Something that has been on my mind for quite awhile is the media. I don’t think we truly realize the extent to which the media subconsciously affects our minds on a daily basis. We see several commercials and ads on T.V everyday, but do we really pay attention to their message? Although it may not be as strikingly apparent nowadays, the media does a lot to push gender roles and perpetuate stereotypes about women, most of which are often misconstrued or inaccurate. Media uses these skewed stereotypes to portray a misrepresentation of women, which consequently manipulates and shapes the attitudes, opinions, and views of the public. For this week’s post, I wanted to look at this problem in more depth by analyzing the structure of commercials and T.V. shows and specify the gender stereotypes they utilize.

Commercials are a vast source of gender stereotyping mainly because they are typically adapted to specifically a male or female target. From a general standpoint, women are more often presented in commercials because they are usually seen as responsible for making everyday purchases. When men are shown, they are generally advertising cars, alcohol, cigarettes, business products or investments, whereas women are shown advertising cosmetics and domestic products. Women are also more likely to be portrayed in a home environment performing domestic chores such as laundry and cooking, unlike men, who are usually shown in the outdoors. Thus the media is creating a societal norm and pushing gender roles by showcasing the idea that women are typically stay at home moms who cook and clean all day, contrary to men who do the work outside the house. Another important thing to note is a phenomenon known as face-ism present in the majority of commercials. The face-ism phenomenon essentially consists of showing the entire figure of women in ads and close-up shots of men. This expresses the idea that body image of women is more highly scrutinized and placed at a higher importance than that of men’s.

According to research by University of Houston Professor Steve Craig, women are presented in commercials in several variants.  For example, one of the most popular is portraying a woman as housewife whose main problem is lack of ideas for dinner. The other examples are less traditional, however, still very stereotypical. Many commercials portray women as female “vamps” or in other words sex objects who exist to primarily service men. They mostly appear in the commercials directed to men. When a beautiful woman accepts and praises male cosmetics or a product directed towards the male audience, it is treated by men as a guarantee of its quality. Another type of stereotyping in media is when ads portray women whose major concern is to preserve their beauty. Hence, she presents a healthy life style, is physically active, and uses a wide range of body and facial cosmetics. The problem with portraying women like this is that we observe mainly the presence of very thin actresses in these type of commercials. This consequently leads to the the faulty assumption that only thin women can be beautiful and healthy. As a result, the female audience generally fall into the obsession with their weight, which leads to negative effects, including low self-esteem, confidence, unhealthy dieting techniques, and even starvation.

In more recent commercials, gender roles are being pushed through advertisement even on young children. Girls are often portrayed as playing with dolls and easy-bake ovens, whereas boys are seen playing with action figures, trucks, and anything involved with sports. This perpetuates a false stereotype that girls never play with action figures and boys never play with easy-bake ovens, when that is not necessarily the case.

When looking at popular T.V. shows like The Big Bang Theory for example, there was one consistently present female lead in the earlier seasons, Penny. Penny’s character was that of the stereotypical female. She was presented as the ditzy, attractive neighbor who existed solely to create sexual tension between herself and one of the show’s leading men, Leonard Hofstadter. As the show progressed, characters developed and more females were introduced, but Penny’s character still exists to primarily create romantic tension. The portrayal of such stereotypes often causes the public to change their perspective on women and causes them to form the misconception that females are dumb, bemused, and/or simply present to attract men.

Sources:

Lantagne, Allison. “Gender Roles in Media.” The Huffington Post, 14 May 2014. Web.  <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-lantagne/gender-roles-media_b_5326199.html&gt;.

Pryor, Debra; Knupfer, Nancy Nelson. “Gender Stereotypes and Selling Techniques in Television Advertising: Effects on Society,” 1997. Web. <http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/16/c4/8c.pdf>.