Women's Portrayal In The Media
Tanya Bui
Agitational Communication 165
Professor Von Blum
December 2, 2008
Misrepresentations of Women in the Media
Everyday, we are bombarded by the media’s usage of advertisements, television, billboards, magazines, and the internet. What all of these sources have in common is the use of visual imagery to sell the concepts of values, worth, popularity, and more prevalently, sex. Today, advertisers are displaying sexual images of women in order to grasp their audience’s attention towards their products. Although this seems to be a successful marketing tool for several sources, women are being portrayed in the most dehumanizing ways. People’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about females can be easily influenced by constantly encountering these sexual images. This becomes a frightening concern for women because they are vulnerable and susceptible to men’s desires, especially while living in a culture that has been excessively male-dominant. It is quite common for women to get dragged into society’s expectations of how they should act, even if it is completely harmful and demeaning to their own ethics. Now that it is the twenty-first century, there are still many problems regarding women such as unequal pay and job advancement, sexual harassment, and the demeaning representation of women in the media. Out of these, we should focus and emphasize more on the issue of women’s repugnant portrayal in the mass media before it further affects our future generations. There must be an end to depicting women as sexual objects, start noticing their existence, and treating them as real people.
Women are often categorized as either housewives or sex objects in the mass media. Based on gender socialization, women are typically passive subordinates and they must grant men’s wishes and desires. According to the article, “Violence Against Women in Mass Media,” females are “repeatedly depicted in submissive, silenced, and even victimized roles” (Katele). The media brings...
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