to 12 different roles in the television series, believes that “so often the male perspective is our default perspective in television in film and in all kinds of different media and I think what this show [Orphan Black] does is it just goes,