Women’s Roles in the Media

By Nicole Mantegna

I have always noticed an intense difference between men and women and how they are portrayed in the media. As a child I was struck with admiration of the women on the television screen or on posters, you know the ones with the perfect everything. As I got older it seemed less amusing and more demeaning. I felt that society was showing us what we are supposed to be. For some odd reason almost every time a woman is portrayed in the media it is in some superficial way, for instance the commercials on household cleaning products show the perfect housewife. The other portrayal is of the perfect looking woman, the perfect body, hair, face. You know the ones that are always focused on there lipstick or the perfect pair of designer shoes. What ever happened to portraying women as they really are? Less and less women are concerned with the perfect handbag or the perfect laundry detergent; women have entered the man’s world and are going to take it over. There are much more women in college now than there are men; women are getting into politics, business, the military and every other area of what use to be the man’s world. So why are we still portraying women in these roles that have become outdated? People think the phrase “sex sells” says it all, but does it? I tried to dive a little deeper into this world of men and women and there roles in life and the media.

Each time I would see a woman in the media that fit one of the two models I discussed above I felt sick and sad at the same time. It angered me; it made me think of what kind of a message society is trying to send me. It said I should strive to be one of these things: the perfect housewife (if I wasn’t pretty) or the ideal looking woman (if I wasn’t good at housekeeping). By the way the ideal woman we see in the media everyday is extremely thin, materialistic, seductive, and gorgeous. One day it occurred to me that the way women are portrayed in the media serves a very important purpose, it shows women where, who and what they are should be. We are constantly bombarded with these images of the perfect woman, why? Advertising involves a number of interconnected relationships- “those between person and object, use and symbol, symbolism and power, and communication and satisfaction. Thus advertising must be considered in light of cultural expectations” (The portrayal of women’s images in magazine advertisements, 22). It is a way in which men feel comfortable with a woman, it is a distinctive gender line, it sends the statement “stay here and do not pass into what is male”. It keeps young girls focused on beauty and obtaining perfection that of course does not exist. It makes girls at a young age dream of the perfect home, kids, and floor cleaner. This too does not exist. “After seeing these images fans demonstrated their admiration and loyalty by buying whatever product they endorsed or used” (Enduring Values: Women in Popular Culture, 162). These two roles are the roles that men feel comfortable with, also if you think about it, who does it benefit? The perfect body, home, kids, it benefits the man’s lifestyle. It fits in perfectly with there role as the breadwinner and more importantly the higher ranked gender, because his role is more important in societies eyes.

So why are women in the media sex objects or housewives with no real substance? Men are more comfortable with women in these roles because they pose no real threat to their power, dominance, or masculinity. It also maintains an image of what women should look like, so when young girls see these images they know what is expected of them. It keeps women focused on an ideal that can almost never be obtained, and it keeps women from focusing on careers, politics, sports and school, areas that were once a man’s domain. Men achieve two things with these stereotypes: one is they get a woman who is less power driven, and two they get women who are attractive or striving to be. That may be why more girls have eating disorders compared to men. In actuality girls make up 90 percent of all people with an eating disorder (Development and Structure of the Body Image, 328). If women are constantly focused on the perfect shade of lipstick or the perfect body size they are less focused on more important worldly matters. All in all women seem to be fighting these roles and stereotypes which means that the gender line is becoming fuzzy and men are becoming more unsure of their own role in society. So we should keep fighting these images and work harder to show later generations that women are equal to men and that we belong in their world.