Women vs. Men in the Media

The media's stereotypes in society today include both men and women. Television seems to devalue the importance of women in our society. It is a fact that women out number men in our society, however men out number women on most television shows. On dramas, cartoons, and even soap operas men tend to out number women. Even though the majority of the audience are female, the women who appear on television have their lives portrayed differently then the lives of their males. In TV shows, it shows men more employed than women.

Advertising feeds into stereotypes of both men and women in society as well. For example women are much more likely to appear in an advertisement for personal hygiene products than men. In these advertisements women are usually shown as domestic housewives. Men in commercials are more likely to hold positions of power.

Advertisements featuring men are usually shown as rare when it comes to domestic situations. When a man is portrayed in a commercial performing a simple household chore like washing his clothes, it is portrayed as unnatural or almost humorist. There is a Flash multi-purpose cleaner advertisement where a man offers to take over the job of scrubbing the floor from his wife. When the wife leaves, the husband uses Flash and demonstrates how effortless cleaning can be. When the wife returns, it appears as though he has scrubbed the whole floor; the wife is very happy and she rubs her husbands back. This commercial shows that cleaning is a woman's job and that if a man decides to help out with it, he should be praised. On the other hand, when a woman is shown in a male dominated position she is usually punished not rewarded.

Women face different stereotypes than men in regards to their sexuality. On television commercials and magazines advertisements, women are often shown as objects instead of human beings. It is not uncommon to look through a magazine and see advertisements that do not even have a picture of a complete woman just a body part or a section of her. The women in most advertisements posses a body image that is impossible for the average woman to ever have unless she starves herself.

The media teaches men to be a lot different, on most television shows men are shown as confident, arrogant, immature, and only concerned with getting the girl. Shows like The Bernie Mac Show and movies like the James Bond series all show at least a few of these qualities. It is rare that you will ever see a male TV star that is not confident. Males learn that if you do not know something, act like you do so you won't show any sign of weakness. This is why society sees it as acceptable for women to cry and men to brag. With men, the media sends the message to get the girl and get as many as you can.

Pop Culture and Sexism in the Presidential Race

This year’s election has been regarded as not just an election, but a social movement. Obama’s use of pop media and technology mobilized America’s voters in ways that the country has never seen before, with tools such as Facebook groups, popular art, and YouTube advertising. Obama has embraced the use of popular technology and plans to use it to make his presidency resemble his ideals for the way the office should be run, with priorities of transparency and being connected to voters. According to Newsweek, he plans on employing a senior or cabinet-level technology consultant, streaming live cabinet meetings on the Net, and utilizing Facebook for demonstrations and policy discussions.
There have also been several discussions about sexism in the presidential race, especially concerning Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. While Hillary was criticized for being too “masculine” and being “fake” when she got emotional during one of her speeches, Sarah was shielded from fully participating as a VP candidate, then criticized for her practices because she was being a “soccer mom” and a “pageant girl”. Rather than look at these women’s previous records in leadership and their responses to interviews and on the issues involved in the debate, it was easier for some to create images like these:





While these are definitely amusing, they are not the kind of focus that we need to bring to the electoral process.

The Meaning of Michelle

In a recent Newsweek article, the author wrote about our new First Lady and how her character will shape the images of both President Obama and the country as a whole. At a second glance, though, this observation about Michelle Obama carries with it a strongly gendered and racial image. The Newsweek author mentioned several noteworthy points about Michelle which Americans are looking to as an example. Her Princeton and Harvard Law education, according to the author, will challenge existing stereotypes about black women and black culture, because her assertiveness and confidence can show that it’s possible to be a strong, black woman without carrying the negative stereotype of “B***hiness” that goes along with female strength. A quote from a voter in the article talked about how it was a change to see “dark” women like Michelle Obama visible and valued in the media; even the media age we live in now, “lightness” seems to be associated more with beauty (think Halle Berry and Beyoncé Knowles). It was also interesting that the author of the article pointed out the changes in Michelle over the course of the campaign. At the beginning, she was labeled as being too forward and loud, and criticized for making innocent jokes about Barack; she restrained both of these natural characteristics in order to help her husband gain support and become more visible as a presidential candidate. Recently, she was on “The View”, and her image was one of an adoring wife and mother, complete with a subdued dress and pearls, just before the election. The interpretation in the media of this change has been that she was trying to “soften” her image, making her role in her family more traditionally feminine. It is also interesting that in the case of female candidates or wives of candidates, their image is observed almost totally through their dress – colors, details, designers and choice of clothing on a female in politics send a message about what kind of administration will run the White House. How interesting that even at this defining moment in our nation’s history, the election of the first Black president, politics are still influenced by the image of the wife and family as representations of the “man of the house” himself…

Hey Slut!

In today’s world of slang and informality, many women (and men) use derogatory terms as jokes or in casual conversation. Words like “slut,” “hoe,” and “bitch” are frequently used as jokes and are not given much thought otherwise. It is not uncommon to hear girls of all ages using these expressions in conversation with friends as a joke or over text messages.
But does this type of behavior transcend the surface meaning – a silly joke – and actually have deeper meaning and consequence than it appears? Males, of course, traditionally use these terms as insults to describe women. Now one can walk down the street and hear these terms in any variety of ways—from the traditional, insulting sense of the word, to the new way of using it, and perhaps the strangest way – as a friendly greeting. “What’s up hoe?” or “hey slut!” are two common ways of using these expressions.
By using such words in a casual manner, the goal is to take away the power attached to them – power that only the opposite sex could utilize before this kind of speech became common. Such is the case with the n word; some blacks use it when speaking with one another to remove the power associated with it in its negative usage. But is this really what it happening here? Or is using them, even if the purpose is to diminish their negative connotation, still just perpetrating the usage of these words to continue? Are we simply making these words more accessible and acceptable for anyone to use?
These questions continue to linger; only time will tell whether these derogatory terms will remain in our society or if they will fall by the wayside as people realize that perhaps they are only hurting the progress of society by continuing to use them.