Gender Stereotypes In Music Videos

One cultural artifact that portrays femininity is the music video “Confident” by Demi Lovato. The video, while exemplifying some of the typical feminine stereotypes, breaks many gender codes as Demi Lovato empowers females to be just as strong and confident as males. The typical standards of femininity that typically come to mind are certainly far from the message Lovato attempts to send.

Since the explosion of music videos in 1981, a large portion of their popularity has been due to the objectification of women and their sexuality. “Early content analyses showed that anywhere from 40% to 75% of music videos contained sexual imagery”(Arnett, 2002). Hip-hop music videos especially have a reputation of degrading women. In these videos “women are often depicted in positions

Most the images shown in Girl Culture view woman as nothing but just for use of sex. For example, on television a simple burger commercial turns to porn with having half naked models eating the hamburger. “... The appearance of pornographic material creates a hostile environment in the workplace,”( Schaefer 2015: 194). With some commercials

"Sure God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece." Author unknown. It is indeed hard to imagine or comprehend such a quote in a society where women are often portrayed as sex symbols and sex objects. Media is one of the major sources for gender depictions in our society and it has played a major role in placing unfathomable gender roles on women in regards to how they are to behave, and address themselves within a society. The gender depictions of women in our society are truly very saddening and mind-blowing!

According to Sociologist Craig Calhoun, socialization is “the process through which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a society and learn to function as its members”(Calhoun, 2013). With that in mind, media, particularly the music video and advertisement industry, are essential parts of contemporary socialization, especially involving the perpetuation of gender roles in our culture. At a very young age, children learn, without difficulty, the differences between boys and girls, and what standards they are held to. Women are often objectified, systematically demoralized, and dehumanized in the music video industry and mainstream advertisement. External forces, such as the media, not only guide children to understand the norms of each gender, but these forces also shape children and adolescent’s perception of the self. The documentaries Killing Us Softly 4 directed by Jean Kilbourne and Dream World 3 directed by Sut Jhally explore the distorted and fallacious ideals of femininity and sexuality expressed in contemporary media.

I for one think that this representation of women is harmless, partly because it is

Stereotypes have been around longer than America has. In this century every type of person has a stereotype. Some positive and some negative. The stereotype to highlight pertaining to the video is about the Latinos. Most Latinos are assumed illegal immigrants because a lot of them don’t speak English and if they do it is not very well. Another factor to add in is that a lot of Latinos work landscaping under the table. That is across America, now to talk about the areas around the boarders of America. Every day thousands of Latinos try to cross the border illegally. So the stereotype may have more truth down there but it is still not completely true. The fact is every darker skin colored person will be pulled over near the borders either by the county police or the border patrol.

For thousands of years, established gender roles have been a part of our society. Women are commonly known as sensitive, emotional, or passive. On the contrary, men are described as rational, competitive, independent, or aggressive. Believing women are more emotional than men is stereotyping. However, the stereotype is not entirely untrue. Development of gender roles is often conditioned more by environmental or cultural factors than by hereditary or biological factors. The development of gender roles between men and women involves the inference of peer community of each gender, the communication style of male and female and the intimacy or connection level of men and women.

This ad is multidimensional in the way that it demeans women. The first layer is equating the women with inanimate objects. The women are being scaled down to the size of beer bottles as though they were barbie dolls, meant to be played with and molded by the hands of the viewer. The model lays with her legs spread and her chest pushed out in a hypersexualized submissive pose. She looks up at the viewer with a coy smile. Ads like these are meant to sell to an adult male audience. They are made by men with the intention of making money and the understanding that if you offer a typical American male the idea of sex with a physically attractive woman and equate that to a product, he will buy almost anything. This type of imagery also affects how women feel that they should act. Viewing images of women as sex objects in these submissive poses causes women to feel that they are only valuable if they fit the ideals put in place by the heterosexual male gaze.

Through exposure, the role of women as a visible visual icon, such as cinematic mechanisms fetishism serves to convince the position of the male audience as an absolute subject.

For this paper, I am going to be discussing gender in the institution of films. Specifically, I am going to be discussing femininity in coming of age films. I am going to discuss how gender is represented in coming of age films in regards to femininity. Coming of age movies set an expectation for teens and young adults it lays out what they should fear and what they should thrive to be in order to transition to adulthood successfully. The media defines cultural and gender norms that are often very stereotypical (). The cultivation theory suggests that exposure to stereotypes in the media can lead to adopting these beliefs in their real lives (Giaccardi et al., 2016). In the media, masculinity is often portrayed as aggression, power, dominance,

Children first begin to learn their gender identities between the ages of two and six. With this, they also begin to recognize activites, traits, skills, and other stereotypes associated with each gender. During this period of time, children are vulnerable and impressionable, imitating the actions they see happening around them. Children begin to act according to how their gender is portrayed in society, and the media is playing a larger role in daily life now than ever before. Binary gender stereotypes are continually advertised in the media through movies, television shows, advertisements, music, etc. Unfortunately, a message seen far too often within

I also found it very interesting about the gender stereotypes we saw in the music videos. Usually, I do not pay close attention to the words in the songs, and I hardly ever watch music videos. It was really fascinating for me to take the time to watch these music videos and really get to analyze them. In almost every video I watched the women were in bikinis or in a tight outfit looking beautiful, almost as if they are a trophy. The men in the videos seemed to be more macho with their nice trucks and arrogant personalities. I think that these videos portray how stereotypical our world is. I find these stereotypes to actually be quite amusing for the reason that this is not actually how our world is. I know plenty of strong powerful women who

Studies regarding gender roles in media show that the feminine essence tends to be depicted as inferior, with women often being marginalized, disempowered and humiliated through a status that is based on their youth and looks; whilst men tend to be portrayed as superior with higher and longer lasting careers

Stereotypes have become a prevalent issue in our media. They, without our knowledge, prevent us from moving forward as human. In this essay, I will discuss the effects of stereotypes in media on gender roles, religion, and race.