Gender and the Media: Stereotypes Against Women in Television Advertisements (Research Paper Sample)

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Gender and the media
The role played by the media in spreading gender related can never be underestimated. Given the fast evolving technological advancements that have facilitated the most efficient and rapid way of spread of ideas from different sources. People find themselves bombarded with a lot of information that may be biased or incredible on certain gender topics are getting not being informed of the right source due to an array of media platforms and sources they rely on. In modern day dynamic world, the media has enormous and overwhelming power both directly or indirectly among popular consumers (Blain and McElroy, 11). The media is a major influence of virtually all aspects of life today, ranging from entertaining, informing to instilling values. In fact media is a mirror upon which society learns and unconsciously develop perceptions and habits. The most revolutionary trigger to not only changing perceptions, but also changing behavior and way of life with respect to media is an advertisement (Alice and Thomas, 14). The most effective, precise, subtle and overly persuasive of these is the television advertisements. This is most probably since television appeals to both our visual and hearing senses to result in a combination of extremely persuasive messages that can potentially create stereotypes of gender. In fact, advertisers are well aware of this fact to an extent they are able to manipulate adverts in a way that powerfully stick and provoke societal behavior dynamics. It is, however notable that television advertising tends to surreptitiously create a rather demeaning, reduced and vulnerable value to womanhood (Maring, 40).
To conclusive study the propagated generalizations against women in the media, let’s delve into projections of women with regards to family, profession, politics, business, emotional balance, sports and manual labor. In order to understand how the media advocates in the spread of gender based stereotypes, it is necessary for the media influence to be analyzed in terms of how it portrays women via its main ways of communicating its information. The media uses adverts as the most efficient way in passing its message across. It is, however, the way the media portrays women, their motives behind these kind of adverts, their targeted audience, the product being advertised, the nature in which women are represented in the advertisement and the credibility of the ideology that forms the basis of stereotyping the argument. Determination of the relativity between these aspects of television advertisement show widespread misrepresentations against women.
Stereotypes against Women in Television Advertisements
With respect to professions, contrary to the modern day reality where women have made an impressive resurgence to occupy some of the most splendid and top notch specialists, television advertising has been particularly slow to properly represent this change (Maring, 26). In fact very rarely are women represented as an authentic authority in technical matters of say science, geography, technology, advanced medicine, security and intelligence, discovery, space exploration among others mentally involving fields. Women are depicted not as contributors to discussions on important issues, but merely passive spectators without much interest of with very little opinion of their own on matters pertaining to technical concepts. Television adverts more often depict women as being of professions that involve looks and dealing with people at an interpersonal engagement level. The most common representation here, mostly involves women as concerned teachers, caring nurses, human resource personnel, smiling secretaries and subordinates to men at the higher end of professional specializations (Blain and McElroy, 6). This misrepresentation can be attributed to the stereotypes already existing among the target audience the adverts are meant for. While it is understandable to consider the intension for profits to media and advertisers, it is completely unacceptable that this should be at the expense of deformations and unfounded generalizations that can only to critically be thought to serve to diminish womanhood. Women are partly to blame for the insensitive media representation of them due to their nature of easily giving up in pursuit of their dreams and ambitions. Generalizations in television advertisements are even more out of place as it depicts women as subservient home keepers only concerned about children and pleasing their husbands. It is no wonder women feature in most adverts involving home appliances (Galanti, 7). Men are viewed as breadwinners and women urged to use and try various products to either become more appealing and attractive to their husbands or to ensure the family is happier. Most television adverts will occasionally portray women as home keepers. The adverts will tend to portray in such situations as family unions, straining to take care of children and ensure that everything is running smoothly in the homestead. They are the ones portrayed to be cooking and doing all manner of house chores considered incompetent in the society. The adverts will show them as the ones arriving home earlier, to take care and do the jobs men will less likely be seen doing and even wait for their husbands who will arrive home late from work -- this is shown by the media depiction of women arriving home early in contrast to their husbands. The resulting effect is the stereotype that a woman’s place in the society should be at home and that they are the ones who should do less competent tasks that men do not like. The media will feature women half-naked in most cosmetic and beauty product adverts as compared to men. Consequently, the resulting ideology will be women being portrayed as sexually attractive objects to be seen. In contrast, men will be seen in commercial adverts as managers and CEOs of successful companies out to make a difference with breakthrough ideas. The featuring of women in these naked advertisement is diminishing and is meant to suggest that women cannot partake on academic competent careers unlike men who are mostly featured as successful and exemplary incompetent careers. Another particular ground where general stereotypes against women hold most firmly in television advertising is politics. Women in politics are notoriously very narrowly represented despite the consistently growing trend in the world where women are increasingly getting into higher positions of power and influence in political context. The misrepresentations in television advertisement only show women not to be actually concerned about the intricate issues that come with political authority like the economy, national security, and international policy among other major primary political matters (Edwin, 46). They are, to the contrary depicted to only show interest in welfare issues like health and sanitation, child protection, environment, families among other trivial matters, leaving the real issues to be discussed by their male counterparts. It is erroneously represented like women wait to follow the herd upon deliberations by their male counterparts. A good example is an advertisement of a woman for a political post. The nature in which the advertisement is aired, will portray the woman as a vulnerability for instance, in a televised interview, she might be asked what she thinks given the fact and statistics which show how women vying for the post have always lost terribly. The televised adverts will tend to portray women as ‘women’ and not as politicians who are competent in the same right as their male counterparts. There is usually an unconscious element of pity and sentiment in the advert associated with her candidature, focusing more on the fact she is a woman rather than her capability to compete on equal footing deliver. This stereotype not only depicts women as less suited for the rigors politics, but also expose women as of weaker gender compared to men.
Another area where stereotypes in television advertising against women are more noticeable is in the field of business. There is a large disparity in representation in roles of women in in advertisements involving large corporations and business enterprises. In such advertisements, women are seen as subordinates to their male bosses in suits. They may be seen as part of the team, but very rarely at the top leadership of the organization, a sharp contrast with the situation on the ground where women are increasingly gunning for top corporate positions (Edwin, 19). Women are depicted to be settled in businesses that involve catering and caretaking
Stereotyping is also rife in television adverts involving physically involving work. Women are marginally represented in advertisements that involve physical labor or involve physical risk. As thus, women are always rarely shown on a construction site or military drills (Blain and McElroy, 9). This however does not mean women don’t partake in these activities. Lately, there have been attempts by women worldwide who have refused to hold back by the stereotypes surrounding them for example, more women are being absorbed into the military and even holding high ranks, what was only considered a dream few decades ago. . Moreover, it is indicated that even a greater number is currently opting to learn to operate and work around heavy and complex machinery in a previously male dominated fields that were only so due to old and now irrelevant cultural discriminations. Such advertisements only serve to reinforce stereotypes that seek to depict women as less suitable and overly dominated by their male counterparts.
Another advertising perspective so riddled with generalization tendencies in television advertising is sports. The amount of airtime and hype male sport advertisements get is far too dispropo...