Representation of Gender in the Media

Representation of Gender in the Media

Representation of Women

It is believed that women are far less likely than men to be seen in the media. As subjects of stories, women only appear in 25% of television, radio, and print news. In a 2015 report, women made up only 19% of experts featured in news stories and 37% were reporters telling stories globally. The sexualisation of a woman's appearance is heavily unified in mass media. These platforms seem to sexualise women by portraying them in lack of clothing, or depict women as subordinate to men. From this, a women's self esteem, body image and emotional well-being may be negatively affected. Research studies also show that typical female roles fall into stereotypes of women and are often sexualised with minimal clothing and sexualised roles. An example of this is from a content analysis of video games that found that 41% of female characters in video games wore revealing clothing and an equal number were partially or fully nude, whereas the male characters were not. 

Following on from the way clothing on women is depicted, women are also almost forced to adjust their physical appearance. They are sexualised by their appearance and body figure. It is very likely that a woman who is considered less attractive in her natural appearance is unlikely to become a successful actress without showing her body shape or being seemingly attractive to others. Some women actually may even agree with the media's view on women like them and encourage others to present their bodies by taking to social media to post pictures of themselves. Even on print, such as magazines, women are likely to be portrayed on the front cover of the magazine to attract readers to pick it up and read through. The magazines also tend to enforce tips on how to look good in terms of a woman.

Representation of Men

Just like women are sexualised when portrayed in the media, men are also subject to sexualisation where it is depicted that men are meant to be tough and aggressive towards others. The representation of the 'ideal' man are shown through various area of the media but mainly in movies. In many movies, men have to portray the role of being tough and not fearful of anything that gets in their way. Other character roles include them to sight masculine roles as usually represented by negative roles which involve violence, dominance, cruelty, illegal or inhumane actions. Even in many adverts and commercials on television, men are often seen playing sports or driving cars which shows male dominance and the fact that women are not shown in various adverts show that men are more inclined to drive than women are to drive.

Even on printouts such as newspapers, magazines and advertisement posters men are shown frequently on them. On the front cover of many magazines men may be shown shirtless or in good body shape to reinforce how the 'ideal' man is supposed to look like. They tend to appear muscular and so they are deemed strong and tough by readers. Because of this being on the front cover, it encourages readers and people who see this in a shop for example, to pick up the magazine and read through it to get tips or advice on how to maintain this body shape which is hailed as 'the perfect male body'. On advertisement posters as well, if a clothing company wants to advertise their products, they are more likely to try and find a tall and muscular man to wear the clothing. Even for adverts of watches for example, the company are prone to selecting a man to wear it so that it stands out more when it is seen by people.