If you were to ask a number of individuals what an empowered female character should be like, chances are you won’t get the same answer. As quoted by Amelia Richards, “In this wave of feminism, you’re as likely to run into women who defend, enjoy, and create pornography as you are to come across feminists who see pornography as the ultimate oppressor”, meaning that in this day and age our image of strong females has become expansive (Body Image p.197). Although there is no set definition for what makes a female character empowering, I believe intelligence, compassion, and durability are all qualities we like to see in strong female characters. Lately, I’ve noticed video games being criticized for encouraging gender stereotyping and female objectification.
A quite common misconception of advertising is that only women are sexually objectified to sell a product, when in most cases men are just as sexually glorified. Men are shown in an array of different types of ads such as ones for cologne, razors, alcohol, etcetera. Depending on the product being sold there is a very distinguishable type of man being shown. Classy men in suits, manly guys with large muscles and excessive facial hair, or men surrounded by varying amounts of beautiful women. These three general types of males are depicted this way because that is generally how most men strive to be.
For as long as media has been around, women have been sexualized in order to sell products. It’s a known fact by brands and consumers alike: sex sells. No one can deny this fact, it’s everywhere. Turn on your radio, you’ll hear songs describing women as nothing more than pieces of meat, objects to look at. Turn on your televison and you’ll see advertisements for inherentlyunsexual products like beer or a burger, but it will accompanied by a half naked woman. Walk into any convenience store, and you will find half a dozen magazine with airbrushed models in bikinis, some of these models so young that they cannot even drive. At what age does it become okay to start sexualizing women, or is it never okay? Some would say the age of legality, which is eighteen, but young Hollywood starlets such as Kylie Jenner and Ariel Winter were victims of the media’s obsession with sexualization before they even turned sixteen. It is an understatement to say that the media has gone too far in many instances. It’s as if as soon as girls reach the age of puberty, they fair game to the media as objects of scrutiny and sexualization. It has gone from bad to worse. The way the media sexualizes women, especially famous teenage girls, is wrong and has
Ron Burgundy: "I'm a man who discovered the wheel, and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a 1/3 the size of us...It's science."
It’s important for both young girls and women to see their gender portrayed as strong and capable of taking care of themselves. The main character on Once Upon a Time, Emma Swan, is a strong female character that has never been reduced to just a love interest. She has always been the writer of her own story. One more example of a strong female is Jennifer Jareau from Criminal Minds. She balances work and her family nearly flawlessly, and shows that women are capable of having a family and a career. Clarke Griffin, from The 100, is one of the strongest characters, male or female, that I’ve seen on TV in a long time. She leads her people fearlessly, and she is never looked at any differently because of her gender. On top of that, she is canonically bisexual. Arrow and The Flash are also good examples of strong women. None of the characters on either of those shows rely on other people to save them. One character on Arrow, Felicity Smoak, is a hacker. She saves her friends’ lives from behind her computer on an almost daily basis. While she is not a conventionally ‘strong’ woman, she is still able to take care of herself, and she isn’t treated like a lesser human being because she is a female. That, to me, constitutes a strong woman.
As a feminist and literary enthusiast, is the real problem with empowering the female protagonist associated with the lack of genre exploration or the deep-rooted ideals of behaving according to gender roles?
Shifting away from a traditional feminine image is a concept woven throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, specifically exploring the balance of power between the masculine and feminine. As the narrator begins her descent into madness, her fascination with the wallpaper continues and the narrator becomes “the exemplary subject of power/knowledge” (Crewe 274). The narrator is stripping that power away from the masculine figure. When she first requested to change the wallpaper John refuses on the grounds of “nothing was worse for a nervous patient to give way to such fancies” (28), John wants to dismiss her fanciful feminine imagination as it threatens his sense of control, and “fear can masquerade as calm authority when…embodied in ‘the weaker sex’” (Shumaker 593). However, we see this alter as both he and Jennie become increasingly fascinated with her behaviour and the wallpaper itself, “I’ve caught him several times looking at the paper!” (35) conveying that as the narrator becomes more involved with the paper she is regaining her power over the household. Gilman may also be suggesting that this break away from performing roles can manifest shame or uneasiness, Jennie after being caught staring, reacts “as if she had been caught stealing” (35). She is described as looking “angry” (35) at the prospect of being caught observing the object of the ‘mad woman’ of the house’s obsession. Jennie recognising herself being a part of this power shift becomes uneasy, just as Girlie feels
Everywhere you turn, there are magazine covers, movies, reality TV shows that portray woman in a sexual light. When was the last time that we as a society sat down and realized the effect that this is having on young girls, teens and even grown women. The portrayal of women as sexual objects in these and many other types of media have greatly affected the mindset of society. What affects has this had you ask? There are there main effects that we will explore. First, is the effect it has on their self-image. Second, is the effect on how they portray themselves in their relationships. Third is the effect it has on their mental state.
As long as the feminine standard lacks force, strength, and power, girls won’t want to be just girls. They don’t want to be the stereotypical tender, submissive, peace-loving women that are portrayed by the media. Strong qualities in women have become despised due to their weakness. The obvious remedy was to create a feminine character with all the strength of previous superheroes such as Superman and Batman, along with all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
The purpose of this experiment was to determine the extent to which women are presented as sex objects in magazines. Previous research by Stankiewic and Rosselli (2008) resulted in 51.80% of advertisements in magazines that featured women, and portrayed them as sex objects. The particular way in which objectification is defined, and thus the resulting rates at which women are portrayed as objects, had varied by study. The objectification of women in advertisements also varied by magazine type.
"For most of history, anonymous was a woman", quotes Virginia Woolf. (1) Throughout history, women’s lives were restricted to domesticity and family, and they were left oppressed and without political voice. Over the decades the roles of women have dramatically changed from chattels belonging to their husbands to gaining independence. Women became famous activists, thinkers, writers, and artists, like Frida Kahlo who was an important figure for women’s independence. The price women paid in their fight for equality was to die or be imprisoned along with men, and they were largely forgotten in written history. However, the roles they took on were wide-ranging which included working in factories, tending the troops, taking care of children
For many years society has embraced the idea that the difference between men and women were biologically determined. Thou through traditions, media, and peers we act accordingly to how others view us. Each individual has pressure placed upon them based on their gender. Our sex is determined by genetics while our gender is programmed by social customs. Some theories interpret that a women is tender and a loving mother while on the other hand men are aggressive hunters and are the dominant one of the family. People who support this theory seems to believe that men and women are happier when fulfilling the roles nature determined for them. Women are to be nurturing and men are to be providers by
The textbook identifies four approaches to gender development: biological, interpersonal, cultural, and critical. Define each theory. Then answer the following question: which of the theoretical approaches to gender do you find the most valid? Be sure to include at least two examples from your own experience as well as two scholarly sources to back up your claim.
On television commercials, billboards, the radio, public transportation advertisements, planes, the internet, and almost everywhere people go there is always directed broadcasting of advertisements for companies to sell their product; a product that is never promoted for all of the general public to use, but instead to emphasize on specific categories of consumption . Whether it may be categorized in the decadent, the money saving, health, cleaning, cooking, automotive, or whatever sub category it may be; and bigger roles that play in to commercialism are gender roles . Men and women have very different lifestyles, what they buy, do, consume, and produce. As stated in Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, “Popular conceptions of femininity
Sexism is categorized by extreme cases, but when in reality, both female and male parties execute sexism everyday even in the simplest forms. Though women tend to receive more grieve when it comes to sexist acts or sexist slurs made by men, the level of sexist disputes has decreases drastically with time. The play “Trifles” displays the major difference is the mindset of the split sexes. The setting presents a time when women were belittled and not taken seriously. Susan Glaspell’s play is evidence on the progress our society has made concerning sexism, never less the ever-existing conflict still takes its toll in our everyday life.
Given that the structure of gender qualities has been a large part of our views, in regards to a variety of issues, a number of people take exception to variances from within these rules. Keeping this in mind, we will discuss the reasons why many individuals are discouraged from crossing traditional gender traits, and closely examine parts of the article assigned for this paper.