The Constructions of Gender

Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

The mass media play a significant role in a modern world, by broadcasting information in fast pace and giving entertainment to vast audiences. They consist of press, television, radio, books and the Internet. The latter is now the most developing medium, however, TV also has a wide field of influence. By creating a certain type of message, media can manipulate people’s attitude and opinions.

Media enforces the social-cultural standards, which women are required to follow in order to look and behave in a manner that society considers acceptable. Newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media (Scholar, C.2011). However, these standards presented by media send a false perception of women, thus portraying women in a negative and disrespectful manner. Society views woman as mentally, morally, and physically inferior to men, and media is only highlighting this idea (Scholar, C.2011). In fact, media represents women in a stereotypical form of beauty, they display women as sexual objects, and create the illusion that women are ignorant.

Our society seems to have a lot of very stereotypical misconceptions about boys and girls and the role they are expected to play. Media has a pivotal role to play in this front concerning the idea of defining and framing gender. Media consumers transform the messages in that and make demeanors with

The paramount of social adversities facing the modern society is the divide between definitions of gender. Gender represents an abstract interpretation of sex and this notion is simply a societal construct. The establishment of gender has evolved into a tradition of humanity, however this tradition evolved into a social divide between masculinity and femininity. The pressure to conform to societal constructs of masculinity and femininity poisons society and branches off to toxic masculinity; such were nurtured from these figurative beliefs. Gender roles further stigmatize the victims who refuse to conform. However, gender roles has witnessed a revolution in modern times. The purpose of this collateral involves analyzing the evolution of gender roles present in media from mid 19th century to modern times. The period of time, or 1960’s, was chosen because of post World War II’s effects on stereotypes in society around the world. Post war not only challenged stereotypes but further kindled women’s role in the workforce and women began to fill in roles previously belonging to men. In later years, a radicalization of the feminist movement has spurred and our modern times is a witness to its ascension to the paramount of feminism. The media, since the 1960’s, has allowed society to be the primary witness. With the evolution of gender roles, the media must also adapt to the changes in societal views of gender roles and the entire feminist movement at large. This collateral seeks to

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

15). By foregrounding the complexity of gender in a postfeminist culture increasingly opposed to gender-specific analysis, Levine reminds us that these projects of feminist media analysis are as important in the twenty-first century as they were during the early days of feminist studies.

Mass media has influenced gender norms in the United States since the 1950’s when television became a household phenomenon. Per Jacqueline Coombs in an article titled Gender Differences in the Influence of Television on Gender Ideology, she asserts, “television is a powerful source in disseminating information and shaping opinion, exposing people from many different social settings to the same messages” (207). These messages can influence gender norms and reinforce personal gender identity. Throughout the evolution of television, gender roles have expanded portraying women as leading character. However, there is still an undercurrent of patriarchal ideology.

A major modern problem with the media is the sublimation of, and reaffirmation of, stereotypical female gender roles. “The media treats women like shit” (Cho). Which is a serious issue because of Marshall McLuhan’s famous words, “The Medium is the Message” (Warwick). The medium up for discussion is the media, which can be fundamentally defined as the most significant “single source of information that people have today (Katz). Therefore, in order to understand “what’s going on in our society” (Katz) it is “absolutely imperative to “understand media” (Katz). Media and technology are “shaping our politics, our national discourse and most of all, they’re shaping our children’s brains, lives and emotions” (Steyer). Caroline Heldman, PhD, and

The word gender can be described as the state of being male or female and is typically used to describe cultural differences as opposed to biological ones. Additionally, the definition of gender has continuously been a controversial issue due to its lack of clarity in regards to battling complicated social injustices. Furthermore, the construction of gender as a social category has recently been criticized for the lack of inclusiveness to women of color and the consistent habit to view both gender and race as restrictive divisions of experience and reasoning. Seeing those criticisms has led to the development of the term intersectionality which deals with various layers of subjection that women live with and addresses more than just the

In the film, Miss Representation, one of the facts shown about social media is that a climate of 24-hour media cycle and the proliferation of infotainment and reality television, media has become the predominant communicator of cultural values and gender norms, telling us who we can and cannot be. Social media defies many things about our society currently. How did media become the predominant communicator of cultural values and gender norms? This ranges from children movies to adult dramas it is not uncommon to see women in typically “women” roles and men in such. For example, in children’s movies, females are typically rescued by males. Today children and young adults watch more than 10 hours of media a day. An individual’s brain does not fully develop until the age of 24, which means our children and young adults to the proliferation of the media’s messages and they consume the messages the most because of the amount of time they spend on social media , according to the film Miss Representation.

The way society is taught to be socialized is salient and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not. With socialization beginning the instant a child is born, the process is continuous through out adolescence and varies dramatically across the two genders. With guidance from institutions and arenas such as education, sports, music and the mass media gender seems to be coerced, as it comes with a scripted set of behaviors and attitudes. This essay argues that gender is socially constructed on an everyday basis. To further explain this thesis the essay will draw on early childhood socialization of masculinity and femininity,

In society, people are told to fit certain molds regarding how they are represented in the media such as movies, advertisements, and standards that are set by society. Both men and women are depicted in different ways in American society with unattainable standards that can only be achieved by photoshop or body surgery and alterations. Women are envisioned having the ideal body type that’s shown in media. They’re assumed to be emotional and delicate by much of society. Men are often expected to be muscular while not showing other people their emotions other than aggression and power. There are different ideal body types throughout the world, America for example has an unreachable standard that’s set through uses of photoshop and other alterations that can cause some people to develop emotional disorders. In the book, Composing Gender by Rachael Groner and John O’Hara, it explains how gender is a social construct and how people are often under set gender standards which plays into McDonaldization theory. The McDonaldization theory is explained as the use

Dating back to the 1920’s mass communication mediums of film, television and print have all been means that act as powerful tools of propaganda and thus play an integral role in the lives of individuals. It is for this reason that it is often widely accepted that the media is to be used as a tool, which represents a common public interest. Men and women are represented through forms of media in different ways, which create images depicting stereotypical traits and characteristics. The problem brought fourth by this is concerned with the issue of gender or the ‘discourse’ of gender and how individuals perceive themselves (Gauntlett, 2008) As the media is such a big part of everybody’s lives, there is not doubt that when this powerful function is synthesized with the medium’s capacity to accentuate present day realities on our screens the result tends to elicit a dominant ideology; which in turn presents an argument for major ethical implications in regard to public stigma and subsequent prejudice. This essay shall critically consider gender representation in Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004) and the extent to which these characters challenge the patriarchal privilege.

As a Communication major, I spend a lot of time studying the human communication process, which is the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between a receiver and sender. This communication process does not only apply to face-to-face interactions but also includes mass media, rhetorical, and technological communication. Through these various forms of communication, the sender not only expresses his/her message but also expresses power hierarchies about race, gender, and sexuality that are present in society. Mass media has a significant impact on socializing gender roles and perpetuating gender stereotypes, and to prove that, I am analyzing mass media messages, such as television shows, movies, and advertisements.