Women 's Portrayal Of Women

Two statistics really stood out to me. The first fact from Miss Representation being that only 16% of women are protagonist in films. Even in these movies where the writers and producers has control of what is possible in the world in which the world takes place, they still choose to place a man in the starring role. If someone can have superpowers or be living in an alternate universe is it so far-fetched that it would be a women in charge?

Over the past couple of months, there has been debate over the Caitlyn Jenner story, a media icon that has recently transitioned from being male to female. Although she is, in fact, the most famous trans person of our time, the media’s portrayal of her as a naturally glamorous trans woman, distorts the image of what it actually is like to be transgender. The trans community have expressed their opinion on the topic stating Jenner is not an accurate example of the lifestyle experienced by most trans women. The National LGBTQ Task Force states that transgender people are twice as likely to be unemployed and four times more likely to live in poverty compared to the general population and even more so for trans women of colour.

Media such as televisions, radio, internet, and magazines represent slim women as the model and ideal to follow. Media portray thin women as happy and successful. Therefore, women who follow that ideal are more tented to put their selves in intense diet, to apply plastic surgery, and to have a low self-esteem if that ideal isn’t reach. Many women ignore that, the media portrays of female is a sort of advertisement that many companies do in order to sell their products. In addition, women ignore that those women portray as top model have stylist to make their clothes, hair, and make up. Therefore, in a real word, women have to face many obstacles, they have to work, to take care of their children, to study, to pay their bills and all of that require money and time.

It is strange how one director can convey two entirely different depictions of women. Due to the time period in which Hitchcock filmed Vertigo and Psycho, women had limited capability in regards to what they could do in a film. Women could not be action heroes; in fact they were often depicted as damsels in distress. The easiest answer to this sort of prejudice is that it was a reflection of the culture of the 50s and 60s. Although this is partially true, it does not excuse the fact that male directors made misogynistic choices that could have been remedied without being considered radical or societally unacceptable. The inconsistencies in Hitchcock’s portrayal of women reveals this much, as shown by a study in the narrative, mise-en-scėne, and cinematography of Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960).

Nowadays, the media becomes an essential and necessary part of a modern society. The media has a huge impact on how people admit the world on many levels, such as how they socialize, gain knowledge, and access information. However, the media participate how the people are portrayed on television screen. For example, children are portrayed as victims and related to negative topics, such as abuse or disasters. Moreover, women, who are half the world’s population, are also portrayed in the media. From the year 1890s until the present, the women have been portrayed differently. In past, it was not difficult to see the women dressed up well. Their hair was done, and their clothes and accessories presented their classes

Have you ever looked through a magazine at the ads and thought you would like to be as thin or fit as the models in it? Many adolescent girls today are faced with these images on a daily basis. At this age girls are very impressionable and already go through tons of peer pressure just to be faced with pressure from advertisements and shows to be unnaturally thin. All magazine and billboard owners should be required to publish unretouched and realistic images of women because super models negatively affect young women's mental and physical health.

For a very long time, stereotypes have been part of the society and culture, and to this day, they are still present. Stereotypes can be defined as “[oversimplifying] the image or idea of a particular type of person or thing” (Google Dictionary). A current event would be a female who cannot work in a factory because of her gender, or a male who cannot join ballet because of his gender. But what still occurs in our nation or the whole society is that stereotypes are generally directed against women. The stereotypes our society gives to women lead them to have lower positions in the workplace than men such as women are supposed to make less money than men, supposed to have “clean jobs”, and supposed to not have any technical skills. When women are “supposed” to have these certain positions, it makes them have an underprivileged characterization.

Women everywhere are told countless numbers of times how they should think, look and act; now it is time for women to break free of those expectations. Throughout American history women have been viewed as the weaker and submissive gender. Situations have gotten better since the earlier times of history, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Society must improve the way that women are featured in media for both men and women to be seen as equal in their abilities. The negative representation of women in media is problematic for both men and women because women are not shown in positions of leadership and media outlets present unrealistic expectations of body image. In order to fix these issues in media, Congress must change

Contemporarily, most nations have developed a patriarchy-base society (Ruether, 2007). Women are expected to take certain roles and have certain outfits, which forms harmful stereotypes of women. Particularly, those stereotypes of women have harmful impacts on female careers in the fields of research, commerce, and politics.

1. Advertising Professionals’ Perceptions of the Impact of Gender Portrayals on Men and Women: A Question of Ethics?

Ostensibly, I agree with Cassandra’s implication that media misrepresentations of women, and the mistreatment of female journalists, are matters of fundamental inequality and unfairness. However, I also believe issues are more extensive. North (2012, p.60) argues this viewpoint risks distracting from broader, more sinister concerns, asserting, “…women’s role as fully participating and informed citizens is at stake.” Thus, dishearteningly, media representations of women primarily conform to male-dominated hegemonic structures, which marginalise female opinions, effectively excluding women from significant public sphere debate (North 2012, p.60).

There is a grand importance in films –and other forms of media- being presented by females. These forms of representation reflect certain “insider information” that a man would not be able to fully clue in on, such as the female gaze or the difficulty of being a woman. When a woman takes it upon herself to be in charge of presenting this information they are faced with problems of censorship that wouldn’t be implemented if the information were male-centered. However, her role in controlling image presentation will also be more accurate in its depiction of women and will make the image more relatable for the female audience.

In Women and Gender in Islam, Leila Ahmed skillfully conveys her perspective on current ideologies about Islamic women by taking into consideration the chronological framework for which it help to shape women’s position in society. By covering a vast range of Islamic doctrines during various historical periods ranging from pre-Islamic times all the way to Western influences in nineteenth century Egypt, Leila is able to provide a distinctive picture of the often misunderstood topic of women’s role in Islam. What makes her book more fascinating is that she includes lots of details surrounding Islamic society, while focusing on the inherent stereotypes of women’s oppression and their cultural aspect of veiling. Throughout the book, Ahmad

Representations of what is believed to be female characters holding weapons have been previously observed on the fragments of the Oseberg tapestry. The textile fragments show human-esque figures that appear to be either standing in front of spears or holding them and who wear clothing that is closely representative of long dresses which were worn by Viking Age women. Some apparently female figures are also holding swords. The Oseberg tapestry is difficult to interpret, but it has been suggested that its imagery may represent a procession of some sort, perhaps one that occurred as part of a funeral. Jesch has also speculated whether the female figures on the tapestry might be valkyrjur “choosing the slain for the honour of Valhall” . Jesch notes the variety of places that female Scandinavian graves can be found, from Iceland to Russia, yet she is hesitant about presenting this as evidence of female participation in Viking raids. She says, “In spite of the archaeological evidence that women from Scandinavia accompanied the men who went trading and adventuring in the east, we are never told this in the written sources.”

In Early modern literature, there are many pieces of literature that are written by men who talk about women in ways that objectify and try to control them because back then women were not given much agency in society. The women that are being portrayed in this type of literature about unrequited love are seen as extremely flat characters who are just the objects of affections for the narrator. This is problematic as it just portrays women as someone for the narrator of the poem to pin over although women are so much more than that. However, there are some authors trying to empower women and acknowledge the issues within their patriarchal society which are still prevalent to this day. These issues still apply today because there is still blatant sexism when positions of power are still dominated by men. There are some feminist writers on our syllabus even though a lot of them could not care less about how they represent women because they are only suppose to be an accessory to the story. They are always trying to describe what their perfect woman is like but she does not exist in real life. It causes unrealistic standards for women. For example, John Donne’s poem “The Flea” is empowering as he is questioning society’s views about sex before marriage. Donne is giving his beloved more agency throughout the story by criticizing the unreasonable expectations put on by institutions that govern society, like the church.