The mass media plays a very significant role in life. Individuals get information about people and places they have never actually see. Opinions are formed based on the images people see everyday in magazines, movies and on television. If the images people see and believe as true, are false, negative stereotypes will be created and maintained. People need to understand that the media cannot perfectly reflect every aspect of society, but those reflections should still try and be accurate. This is why I feel it is important to look into how the media portrays women. If the only images of women being presented to the public are negative or derogatory, sexist attitudes will persist. These negative connotations will also affect women’s self esteem and their self worth.

Negative stereotypes are harmful to society. People cannot communicate with each other if untrue beliefs linger in the popular culture. Both men and women are adversely affected by stereotyping. Men have the pressure of always appearing perfect and in control. This leaves no room for men to feel uneasy or weak. Women have the stigma of being an ornament and inc

Rakow’s first point is that no representation of reality will reflect reality perfectly; and the other being that women can’t accuratly be reflected She claims that women are constant representations, even of themselves (Rakow, 2001, p. 42). Rakow illustrates her point by saying

Several things have changed in the media relm regarding female characters since postfeminism. „Female characters who are complex and distinct from one another despite the cmmonality of womanhood“ is a result of feminist efforts. „Depictions of varied feminist solutions and loose organizations of activism“ is a second result of feminism. „Texts with postfeminist attributes deconstructbinary categories of gender and sexuality, instead viewing these categories as flexible and indistinct“. Finally “the way situations illustrating the contemporary struggles faced by women an feminists are raised and examined within series“ is another credit to postfeminism (Lotz, 2001, p.116).

Movies allow men to grey gracefully while slowly eliminating women as they age. Eschholz points out that this value system objectifies women by showing their only value as youthfulness (Eschholz et al., 2002, p. 323). The authors point out that “as damaging as the gender straight jacket is to women, it is equally restrictive to men” (Eschholz et al., 2002, p.325). It is important to see both sides of the gender issue in stereotyping. Modern movies tend to relegate women in the role of supporter. Many real world experiences are overlooked in order to perpetuate stereotypical myths.

Rakow acknowledges that representations have changed over the years, but not always for the better. She points out that commercial media can change old complaints into new forms (Rakow, 2001, p.44).

Many interesting results came out of this study. Not surprisingly females are underrepresented in movies. In 1990 women made up 51 percent of the population according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but only appear in leading roles 35 percent of the time (as cited in Eschholz et al., 2002, p.314). Age played an interesting role in characters as well. “Thirty three percent of female characters were 30 years of age or younger, compared to 13 percent of the male characters” (Eschholz et al., 2002, p.315). When the age is changed to 50, ten percent of male characters were over fifty, compared to only four percent of female characters. The U.S. Census Bureau (1990) estimated that men over fifty made up 23.7% of the population and women were 28.2% (Eschholz et al., 2002, p. 315).

I felt that this was a very well organized and planned research project. The authors seemed to be aware of potential shortcomin

Some topics in this essay:
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