Woman are definitely given the lesser roles and the less exciting news stories to cover or documentaries to explore. This is not only true for the live media such as news coverage, but for the written media such as the newspaper as well. Based on consumer demand, it is expected that this is the way the media should be. However, the give and take of the media also demands a certain visual response from consumers.
Consumers take advantage of woman and their bodies. Although there is a significant demand for male models, it is woman model that are mostly in demand and are paid quiet a salary for showing off their bodies. There are clothes models, bathing suit models, underwear model and so forth. Take for example Victoria Secret. Their clothes and undergarments are for woman only. Although men get to reap the rewards of their significant other’s purchase of underwear and sexy lingerie. That is a whole other categories, lingerie models. This is the “job” that these woman have picked, however, in my opinion, I think it is degrading to prance around in lingerie and underwear for a living. It is degrading to me to have people, men, staring at my body and probably fantasizing about that. However, some woman think this is great and probably have an inflated ego because of it. Also, people outside of the media agree with this. This is what the media had portrayed as acceptable.
The media gives lesser jobs to woman. If you aren’t a model strutting you wares for money, then chances are you will be covering a 3 minute segment on the news. This could be anything from whether it is going to continue raining for the next 24 hours to a kitten caught in a tree and whether it would be saved. Woman in the written media don’t get to cover exciting news and documentaries, at least most of the time. Infrequently will you hear about a woman journalist sent to another country to cover the dangerous happenings of that country and told to us via live news stream. The reason for this is that society deems woman as helpless victims who are best left to tend to the children and the house. Society believes that woman aren’t strong enough or capable enough to handle such dangerous places. What an insult. It isn’t the 1800’s anymore where woman are primarily put on this earth to serve their man. This is the twenty first century where woman are capable of anything that a man can do. We just need to given the chance.
Television still perpetuates gender stereotypes because it reflects dominant social values. In reflecting them television also supports them. One might expect is a society still dominant by men dominant TV production, and influenced by all of these stereotypes unconsciously reproduce a masculine perspective perpetuating dominant gender stereo types. As in the news media it is taught that this is a “man’s world” and therefore with this stereo type in place, woman are given the role of damsel in distress and the male is give the roles of hero.
: I appreciate your views on how genders in the media are portrayed to you, but of course, everybody’s views are not alike. Take mines for instance, I believe that the media has diffidently changed from the old stereotype metaphors that were shown in the movie “Sexual Stereotypes: Superman and the Bride.” You are absolutely right that when it comes to TV production men still are dominating it, but there are now more women in the industry then there ever were before; thanks to the demand for more women shows. Because this society has changed with the time, multimedia would not have been able to get away with depicting the same sexual stereotypes of yester years. Women have come a long way and their voices have been heard to—stop falsely portraying them as submissive, weak, dumb, and needy females. There have many been positive changes in the media one of them is the honoring of women for their tenacity, hard work, and creativity in helping to chance the portrayal of women in the media. There are so many women now being shown on television as well as in the movies working side by side with men in action roles; they are also seen as head of their households, and even in roles where they are the boss and men are the employees. It truly is a wonderful thing to have more positive female role models in the media to offset the many false images in advertisement of what beauty and sexy should be when looking at a woman.
ReplyDelete“Consumers take advantage of woman and their bodies.”
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. To take advantage of someone’s body is semantically improper for the situation. Advantage is a superior position in relation to someone and to take something is to do it by force or without necessarily having their consent. These women put themselves in these situation knowing full well what the repercussions are. To say someone is taken advantage of is implying someone used their strength/will/circumstance to over-come and “Take” them. These women aren’t saying “no.” Perhaps expecting some extents of attention, but this isn’t coerced.
“Take for example Victoria Secret. Their clothes and undergarments are for woman only. Although men get to reap the rewards of their significant other’s purchase of underwear and sexy lingerie. That is a whole other categories, lingerie models.”
Fair enough. While the underwear is supposed to make u more appealing Victoria Secret is still advertising to women. They would not be so objectified or forcing us to feel inadequate if buyers did not allow it.
“This is the “job” that these woman have picked, however, in my opinion, I think it is degrading to prance around in lingerie and underwear for a living.”
To be fair, they may not feel degraded doing so. Some women enjoy the attention or they might be proud of their bodies enough to want to share it and not necessarily to be condescending. You’re right, they do choose to do it, but you’re also not being fair to fetishism.
Whether or not it’s conditioned, men [and women] can have an attraction to the shape or what it does to the form, feel, taste, smell, etc of lingerie. Yes, while women as a human being shouldn’t be objectified, there is room and it’s perfectly fair for someone to be attracted to lingerie itself and how it looks/feels/tastes/smells/etc on a person. No, women shouldn’t be seen as only means to sexual ends, but I do believe there is room for modeling and fashion, despite what we might plug in to it.
Unfortunately I will have to disagree with some points in your blog. I agree that in many circumstances regarding the media in particular women are objectified and are given lesser jobs. Models get paid millions of dollars to walk around in their underwear or basically nude in the sheerness of the already barely there underwear. As you have said, some models have claimed that this makes them feel sexy and empowered by so many people staring at them, fantasying about them. In a society like this were women are subliminally taught to objectify themselves for male admiration, becoming one of the most desired objects in the world would be pleasing to the model because she has filled the subconscious desire of societal behavioral gender roles. In scripted cinema women are still characterized into lower behaviorisms and status in several popular sitcoms, although recently this has begun to change in shows like The Good Wife and Weeds with strong female leads. The point that you made that I disagree with is the coverage done by female newscasters. I live on channels, 7, 11, and 4 throughout the weekday. From car chases, to homicides, theft, accidents, weather related incidents, celebrity coverage and everything that one would expect from LA news is covered by both male and female anchors and on seen reporters. The only thing that I have seen that has only been covered by a man are the Sports Segments. The only gender stereotype I heard used by a male anchor was in regards to two young female drivers in a high speed chase recently were called “Wild Women”, in which more focus was given to the fact that they were women and not simply another LA high speed chase driver. However this chase was covered by both men and women.
ReplyDelete