A Gender Stereotypes in Media Free Essay Example

A gender stereotypes is a generalized view or perception about attributes or characteristics, or the roles that are brought to be possessed by, or performed by women and men. A gender stereotype is harmful when it limits women’s and men’s capacity to develop their personal abilities, it is also wrong when it results in a violations of human rights and fundamental freedom. (OHCHR 1996-2019) Media has a big influence in this world, it plays a very important role in every people’s lives.

Through media we can connect and relate to the happenings in our environment and to the world. Televisions, magazines, internet and any forms of media are one of the different types of media. Media also affects people’s mind and thoughts through some thing they’ve been see on any kinds of media that may perceived them. This can also give people a positive and negative effects on how they think on what they see using the media.

The media is embedded with advertising not just on television, DVD’S.

billboards and internet. According to a pioneer media analyst and feminist activist Jean Kilbourne, the average of American is bombarded with approximately 3, 000 advertisements everyday. Sut Jhally a founder of media education foundation added that advertising is a very powerful form of social communication in modern society. Gender roles in advertising are labeled as masculine and feminine where as it is continuously creating stereotypes.

Advertising and media in gender role stereotyping promotes all men as assertive, serious, strong, powerful, and independent. In women advertising promotes them as passive, sexy, beautiful, thin and dependent.

This flow of images towards people normalize how gender role stereotypes occurs. In advertisement, women are also portrayed in a sexual manner and are more objectified than men. Scholars found out that men are also increasingly being sexualized and objectified in media. Given the example here are how advertising and media promotes gender role stereotypes:

1. When it comes to work others believe that man is capable on anything than woman.
2. They identify that women are the weakest.
3. Gender discrimination
4. When it come to applying to work some companies won’t accept you because they think that you don’t have the ability to do what men can do.

Sexual objectification is how others view or treat men and women as an object, or how the conditions and influences behaviors that subsequently achieve the socially defined ideal of ‘beauty’ and how the person are treated as a sexual desire. This shows that the body is represented by a merely objects that people desire. The representation of sexual objectification and gender role in advertising are powerful dynamic in our society. As you can notice, men and women are sexually objectified by others to sell some products and aim to impose values, images, sexuality, romance etc. Advertising and media promotes sexual objectification by showing that men are sexually objectified by the power and strength of their body that is conveyed by their muscles and upper body.

In contrast, women are also advertise and promotes in media by conveying and focusing their sexual characteristics emphasis on the breasts and lower body. In Media, sexual objectification portrays men and women in a sexual and demeaning manner. According to Fredrickson & Roberts (1997), Objectification theory refers to the internalization, the belief of being valued as a sexual object for another’s pleasure. That’s why sexual objectification by a male involves woman being viewed primarily as an object of male sexual desire rather than as a whole person vice versa to the perspective of the women to men. Sexual objectification can also lead to self objectification, which a men or a women are typically internalizing the observer’s perspective toward their selves. This occurs to men and women who internalize objectification messages as part of their self worth can also promotes the development of faulty understanding of how to build relationship between a man and a women.

In this case, woman are the most viewed who’s been objectified in this world. Women are promoted always in advertisements and media because they see them as a weak and fragile object to others. As a result of sexual objectification, more and more advertisement use disrespectful images depicting violence towards women. Because of the relative dominance of the male in advertising images, and the representation of women as passive sexual objects, these images often imply or overly display sexual violence.

Citing some examples according to sexual objectification are:

1. In a magazine where there are women who show their bodies in bikini.
2. A clothing line who’s exposing some photos of a men who is half naked where people see his masculine body.
3. A sexual image in the media
4. Advertisement that represents sexuality in media as a selling pitch intended for audience.

We are influence a lot by the media and we are also exposed to it that our thoughts can be perceived on how we should see and use the media correctly. According to Marshall & Sensoy, 2011, p 7 that ‘Critical media literacy requires that we should ask critical questions about the relationship between power and media’.

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers.

Get your custom essay

Helping students since 2015