The Misrepresentation of Women In Media
Due to the male perspective the misrepresentation of women in the media will continue and cause detrimental effects to our society. Misrepresentation happens in a number of ways, which include how women are talked about on the news, how they are presented in television and movies, and how they are treated in the music industry. The constant exploitation of women’s bodies limits what a woman can do in her professional life.
There are many flaws that shape our society’s outlook on women in the news. When we turn on the news, what do we see? An older man being lead anchor whose accompanied by a beautiful woman typically with heavy makeup, her hair perfectly done and her clothes either skin tight or just revealing enough to keep the male viewer enticed. Once you see this woman, most of us aren’t concentrating on what she is reporting on, but instead we focus on her appearance. Another example of women being poorly represented in the news is what happens to women in politics and how the news tears them apart. Examples of this would include comments made about Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Sarah Palin. Scrutiny of these powerful women constantly appears in the news and it’s not about the things they say, but instead it is about how they look. One time during the Chris Baker Show on the radio station KTLK a disrespectful comment was stated about Nancy Pelosi.
“Nancy Pelosi get another facelift.” Said Chris Baker. During the McCain versus Obama election we saw demeaning comments about Sarah Palin. Palin was constantly getting sexualized on the news.
“She’s good masturbation material.” Said Kevin Hart on live television.
Most recently during the Trump versus Clinton election we saw many attacks on Clinton in the media. Instead of seeing Clinton as an empowered woman the news would pick apart her marriage and call her atrocious things such as “bitch”. The news barely touched on her political accomplishments and would take any chance they had to take power away from Clinton. This constant berating and objectification of women will not only cause less women to run for office, but will cause women to start self-objectifying themselves and lead them not to vote for a women candidate or at all. Without women’s representation in politics important policies for women will be ignored and roughly 50 percent of the population’s issues will be overlooked.
Our society transfers what is happening in the real world to entertainment platforms such as television and movies. The truth is we need to see women in leadership on the silver screen, but most of the time we do not. There were great times in America’s film history that we saw women as complex characters in movies, especially in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Recently we have been seeing a spike in modern television with women having power as well. Content such as House of Cards and Captain Marvel are making waves and we see women being the President of The United States or as a powerful superhero. For a women it is important to see leadership in television and movies. It is wonderful that more content is being created that empowers women, but that takes up such a small amount of all the content that is being created. Usually in movies women are not protagonists and if they are the movie is usually a romantic-comedy that revolves the woman’s life around getting a man. The female leads are also represented as a bitchy boss that has sacrificed having a family for her career and the premise of the movie revolves around her being brought down or made to suffer. Examples of this would Miranda Presley in The Devil Wears Prada or Margret Tate in The Proposal. So I have to ask, are men not interested in stories from a women’s point of view? The worst part is Hollywood practically never choices a woman director. Men can direct movies like Sex In The City, but women are looked down upon directing action movies because they think a man should do it instead.
On television we also see advertisements that objectify women. Advertising is typically for the male viewer and created by a man as well. A common saying is sex sells and that means that women’s bodies are being put on display. It would be one thing to show women of all sizes and ethnicities, but that is not the case. When we see women in advertising we see a women in her mid 20’s, a really nice body, beautiful, and probably white. This content is either photoshopped or edited that the model may not even recognize herself afterwards and this leads us women to believe we will never be able to achieve these impossible beauty standards. This causes women to develop eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder and depression.
The music industry takes sexualizing women to another level. In hip-hop and rap music videos women are made into sex objects for male viewers. Usually displaying to boys and men that their needs are met first in a relationship. This hyper sexualizes women everywhere. The issue with that is that sometimes women see that their only way to power is sex. This puts women in a box because society then views sex as women’s only value, which makes a women’s only purpose in life is to have a child. After our “prime age” we are deemed unimportant. If we choose to continue this endless cycle we are acting as if there’s nothing wrong with it.
The music industry is also known for pitting women against each other. We recently saw the whole cat fight with Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. These are two women with a sucessful rap career and instead of working with each other they publicly get into arguments. On twitter people were stating that Cardi B stole Nicki Minaj’s image months earlier, which only pushed these women to have unresolved issues with each other. The media does this time and time again. Women need to break this cycle and work together so they could accomplish great things in these industries.
Women have noticed these dangers in the past couple years and have not been afraid to speak out. We as a society have seen many movements and protests especially due to our current political climate. A couple movements we have seen is the women’s march, protests on abortion laws, the SlutWalk and equal pay. This is significant because women are standing up for themselves in a world that constantly tries to shut them out.
You could see that this system is flawed and that if we continue to follow it women will suffer mentally and in their professional lives. If the media can change to help women succeed instead of holding them back, society would evolve into a better place. More voices will be heard around the world and hopefully that would help it become a better place for everyone.
source: Miss Represantation via Netflix.com
photo source: instagram.com/nobodysdarlingblog