Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Gendered Media

Relating to the reading on the social construction of gender, I began thinking about the many portrayals of gender in the current media. I found an article that discusses the stereotypical depictions of men and women in today's media. I found the article to be very interesting in that it brought to light many aspects of the media that we consider "normal" and don't usually actively notice. For example, one of the portrayals that the article mentioned was the over-emphasis of men instead of women in the media and the usual roles that each gender plays. Men are rarely presented doing housework and instead away at work, while women are more times than not presented caring for the children, if there are any, and tending to the house. This depiction presents men as seemingly uncaring and not involved in the household life. On a related note, the media also tends to portray men as high status employees and women as lower status. I find both of these arguments interesting because I believe that they are accurate in that these depictions provide us with stereotypes about how men and women are expected to behave in our society through the media. As young boys grow up seeing men being portrayed in these ways, they may feel inadequate if they do not achieve high level successes. In contrast, as young girls grow up seeing women less often in the business world and more at home, they could end up feeling intimidated from attempting to enter the business world as a result because they were shown that women generally stay home. I also find it interesting that these stereotypes about men and women in the media tend to downgrade the caring side of men and the almost "career capability" of women. I now pose this question: why then, with the increased prevalence of women in higher status positions than before and the recent general stabilizing of "fatherly" and "motherly" roles in the house, are these portrayals of men and women in the media presented in this article still present?


Here is the link to the article: http://www.udel.edu/comm245/readings/GenderedMedia.pdf

2 comments:

  1. I find this article very intriguing because although I have seen my fair share of movies, I have never realized how prevalent these stereotypes truly are. Any movies that do not follow these stereotypes and have women who are successful business women, or men that are stay at home fathers, usually have a story line that includes a fight of some sort between the male and female role. I hope that one day, and one day soon, movies can be made without gender stereotypes or stereotypes whatsoever.

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  2. I also like this article because it talks specifically about the relationship between gendered media and rape culture.

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