Gendered Media: The Influence Of Media On Views Of Gender

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Gendered Media:The Influence of Mediaon Views of GenderJulia T. WoodDepartment of Communication, University of NorthCarolina at ChapelTHEMES IN MEDIAOf the many influences on how we view men andwomen, media are the most pervasive and one of the mostpowerful. Woven throughout our daily lives, mediainsinuate their messages into our consciousness at everyturn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes,many of which perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical, andlimiting perceptions. Three themes describe how mediarepresent gender. First, women are underrepresented whichfalsely implies that men are the cultural standard andwomen are unimportant or invisible. Second, men andwomen are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect andsustain socially endorsed views of gender. Third, depictionsof relationships between men and women emphasizetraditional roles and normalize violence against women. Wewill consider each of these themes in this section.times more often than ones about women (“Study ReportsSex Bias,” 1989), media misrepresent actual pro-portions ofmen and women in the population. This constant distortiontempts us to believe that there really are more men thanwomen and, further, that men are the cultural standard.MEDIA’S MISREPRESENTATION OFAMERICAN LIFEThe media present a distorted version of cultural lifein our country. According to media portrayals:Underrepresentation of WomenA primary way in which media distort reality is inunderrepresenting women. Whether it is prime-time television, in which there are three times as many white men aswomen (Basow, 1992 p. 159), or children’s program-ming,in which males outnumber females by two to one, ornewscasts, in which women make up 16% of newscastersand in which stories about men are included 10From Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture by Juliepermission of Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning. FaxWhite males make up two-thirds of the population. The women are less in number, perhaps because fewer than 10% live beyond 35. Those whodo, like their younger and male counterparts, arenearly all white and heterosexual. In addition tobeing young, the majority of women are beautiful,very thin, passive, and primarily concerned withrelationships and getting rings out of collars andcommodes. There are a few bad, bitchywomen, and they are not so pretty, not so subor-dinate, and not so caring as the good women.Most of the bad ones work outside of the home,which is probably why they are hardened and undesirable. The more powerful, ambitious men occupy themselves with important business deals,exciting adventures, and rescuing dependent females, whom they often then assault sexually.Chapter 9, pp. 231-244.1994. Reprinted with31

I LIVINGWITHMEDIAOther myths about what is standard are similarly fortifiedby communication in media. Minorities are even less visiblethan women, with African-Americans appearing only rarely(Gray, 1986; Stroman, 1989) and other ethnic minoritiesbeing virtually nonexistent. In children's programming whenAfrican-Americans do appear, almost invariably they appearin supporting roles rather than as main characters(O'Connor, 1989). While more African-Americans areappearing in prime-time television, they are too often cast instereotypical roles. In the 1992 season, for instance, 12 ofthe 74 series on commercial networks included largeAfrican-American casts, yet most featured them instereotypical roles. Black men are presented as lazy andunable to handle authority as lecherous, and/or as unlawful,while females are portrayed as domineering or as sexobjects ("Sights Sounds, and Stereotypes," 1992). Writing in1993, David Evans (1993, p. 10) criticized television forstereotyping black males as athletes and entertainers. Theseroles wrote Evans, mislead young black male viewers intothinking success "is only a dribble or dance step away" andblind them to other, more realistic ambitions. Hispanics andAsians are nearly absent, and when they are presented it isusually as villains or criminals (Lichter, Lichter, Rothman,Sr Amundson, 1987).Also under-represented is the single fastest growinggroup of Americans- older people. As a country, we areaging so that people over 60 make up a major part of ourpopulation; within this group, women significantlyoutnumber men (Wood, 1993c). Older people not only areunder-represented in media but also are representedinaccurately In contrast to demographic realities, mediaconsistently show fewer older women than men,presumably because our culture worships youth and beautyin women. Further, elderly individuals are frequentlyportrayed as sick, dependent, fumbling, passive, images notborne out in real life. Distorted depictions of older peopleand especially older women in media, however, can deludeus into thinking they are a small, sickly, and unimportantpart of our population.The lack of women in the media is paralleled by thescarcity of women in charge of media. Only about 5% oftelevision writers, executives, and producers are women(Lichter, Lichter, Sr Rothman, 1986). Ironically, while twothirds of journalism graduates are women, they make up lessthan 2% of those in corporate management of newspapersand only about 5% of newspaper publishers ("Women inMedia," 1988). Female film directors are even more scarce,as are executives in charge of MTV. It is probably notcoincidental that so few women are behind the scenes of anindustry that so consistently portrays women negativelySome media analysts (Mills, 1988) believe that if morewomen had positions of authority at executive levels, mediawould offer more positive portrayals of women.Stereotypical Portrayals of Women and MenIn general, media continue to present both women andmen in stereotyped ways that limit our perceptions of humanpossibilities. Typically men are portrayed as active,adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive and largelyuninvolved in human relationships. Just as' consistent withcultural views of gender are depictions of women as sexobjects who are usually young, thin beautiful, passive,dependent, and often incompetent and dumb. Femalecharacters devote their primary energies to improving theirappearances and taking care of homes and people. Becausemedia pervade our lives, the ways they misrepresent gendersmay distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive asnormal and desirable for men and women.Stereotypical portrayals of men. According to J. A.Doyle (1989, p. 111), whose research focuses on masculinity children's television typically shows males as "aggressive, dominant, and engaged in exciting activities fromwhich they receive rewards from others for their masculine'accomplishments." Relatedly, recent studies reveal that themajority of men on prime-time television are independent,aggressive, and in charge (McCauley, Thangavelu, & ortionately depicts men as serious confident,competent, powerful, and in high-status 'positions.Gentleness in men, which was briefly evident in the 1970s,has receded as established male characters are redrawn to bemore tough and distanced from others (Boyer, 1986).Highly popular films such as Lethal Weapon, Predator, Daysof Thunder, Total Recall, Robocop Die Hard, and Die Harderstar men who embody the stereotype of extreme masculinityMedia, then reinforce long-standing cultural ideals ofmasculinity:' Men are presented as hard, tough, independent,sexually aggressive, unafraid, violent, totally in control ofall emotions, and-above all-in no way feminineEqually interesting is how males are not presented. J. D.Brown and K. Campbell (1986) report that men are seldomshown doing housework. Doyle (1989) notes that boys andmen are rarely presented caring for others. B. Horovitz(1989) points out they are typically represented asuninterested in and incompetent at homemaking, cooking,and child care. Each season's new ads for cooking andcleaning supplies include several that caricature men asincompetent buffoons, who are klutzes in the kitchen and nobetter at taking care of children. While children's books havemade a limited attempt to depict women engaged inactivities outside of the home there has been little paralleleffort to show men involved in family and home life. Whensomeone is shown taking care of a child, it is usually themother, not the father. This perpetuates a negativestereotype of men as uncaring and uninvolved in family life.Stereotypical portrayals of women. Media's images ofwomen also reflect cultural stereotypes that depart markedlyfrom reality As we have already seen, girls and

7. Gendered MediaJILLI remember when I was little I used to read booksfrom the boys' section of the library because they weremore interesting. Boys did the fun stuff and theexciting things. My mother kept hying to get me to readgirls' books, but I just couldn't get into them. Whycan't stories about girls be full of adventure andbravery? I know when I'm a mother, I want anydaughters of mine to understand that excitement isn'tjust for boys.women are dramatically underrepresented. In prime-timetelevision in 1987, fully two-thirds of the speakingwere for men. Women are portrayed as significantlyyounger and thinner than women in the population as awhole, and most are depicted as passive, dependent onmen, and enmeshed in relationships or housework (Davis,1990). The requirements of youth and beauty in womeneven influence news shows, where female newscasters areexpected to be younger, more physically attractive, and lessoutspoken than males (Craft, 1988; Sanders 6, Rock, 1988).Despite educators' criticism of self-fulfilling prophecies thatdiscourage girls from success in math and science, thatstereotype was dramatically reiterated in 1992 when Matteloffered a new talking Barbie doll. What did she say? "Mathclass is tough," a message that reinforces the stereotype thatwomen cannot do math ("Mattel Offers Trade-In," 1992).From children's programming in which the few existingfemale characters typically spend their time watching malesdo things (Feldman & Brown, 1984; Woodman, 1991), toMTV, which routinely pictures women satisfying men'ssexual fantasies (Pareles, 1990; Texier, 1990), mediareiterate the cultural image of women as dependent,ornamental objects whose primary functions are to lookgood, please men, and stay quietly on the periphery of life.Media have created two images of women: good womenand bad ones. These polar opposites are often juxtaposedagainst each other to dramatize differences in theconsequences that befall good and bad women. Goodwomen are pretty, deferential, and focused on home, familyand caring for others. Subordinate to men, they are usuallycast as victims, angels, martyrs, and loyal wives andhelpmates. Occasionally, women who depart fromtraditional roles are portrayed positively, but this is doneeither by making their career lives invisible, as with ClaireHuxtable, or by softening and feminizing working women tomake them more consistent with traditional views offemininity. For instance, in the original script, Cagney andLacey were conceived as strong, mature, independentwomen who took their work seriously and did it well. It took6 years for writers Barbara Corday and Barbara Avedon tosell the script to CBS, and even then they had to agree tosubdue Cagney's and Lacey'sabilities to placate producer Barney Rosenzweig, whocomplained, "These women aren't soft enough. Thesewomen aren't feminine enough" (Faludi, 1991, p. 150).While female viewers wrote thousands of letters praisingthe show, male executives at CBS continued to force writers to make the characters softer, more tender, and less sureof themselves (Faludi, 1991, p. 152). The remaking ofCagney and Lacey illustrates the media's bias in favor ofwomen who are traditionally feminine and who are not tooable, too powerful, or too confident. The rule seems to bethat a woman may be strong and successful if and only ifshe also exemplifies traditional stereotypes of femininitysubservience, passivity, beauty, and an identity linked toone or more men.The other image of women the media offer us is the evilsister of the good homebody Versions of this image are thewitch, bitch, whore, or nonwoman, who is represented ashard, cold, aggressive-all of the things a good woman is notsupposed to be. Exemplifying the evil woman is Alex inFatal Attraction, which grossed more than 100 million inits first four months (Faludi, 1991, p. 113). Yet Alex wasonly an extreme version of how bad women are generallyportrayed. In children's literature, we encounter witches andmean stepmothers as villains, with beautiful and passivefemales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as theirgood counterparts.Prime-time television favorably portrays pretty, nurturing,other-focused women, such as Claire Huxtable on "TheCosby Show," whose career as an attorney never enteredstorylines as much as her engagement in family matters.Hope in "Thirtysomething" is an angel, committed tohusband Michael and daughter Janey. In the biographieswritten for each of the characters when the show was indevelopment, all male characters were defined in terms oftheir career goals, beliefs, and activities. Hope's biographyconsisted of one line: "Hope is married to Michael" (Faludi,1991, p. 162). Hope epitomizes the traditional woman, somuch so in fact that in one episode she refers to herself asJune Cleaver and calls Michael "Ward," thus reprising thetraditional family of the 1950s as personified in "Leave It toBeaver" (Faludi, 1991, p. 161). Meanwhile, prime-timetypically represents ambitious, independent women aslonely, embittered spinsters who are counterpoints to "good"women.Stereotypical Images of Relationships Between Menand WomenGiven media's stereotypical portrayals of women andmen, we shouldn't be surprised to fmd that relationshipsbetween women and men are similarly depicted in waysthat reinforce stereotypes. Four themes demonstrate howmedia reflect and promote traditional arrangements betwee

From Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture by Julie Chapter 9, pp. 231-244. 1994. Reprinted with 3 1 permission of Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning. Fax Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender Julia T. Wood Department of Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel

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