Essay On Gender Representation In Mass Media

In the entertaining article “Turning Boys Into Girls”, Michelle Cottle enlightens the readers of how unrealistic depictions in media and advertisements are increasing men’s attention to self image in order to show the damaging effects media has when targeting the insecurities of men and women.

In his article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” Steve Craig describes how sellers differentiate and analyze sex by trying to use the buyers’ fantasies to match the expectations of ones’ age and sex which allows them to use their marketing funds more efficiently. According to Craig, we are living in a patriarchal society, where the man are the ones placing these advisements in society and creating trends. His analysis of four distinctive television advertisements is going to still try to largely uphold a patriarchal social structure. Although, on the surface these advisements may appear to be empowering both genders, it is still copying culture’s ideology of gender.

The studies of this article examine the images of men and women that advertisements perpetuate. Mass media is a widely accessible resource that presents positive and negative portrayals. In today’s society, the traditional differences between genders are constantly reinforced. The male figure is usually characterized as the strong, successful, dominant gender. When advertisements create a target message for men, they exploit the male ego. This means that men are thought provoked to look or be

More and more in advertising today is focused on sex. From advertisements for video games to clothing, companies use risqué or sexy advertisements to sell products. Clearly because these kinds of ads continue to be created they must be helping company's marketing efforts. Some people think that these ads negatively portray women. Jean Kilbourne is the author of the article, “Two Ways Women Can Get Hurt.” She is recognized for her efforts and analysis of the portrayal of women in advertising. Kilbourne is also known for her renowned research of alcohol and tobacco advertising. She has a great deal to say in the essay I read regarding women and how they are depicted in advertising. I feel Kilbourne interprets some of her selected ads in unfair

Mass media represent a powerful force in modern societies as they shape public discourse and influence public opinion by transmitting social, political and cultural values.

Advertisements paint a picture of how individuals are supposed to act and how they can show that they are either masculine or feminine. The advertisements that were shown in The Codes of Gender: Identity

There is definitely a problem when we talk about gender equality and sexism. It's everywhere: in movies, commercials on television, in music videos, at the workplace and even at school. The gender biases are blatant. One of the sources of the problem lies in the media and the way the media portrays women.

One of the myriad key issues that have been historically tackled by women’s movements is related to the relationship between the images of women as presented in mass media and their social roles. The underlying assumption is that these images have some sort of detrimental impact upon both individual consciousness and collective social life. For instance, the very underrepresentation of women, including their stereotypical portrayal, may symbolically capture the position of women in society i.e. their real lack of power. This aspect throws light on their “symbolic annihilation” by the media (Gayle Tuchman 1979). According to Gerbner, just as representation in the media signifies social existence, so too underrepresentation and by extension,

Nowadays, in society, the role of male and female have changed dramatically, as opposed to the prominent roles in history. Today women are changing to break out of the mold that which our society has placed her in. This is cannot be when it comes to role representation in the different advertisements. Nowadays different organization from medium to large are spending millions of dollars on developing their marketing strategies. They spent countless hours to study their target audience to study them so that they can attract them a better way to their competitors.

We all claim to be in 21st century where we don’t differentiate among boys and girls but still if a girl wants to ride a plane and a boy wishes to wear pink, we tell them to perform their stereotyped gender roles. It shows that gender discrimination still prevails. Moreover we are stuck in stagnant society which is resisting any kind of change. At the same time, many social institutions such as mass media are practicing gender stereotype. If media is gendered, how can we expect our society to behave in any different way towards gender? This article focuses on how media especially advertisements highlights gender stereotypical images of both men and women.

The objectification of women contains the act of ignoring the personal and intellectual capacities and potentialities of a female; and reducing a women’s value/worth or role in society to that of an instrument for the sexual pleasure that she can produce in minds of another. The representation of women using sexualized images that have increased significantly in the amount and also the severity of the images that’s been used explicitly throughout the 20th century. Advertisement generally represent women as sexual objects, subordinated to men, and even as objects of sexual violence, and such advertisements contribute to discrimination against women in the workplace, and normalize attitudes which results in sexual harassment and even violence

TOPIC: How does Media portray gender, and the effects it has on the 21st century individual?

According to the Oxford dictionary gender is defined as being male or female, often used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. For example Biology says 'It 's a Girl! ', and Gender says 'We 'll buy those pink outfits, the Barbie’s and the Dolls House!". One might be born a woman or a man, but that does not necessarily mean that one is therefore born to be either a housewife/homemaker. The media and advertising are at fault for how gender is portrayed on adverts they create gender roles which the public perceive as the correct way to behave. Lips (2001: p14) said that Gender role refers to the attitudes, behaviour, and activities that are socially defined as appropriate for each sex & are learned through the socialization process. This has all created a gender stereotype. The media are a forceful source of gender stereotyping. In adverts women are portrayed as the unintelligent consumer, socially conscious of her purchases, dependant on men and sex objects whereas men are perceived as a figure of authority, handy men and intelligent decision makers. Advertisements try to persuade the public into believing this is how women and men are, want to be or should be. In this essay I will be discussing how femininity is represented in contemporary advertisements.

This research paper presents a content analysis on the portrayal of women in advertisements. This paper is written to better understand the stereotypes of women in advertising. The paper will also include the harsh realities female receivers have to face due to the portrayal of unrealistically thin and technologically perfected super models. Many women are portrayed as sexual objects and are constantly being degraded. Few examples of using sex appeal will also be discussed in this paper.

In today’s world, the media consists of so many representations and ideas about men and women that though it can be argued that there is no straight-forward effect, it has been accepted that it does in some way affect our sense of identity. The number of hours of television that a person is exposed to in his lifetime does support the argument that a human inadvertently at times uses television as a reference point. For example, fictional romances in television or in the movie shows how one should behaves in a romantic or in a friendly relationship while magazines for women and men churn out advices on all aspects of one’s life from how to manage your finances, how to discipline your kids, how to groom oneself and what the latest fashions are.