Gender Stereotypes In Mass Media

Literature Review

The mass media plays an indispensable role in shaping the beliefs and attitudes of the modern society. The media consists of books, radio, television and the internet. Among all the media platforms enunciated above, the internet and the television tend to be the most influential in the society (Ali, Bat, & Batool, 2015). By creating a particular type of message, the media manipulates the attitudes and opinions of people. Intricate research in this particular crocus divulges that gender stereotypes in media oftentimes appear as a method of creating persuasion to a specific target audience.

According to Carter (2011), people tend to build cognitive patterns around the information they receive. The cognitive schemes denote dependable

They tend to indicate “the proper place” of girls and boys in the society. Girls are shown to be babysitters nursing dolls or even cleaning the house with a pink cleaning kit, whereas boys play computer games or do sports. Besides, the media plays a crucial role in the creation of social norms. For this reason, gender roles, though generally accepted by the society, tend to be perpetuated by the media. Media is the main platform that pushes gender roles through advertisements. It is through media such as television that gender stereotypes are perpetuated. Moreover, Wood (2012) claims that in mass media, women are portrayed as having less significant roles than men, and are more often than not depicted in stereotypical roles, such as mothers or wives.

To sum everything up, it is evident from the foregoing that the media has functioned to perpetuate gender stereotypes in the society. Through the media, women are under-presented while men are over-presented. While men present by the media as the dominant group, women are presented as the weaker and subject group. Furthermore, the media has been said to present stereotypical relationships that persist between women and

It is a non-profit organization that functions to advance equity for women as well as girls through education, advocacy, and research. The founders of this association were Ellen Swallow Richards and Marion Talbot. At the onset of the organization, its primary purpose was to find more opportunities for women to utilize their education, thus opening doors for other women to attend school. Formerly, AAUW was referred to as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA). Until the 1960s, the organization was majorly apolitical. In the 1960s, the number of women in the workforce had heightened, so that women made up 38 percent of workers by the culmination of the 1960s. Further, women graduating from college were seeking employment. For these reasons, the membership in 1960 increased to 147,920 women, most of them belonging to the middle