Cendered Media:: The Influence of Media On Views of Gender

ChapterL0
MEDIA:
CENDERED
THE INFLUENCE
OF MEDIA
ON VIEWSOF GENDER
n this chapter,we examineanother important form of communication about

I
From newspapersto MTV, media interact with cultural images of
I Bender:
I gender and with individual identities in three ways.First, media reflect cultural valuesand ideals about gender.They portray women, men, and relationships between the sexesin ways that mirror widely sharedunderstandingsand
ideals. Second, media reproduce cultural views of gender in individuals. By
defining "normal" women, men, and relationships, media suggest how we
should be aswomen and men. Third, media are gatekeepersof information and
images.To a significant extent, they control what we seeand know by deciding
what programs to air, what news storiesto feature,how to representissuesand
events,and how to depict women and men. By selectivelyregulatingwhat we
see,media influence how we perceivegender issues,ourselves,and men and
women in general.
To launch our exploration of how media reflect and shapeunderstandings
of gender,we will first establishthe significanceof media in cultural life. Next,
we will identif'basic themes and trends in media'simagesof women, men, and
relationshipsbenveenthe sexes.Third, we will examinemedia'srole in shaping
our understandingof issuesrelated to gender.Finally, we will ask how media's
portrayals of gender issuesand of men and women contribute to misconceptions of issues,violence againstwomen, psychologicaland physicalproblemsof
men and women, and limited views of our human possibilities.
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F M E D I AI N C U L T U R ALLI F E
We live in an era saturatedby media. Our views of ourselvesand gender are
influenced by the films and television we watch, the radio programs we hear,
and the magazinesand newspaperswe read. Recent demographicinformation
(U.S.Bureau of the Census,t997) revealshow much media arepart of our lives.
While only 9o/oof householdsowned televisionsin 1950, today televisionsare
in98.3o/oof U.S. households.On ^verage,thereare2.3 televisionsin eachhome
in the country. More than 600/oof householdstoday have cable,and over 80%
of households have VCRs. Fully 99o/oof homes have radios. In the average
home, at least one televisionis on more than 7 hours a day.By age 6, the average child in the United Stateshaswatched more than 5,000 hours of television.
By age 18, viewing times soarsto L9,000 hours for the averageperson.
Beyond television, media continue to pervadeour lives.While walking or
riding through any^rea,we take in a nearly endlessprocessionof billboardsthat
advertisevarious products,services,people,and companies.Magazinesabound,
and each one is full of stories that representmen and women and their relationships, thereby suggestingwhat is "normal." The hundreds of magazines
availablemake it possiblefor just about anyone to selectthe kind of coverage
she or he wants. In 1991,,Playboyhad 3,488,006 subscribers,while Netpszueek
had 3,21,1.,958
and Famij Circle had 5,437,779 ("Mediaworks," L99'J.,p. 37).
299
I
@ STEPHAN
I dont think the media influences who I am or what I do. I mean,
sure, I watch a lot of shows and movies and read magazines like
Cosmo and Self but I think for myself. I like to see new sryles of
clothes and hair and makeup and then I try them out for myself.
That doesn't make me a dupe of the media.
NANYA
I am amazed by how much women in this country follow media
styles.When Princess Diana was on aii of the magazine covers, so
many students on this campus got Di haircuts. Next they were all
trying to do their hair like Dr. Austin on ChicagoHope. When a new
style of jeans comes out, half the women on this campus start wearirg them. If models wear miniskirts, so do women on campus, but if
long skirts are in or skirts are out, the women here follow suit. The
conformiry to media images is amazing.
Advertisements, which make up nearly half of some magazines, tell us what we need
and where to buy it if we are to meet cultural standards for women and men. Radios,
Walkmans, and stereo systems allow us to hear music as much of the time as we
wish, while home videos are doing a record business as Americans see more films
than ever. Newspapers, which
Information
Committee,
circulate to over 62 mtllion
homes (Newsprint
1,992, p. 18), news programming, and talk shows provide
us with ahorizon on our world, contemporary issues, and the roles of various peo-
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
GenderedViewing Styles
Recent research suggests gender may affect not just what we watch, but ltow we
watch television. Communication scholars A*y Nathanson, Elizabeth Perse,and
Douglas Ferguson (1997) studied how women and men watch TV. Their results
suggest that men tend to adopt an instrumental viewing style in which they use
TV programs as a tool to achieve their individual goals. The men in the study
planned viewing more strategically than women. In contrast, women adopted a
more relationship-oriented approach in which they sometimes watch television
programs to make interpersonal connections.
Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender
ple in shaping cultural life. Popular advicebooks and gothic novels are top sellers,
and pornographic print and visual media are readily availableto anyone who is
interested.
THEMES
IN MEDIA
Of the many influences on how we view men and women, media are the most pervasive and one of the most powerful. Woven throughout our daily lives, media insinuate their messages into our consciousness at every turn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes, many of which perpetllate unrealistic, stereotypical,
and limiting perceptions. Three themes describe how media represent gender. First,
women and minorities are underrepresented, which falsely implies that white men
are the cultural standard and women and minorities are unimportant
or invisible.
Second, men and women are portrayed in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain
socially endorsed views of gender. Third, depictions of relationships between men
and women emphasize traditional roles and normalize violence against women. We
will consider each of these themes in this section.
Underrepresentationof Womenand Minorities

womenand
A primaryw^y in which mediadistort realityis in underrepresenting
minorities. Whether it is prime-time television,in which there are three times as
manywhite men as women (Basow;1,992,p. 159), or children'sprogramming,in
which malesoutnumber femalesby two to one, or newscasts,
in which women make
up L60/oof newscastersand in which storiesabout men are included 10 times more
often than onesaboutwomen ("Study ReportsSexBias,"1989),mediamisrepresent
actual proportions of men and women in the population. This constant distortion
tempts us to believe that there really are more men than women and, further, that
men are the cultural standard.
Other myths about what is standardare similarly fortified by communication in
media. Minorities are even less visible than women, with African Americans
appearingonly rarely (Gray, 1986;Stroman, 1989) and other ethnic minorities being
virtually nonexistent. In children's programming when African Americans do
appear,almost invariably they appearin supporting roles rather than as main characters(O'Connor, L989).While more African Americans are appearingin primetime television,they are too often castin stereotypicalroles.In the 1,992season,for
instance, 1.2 of the 74 series on commercial networks included large African
American casts,yet most featured them in stereofypicalroles.Black men are often
301
302
in Practice
Communication
PartII: Gendered
presentedas !^zy and unable to handle authorify, as lecherous,and/or as unlawful,

while black femalesare portrayed as domineering or as sexobjects("Sights, Sounds,
and Stereofypes,"Igg2).Writing rn 1.993,DavidEvans(7993,p. 10) criticizedtelevision for stereotypingblack males as athletesand entertainers.These roles,wrote
Evans,misleadyoung black male viewers into thinking success"is only a dribble or
dance step away," and blind them to other, more realistic ambitions. African
Americans are also underrepresentedin news programming. Sixty percent of news
storieson blacks portray them negatively,and reports of crimes in which blacks are
accusedare lesstikely to include pro-defensesound bites than are reports of crimes
in which whites areaccused(Entman,1994).Hispanicsand Asiansarenearlyabsent
in prime-time television, and when they are presentedit is usually as villains or
criminals (Lichter, Lichter, Rothman, & Amundson, L987).
Also underrepresentedis the single fastestgrowing group of Americans-older
people.As a country, we are aging so that people over 60 make up a major part of
our population;within this group,women significantlyoutnumber men. Older people not only are underrepresentedin media but also are representedinaccurately.In
contrast to demographicrealities,media consistentlyshow fewer older women than
men, presumablybecauseour culture worshipsyouth and beautyin women. Further,
elderly individuals are frequently portrayed as sick, dependent,fumblingr and passive,imagesnot borne out in real life. Distorted depictionsof older peopleand especially older women in media, however,can delude us into thinking they are a small,
sickly,and unimportant part of our population.
Historically, the lack of women in the media has been paralleledby the scarcify
of women in chargeof media. Only about 5o/oof televisionwriters, executives,and
producers are women (Lichter, Lichter, & Rothman, 1986). Ironically, while twothirds ofjournatism graduatesare women, they make up less than5o/oof those in
corporate managementof newspapersand only about 5o/oof newspaPerpublishers
(Seplow,1,996;"Women in Media," 1988). Female film directorsare even more
scarce,as are executivesin charge of MTV. It is probably not coincidental that so
few women arebehind the scenesof an industry that so consistentlyportrayswomen
negatively.Some media analysts(Mills, 1988) believethat if more women had positions of authority at executivelevels,media would offer more positive portrayalsof
women.
Recently,more women havebeen featuredin prime-time television,and increasingly they are main characterswho exempli$' strength, competence'and success
(Seplow,1,996).CBS's highly popular ChicagoHope featuresChristine Lahti as Dr.
Kathryn Austin. Unlike most female charactersin prior televisionshows,Dr. Austin
is a brilliant cardiac surgeonwho earnedand got the position of chief of staff and
then chief of surgery.Women portray the top officerson NBC's Laut and Order and
Fox's New York Underco'uer.
Chapter 10: GenderedMedia: The Influenceof Media on Views of Gender
303
At the same time that women are moving into prominent and positive roles in
some television programs, other programs continue to promote demeaning images
of women. For instance, in NBC's situation comedy 3rd Rockfrom the Sun, aliens
come to earth and assume human forms. Two of the characteis inhabit men's bodies and one inhabits a woman's body. When the alien in the female form asks why
she got a female body, she is told, "Because you lost." Is there merely a harmless joke
or is it harmful? Interviewed by Ricbmond-Tirne Dispatcb reporter Nora Villagran,
educator and counselor Sheila Dubin
said, "When
TV jokes are made about
women's bodies, it's especially harmful to young girls just beginning to develop"
(Villagran,'1.996,p. D1). Other scholars assert that the unrealistic images of women
advanced by media bncourage ^ver^ge women to dislike their own bodies (Shields,
t9e7).
Portrayalsof Womenand Men
Stereotypical
In general, media continue to present both women and men in stereotypedways
that limit our perceptions of human possibilities.Typically, men arc porft^yed as
active,adventurous,powerful, sexuallyaggressive,
and largely uninvolved in human
relationships.Just as consistent with cultural views of gender are depictions of
women as sexobjectswho are usuallyyoung, thin, beautiful,passive,dependent,and
often incompetent and dumb. Becausemedia pervadeour lives,the ways they misrepresentgendersmay distort how we seeourselvesand what we perceiveas normal
and desirablefor men and women.
portrayals of men. According to J. A. Doyl. (1.989,p. 1L1), whose

Stereotypical
re5ga1*qb.
.focuses-.on.rnasculiniry children's f-elgy1gionqypi,callyshows males as
"aggrgsqiv.e,
dominant,.and engaged u-Lexeiting-aetivitiesftom*.yi$9l1 tb_Z:!$d
from
others for their'masculine'accomplishments."Relatedly,other studies
--qey3rd9
reveal that ttre majority of men on prime-time television are independent,aggressive, and in charge (McCauley, Thangavelu, & Rozin, 1988).Television programming for all agesdisproportionatelydepicts men as serious,confident, competent,
powerful, and in high-statuspositions.Gentlenessin men, which was briefly evident
in the I970s, has recededas establishedmale charactersare redrawn to be more
tough and distancedfrom others (Boyeq 1986).Highly popular films such asLethal
Weapon,Pulp Fiction, the James Bond series, Die Hard usitb a Wngeance,and
Clffianger star men who embody the stereorypeof extrenle masculinity.Media,
then, reinforce long-standing culrural ideals of masculinity:|Mt"". 4.r-e
pf9_s9n*13:
hard, tough, independent,sexuallyaggr.ssive,unafraid,violeht, toially in controf6f
all emotions, and-above all-in no way feminine.
-:{
304
Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice
trqually interesting is how males are not presented.Specifically,they are seldom

portrayed as nurturers. The 1995 hit film Somethingto Thlk About starred Dennis
Qraid as a loving father. Yet, for every film that portrays a man in a nurturing role,
there are many more films that depict men as uninvolved with their families. Men
are seldom shown doing housework (Brown & Campbell, 1986). Doyle (1989)
notes that boys and men are rarelypresentedcaring for others.B. Horovitz (7989)
points out they are typically representedas uninterested in and incompetent at
homemaking,cooking, and child care.Each season's
new adsfor cooking and cleaning suppliesinclude severalthat caricaturemen as incompetent buffoons who are
klutzes in the kitchen and no better at taking care of children. While childrens
books have made a limited attempt to depict women engagedin activitiesoutsideof
the home, there has been little parallel effort to show men involved in family and
home life. When someoneis shown taking care of a child, it is usually the mother,
not the father.This perpetuatesa negativestereorypeof men asuncaring and uninvolved in family life.
Recently,some rap starshave led the way in offering enlargedportrayalsof men
and their roles.A 1,997video by LL Cool J openswith a gospelchoir and portraits
of young children. In his video, "Retrospectfor Life," 2S-year-oldCommon shows
a young pregnant black woman who is facing single motherhood until the father
returns to stay with her. What accounts for the change?In an interview with
'A
Nezusztseek's
Veronica Chambers, Common said,
lot of my friends were getting
turned off to hip-hop musicbecausewe were growing up" (Chambers,1998,p.66).
LL Cool J, who had children with a woman to whom he wasnt married, offered a
different answer:"I went to seemy kids and my son askedme,'Daddy, areyou going
to marry Mommy?'That was deep to listen to. That told me he was yearning for a
famlly" (Chambers,1998,p.67). SinceLL CoolJ marchedto the altar,he'sbeenfollowed by Snoop Doggy Dogg and Coolio. Family valuesand men's roles as husbands and fathers are a new theme in the hip-hop communiry.
Stereotypicalportrayls of zaomen. Media's images of women also reflect cultural
stereotypesthat depart markedly from realiry.As we have already seen,girls and
women are dramaticallyunderrepresented.In prime-time television in 1987, fuILy
two-thirds of the speakingparts were for men. Women are portrayedas significantly younger and thinner than women in the population as a whole, and most are
depictedaspassive,dependenton men, and enmeshedin relationshipsor housework
(Davis, 1,990).Therequirementsof youth and beautyin women eveninfluencenews
shows,where female newscastersare expectedto be younger,more physicallyattractive, and lessoutspokenthan males(Craft, 1988; Sanders& Rock, 1988).Despite
educators'criticism of self-fulfilling prophesiesthat discouragegirls from successin
math and science,that stereofypewas dramaticallyreiteratedin 1,992when Mattel
offered a new talking Barbie doll. What did she say?"Math classis tough," a mes-
Media:The Influence
Chapter10: Gendered
of Mediaon Viewsof Gender
sage that reinforces the stereotypethat women cannot do math ("Mattel Offers
Tiade-In," 1992).In 1995, another new doll for girls was introduced; this doll says
"makeup." From children'sprogramming, in which the few existing female characters typically spend their time watching malesdo things (Feldman & Brown, 1984;
Woodman,1997), to MTV, which routinely pictureswomen satisfring men'ssexual
fantasies(Pareles,I99};Texier, 1990), media reiteratethe cultural image of women
as dependent,ornamental objectswhose primary functions are to look good, please
men, and stay quietly on the periphery of life.
Media have createdtwo images of women: good women and bad ones.These
polar oppositesare often juxtaposedagainst each other to dramat\ze differencesin
the consequences
that befall good and bad women. Good women are pretty,deferential, and focusedon home, family, and caring for others.Subordinateto men, they
are usually cast as victims, angels, martyrs, and loyal wives and helpmates.
Occasionally,women who depart from traditional roles are portrayed positively,but
this is done either by making their careerlives invisible, aswith Claire Huxtable on
The CosbyShou, or by softening and feminizingworking women to make them more
consistentwith traditional views of femininiry. For instance,in the original script,
Cagney and Lacey were conceivedas strong, mature,independentwomen who took
their work seriouslyand did it well. It took 6 yearsfor writers Barbara Corday and
BarbaraAvedon to sell the script to CBS, and even then they had to agreeto subdue Cagney's and Lacey's abilities to placate producer Barney Rosenzweig,who
complained, "These women aren't soft enough. These women aren't feminine
enough" (Faludi, 1991.,p. 150). While female viewers wrote thousandsof letters
praising the show, male executivesat CBS continued to force writers to make the
characterssofter,more tender,and lesssureof themselves(Faludi, 1991,,p.152).The
remaking of Cagney and Lacey illustratesthe media'sbias in favor of women who
are traditionally feminine and who are not too able,too powerful, or too confident.
Newer shows, such as IAPD Blue and ER feature women who are professionally
competent and alsovery attractive.The rule seemsto be that a woman may be strong
and successfulif and only if she also exemplifiestraditional stereotypesof femininiry-subservience, passiviry beauty, and an identity linked to one or more men
(Simonton,1,995).Roseanne
seemsto be the outstandingexceptionto this rule.
t
--
Popular women's magazines are another source of stereotypical portrayals.

According to researchon the effects of women's magazines(Kato, 1,993),many
women find them discouragingand devaluing.In a study of 75 women studentsat
Stanford Universiry the women reported they felt worse about their appearance
after reading women'smagazines.Debbie Then, who conductedthe study,reported
that women'sself:esteemis substantiallydiminished by the unrealisticstandardsfor
female beauty,fostered by many women's magazines(cited in Kato, 1993).
Stereorypingwomen into traditional roles seemsespeciallypersistentin popular
magazines.In 1994, Elayne Rapping, columnist for the Progressive,
analyzedmaga-
305
@ MYRA
I have a love-hate affair with magazines. I always read Cosmopolitan, but it makes me feel horrible. I think I read it to figure out
how I'm doing-like whether I am thin enough or have the right
clothes. I know it's not realistic to compare myself to the women in
Cosmo,but I do it anyway. I can't help myself. It makes me feel like I
need to improve myself, becauseI don't measureup.
zinesaimed primarily at women. She revieweda broad range of magazines,including Seaenteen,

Family Circle,Sassy,Lear, Self Essence,
Working Wornan,Mirabella, and
Nezl Woman.Rapping found that current popular magazinesprovide better coverage than women's magazinesof a decadeearlier on issuessuch as abortion, social
projects,and obtaining credit. Yet, Rapping also noted, modern women'smagazines
continue to emphasizehow to look better,appealto men, cook nice meals,maintain
relationships,and carefor families. Summarizing her analysis,Rapping wrote, "The
concern for appearance-fashion, fitness, cosmetics,weight and age control-is
paramount"(Rapping,1994,p. 40).
The other image of women the media offer us is the evil sister of the good
homebody.Versionsof this image are the witch, bitch, whore, or nonwoman,who is
representedas hard, cold, aggressive-all of the things a good woman is not supposed to be. trxemplifying the evil woman was Alex in Fatal Attraction, which
grossedmore than $100 million in its first four months (Faludi, 7991,,p. 113). Yet
Alex was only an extremeversionof how bad women aregenerallyportrayedin television shows such as MelrosePlace.Movies releasedin 1995 cast Elisabeth Shue as
a call girl (Leaaing Las Wgas)and Sharon Stone as an alcoholic (Casino).In children'sliterature,we encounterwitches and mean stepmothersasvillains,with beautiful and passivefemaleslike Snow White and SleepingBeaury as their good counterparts.
From the 1980suntil today,prime-time televisionhas favorablyportrayed pretty, nurturing, other-focusedwomen, such as Claire Huxtable, whose careeras an
attorney never entered story lines as much as her engagementin family matters.
Hope rn Thirtysomethingwas an angel,committed to husbandMichael and daughter Janey.In the biographieswritten for each of the characterswhen the show was
in development, all male characterswere defined in terms of their career goals,
beliefs, and activities.Hope's biography consistedof one line: "Hope is married to
Michael" (Faludi, 1991,,p.162).Hope epitomizedthe traditionalwoman, so much
so in fact that in one episodeshe refersto herselfasJune Cleaverand callsMichael
"Ward," thus reprising the traditional family of the 1950sas personifiedin LeaweIt
to Beaaer(Faludi, 1,991.,
p. 161). Meanwhile, prime time typically representsambi-
tious, independent women as lonely, embittered spinsters who are counterpoints to

"good" women. Equally, prime-time
television continues the double standard for
sexual activity. Men, like the lovable womanizer Sam Malone on Cheers,are accepted by viewers, but strong objections were voiced when the character played by Brett
Butler, star of Grace Under Fire, slept with a man she was dating. Shows such as
Seinfeld, in which female characters are shown to have sexual lives, are the exceptions
to the rule that "good women" are not sexually active.
Stereotypical Imagesof Relationshi?s

Men and Women
Betaseen
Given media'sstereofypicalportrayalsofwomen and men, we shouldnt be surprised
to find that relationshipsbetween women and men are similarly depicted in ways
that reinforce stereotFpes.
Four themesdemonstratehow media reflect and promote
traditional arrangementsbetween the sexes.
independence.
Womenidependence/men\
Walt Disney'saward-winning animatedfilm
The Little Mermaid vividly embodiesfemales'dependenceon malesfor identity. In
this feature film, the mermaid quite literally gives up her identity as a mermaid in
order to becomeacceptableto her human lover.In this children'sstory,we see^ particularly obvious illustration of the asymmetricalrelationship betweenwomen and
men that is more subtly conveyedin other media productions. Similarly, Disney's
Lion King featuredfemale lions that dependedon a male lion to savethem, and the
heroine of Pocahontas
wasportrayed as a beautiful, sexymaiden,not the braveyoung
Native American girl she actuallywas. Even the Smurfs, formlesslittle beingswho
have no obvious sex, reflect the male-female, dominant-submissive roles. The
female smur{, unlike her male companions, who have names, is called only
Smurfette, making her sole identity a diminutive relation to male smurfs.The male
dominance/femalesubserviencepattern that permeatesmediatedrepresentationsof
relationships is no accident. Beginning in 1.99I, television executivesdeliberately
and consciouslyadopteda policy of having dominant male charactersin all Saturday
morning children'sprogramming (Carter, I99 1.).
Women, as well as minorities, are still most often cast in support roles rather
than leading ones in both childrens shows and the commercialsinterspersedwithin them (O'Connor,1,989). Analyses of MTV revealedthat it portrays femalesas
passiveand waiting for men'sattention, while malesare shown ignoring, exploiting,
or directingwomen (Brown, Campbell,&Fisher,t986).In somerap musicvideos,
where African American men and women appear,men dominate women, whose
primary role is as objectsof male desires(Pareles,1.990;Texier, 1990). Black gangsta male rap musicians sometimes refer to black women as "bitches" and "hos"
307
(whores)-not exactly respectful names (Wood, 1,998).News programs that have

male and female hosts routinely cast the female as deferentialto her male colleague
(Craft, 1988;Sanders& Rock, 1988).Similarly,blacksare unlikely to be represented as expertson topics other than black affairs (Entman, 1,994),and blackscontinue to be cast in racially stereoryped roles in ads (Kern-Foxworth, 1994).
Commercials,too, manifest power cuesthat echo the male dominance/femalesubserviencepattern. For instance,men areusuallyshown positionedabovewomen, and
women are more frequently pictured in varying degreesof undress (Masse &
Rosenblum,L988;Nigro, Hill, Gelbein,& Clark, 1988).Such nonverbalcuesrepresentwomen as vulnerableand more submissivewhile men stay in control.
In a brief departure from this pattern, films and television beginning in the
I970s respondedto the secondwave of feminism by showing women who were
independent without being hard, embittered, or without closerelationships.Films
such asAlice Doesn'tLive HereAnymore, Up the Sandbox,The Turning Point, Diary of
a Mad Housetaife,and An Unmarried Womanoffered realistic portraits of women
who sought and found their own voicesindependentof men. Judy Davis's film, My
Brilliant Career,particularly embodied this focus by telling the story of a woman
who chooseswork over marriage.During this period, televisionfollowed suit, offering viewers prime-time fare such as Maude and The Mary Tyler Moore Shozu,which
starredwomen who were able and achievingin their own rights (Dow, 1,996).One
Day at a Time, which premiered in 7974,was the first prime-time program about a
divorced woman.
By the 1980s, however, traditionally gendered arrangementsresurged as the
backlash movement against feminism was embracedby media (Haskell, 1988;
Maslin, 1990). Film fare in the 1980s and 1990sincluded Pretty Woman,the story
of a prostitute who becomesa good woman when she is savedfrom her evil ways by
a rigidly stereotypicalman, completewith millions to prove his success.
Meanwhile,
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down trivialized abuse of women and underlined women's
dependenceon men with a story of a woman who is bound by a man and colludes
in sustainingher bondage.CrossingDelanceltshowedsuccessfulcareeristA*y Irving
talked into believing she needsa man to be complete,a theme reprisedby Cher in
Moonstruck.
tlevision, too, cooperatedin rerurning women to their traditional roles with
characterslike Hope in Thirtysomething,who minded house and baby as an ultratraditional wife, and even Murphy Brown found her careerwasn't enough and had
a baby.Against her protests,Cybill Shepherd,who playedMaddie in Moonligbting,
was forced to marry briefly on screen,which SusanFaludi (1,991,,
p.I57) refersto as
part of a "campaign to cow this independent female figure." In the 1995 film
Somethingto TalkAbout,Julia Robertsplayed a characterwhoselife revolvedaround
men-her father and her errant husband.ln BIue SZy,JessicaLange embodied the
stereotypeof a hysterical,man-craLzy
woman. Popular music addedits voicewith hit
songs like "Having My Baby," which glorified a woman who defined herself by
motherhood and her relationship to a man. The point is not that having babiesor
committing to relationshipsis wrong; rather,it is that media virtually require this of
women in order to present them positively.Media define ^ very narrow range for
womanhood.
Joining the campaign to restore traditional dominant-subordinate patterns of
male-female relationships were magazines,which reinvigorated their focus on
women'srole asthe helpmateand supporterof husbandsand families(Peirce,1990).
In L988,that stapleof Americana, GoodHousekeeping,
did its part to revivewomen's
traditional roles with a full-page ad ("The Best in the House," 1988) for its new
demographicedition marketed to "the new traditionalist woman." A month later,
the magazinefollowed this up with a secondfull-page ad in national newspapers
that saluted the "new traditionalist woman," with this copy ("The New
Traditionalist,"1988):"She has made her commitment.Her mission:createa more
meaningful life for herself and her family. She is the New Tiaditionalist-a contemporary woman who finds her fulfillment in traditional values." The longstanding dominant-submissive model for male-female relationshipswas largely
restoredin the 1980s.Even magazinessuch as WorkingWomanand Saztvltwhich
are aimed at professionalwomen, devote at least as much spaceto dress,hairstyle,
cooking, and personalrelationshipsas to careertopics.With only rare exceptions,
women are still portrayed asdependenton men and subservientto them. One scholar (Lott, 1,989,p. 64) points out, it is women who "do the laundry and are secretaries
to men who own companies."
A secondrecurrenttheme in media represenMen\ authority/zazrnen's
incompetence.
tations of relationshipsis that men are the competent authoritieswho savewomen
from their incompetence.Children'sliteraturevividly implementsthis motif by casting femalesas helplessand males as coming to their rescue.SleepingBeauty'sresurrection dependson Prince Charmingt kiss, a theme that appearsin the increasingly popular gothic romancenovelsfor adults (Modleski,1,982).
One of the most pervasiveways in which media define malesas authoritiesis in
commercials.Women are routinely shown anguishing over dirry floors and bathroom fixtures only to be relieved of their distresswhen Mr. Clean showsup to tell
them how to keep their homes spotless.Even when commercials are aimed at
women, selling products intended for them, up to 90o/oof the time a man'svoice is
Bretl & Cantor,
usedto explainthe valueof what is being sold (Basow,1.992,p.1.61,;
1988).Using male voice-oversreinforcesthe cultural view that men are authorities
and women depend on men to tell them what to do.
Television further communicates the messagethat men are authorities and
women are not. One meansof doing this is sheernumbers.As we have seen,men
vastlyoutnumber women in televisionprogramming. In addition, the dominanceof
310
@ PAUL
I wouldn't say this around anyone, but personally I d be glad if the
media let up a little on guys. I watch those guys in films and on TV,
and I feel inadequate. I mean, I'm healthy and I look okay, and I'11
probably make a decent salary when I graduate. But I am no stud; I
cant beat up three guys at once; women dont fall dead at my feet; I
doubt I'll make a million bucks; and I dont have muscles that ripple. Every time I go to a film, I leave feeling like a wimp. How can
any of us guys measure up to what's on the screen?
white men as news anchorsand expertswho inform us of happeningsin the world

underlines their authority ("Study Reports Sex Bias," 1989). Prime-time television
contributes to this image by showing women who need to be rescuedby men and
by presentingwomen asincompetent more than twice asoften asmen (Boyer,7986;
Lichter et a1.,1986).
Consider the charactersin TheJetsont an animated television seriesset in the
future. Daughter J"dy Jetson is constantly complaining and waiting for others to
help her, using ploys of helplessness
and flattery to win men'sattention. TheRescuers
tJnder
released
in 1990, featuresMiss Bianca (whose
Doztn
an animated movie
voice is that of Eva Gabor, fittingly enough), who splits her time evenly between
being in trouble and being grateful to male charactersfor rescuingber The_s_,e_-t9l:otypical representationsof males and femalesreinforce a number of harmful beliefs.
They suggest,first, that men are more competent than women. Compounding this
is the messagethat a woman'spower lies in her looks and conventionalfemininiry
since that is how femalesfrom SleepingBeauty to Judy Jetson get males to assist
them with their dilemmas (McCauley, Thangavelu, & Rozin, 1988). Third, these
stereotypesunderline the requirementthat men must perform, succeed,and conquer
in order to be worthy.
A third perennial theme in media
asbreadr.uinners.
Womenasprirnary caregivers/rnen
is that women are caregiversand men are providers.Since the 1980s,in fact, this
genderedarrangementhas been promulgatedwith renewedvigor. Once again,as in
the 1950s,we seewomen devoting themselvesto getting rings off of collars,gray out
of their hair, and meals on the table. Corresponding to this is the restatementof
men's inability in domestic and nurturing roles. Horovitz (1989), for instance,
reports that in commercialsmen are regularly the butt of jokes for their ignorance
about nutrition, child care,and housework.
When media portray women who work outside of the home, their careerlives
often receivelittle or no attention. Although these charactershave titles such as
311 \"
@ KALEB
What burns me up is those programs and commercials that show
men as absolute idiots. One of the worst is that one where the
mother gets sick and the kids and husband just fall apart without
her to fix meals and do laundry. Give me a break. Most guys can do
the basic stuff just as well as women, and I'm tired of seeing them
made into jokes anytime they enter a nursery or kitchen.
CAROLYN
I get so burned up about the way media portray stay-at-home
moms. On television, they are loving, and I mean all the time. They
never get angry or frustrated, and they never resent their children.
Well, I'm a stay-at-home mom right now, and I think I'm a pretty
good one. But I do get angry sometimes, and every now and then I
resent the way my kids limit what I can do. Like the other dty,I
agreed to do some volunteer work. I arranged for day care, but my
son got sick and I had to stay home. I resented being prevented
from doing what I planned and wanted to do. Does that make me a
monster? Does it make me abnormal or something? It does if you
agree with television and movie images of what mothers are supposed to be. No human can be that way, no matter how good a
mother she is.
lawyeror doctor,they are shown predominantly in their rolesashomemakers,mothers,and wives.We frequently seethem involved in caring conversationswith family and friends and doing things for others, all of which never seemto conflict with
their professional responsibilities.The characterstn Designing Women typrcally
interact in a cozy living room-not a typical professionaloffice (Do*, 1996).Tea
Leoni, star of the 1995 ABC comedy TheNakedTruth, remarkedthat, aboveall else,
femalecharactersmust be likable (Sharkey,1995,p.2-2). This has the potential to
cultivate unrealistic expectationsof being "superwoman,"who does it all without
evergetting a hair out of place or being late to a conference.
Magazines play a key role in promoting pleasing others as a primary focus of
women'slives. Peircet (1990) study found that magazinesaimed at women stress
looking good and doing things to pleaseothers.Thus, advertisingtells women how
to be "me, only better" by dyeing their hair to look younger;how to lose weight so
"you'll still be attractiveto him"; and how to preparegourmet mealsso "he's always
312
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glad to come home." Constantly, these advertisements emphasize pleasing others,

especially men, as central to being a woman, and the message is fortified with the
thinly veiled warning that if a woman fails to look good and please, her man might
leave (Lont, 1.995; Rakow, 1992).
There is a second, less known way in which advertisements contribute to stereofypes of women as focused on others and men as focused on work. Writing
in 1990,
Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms., revealed that advertisers control some to most of the
content in magazines. In exchange for placing an ad, a company receives "complementary copy," which is one or more articles that increase the market appeal of its
product. So a soup company that takes out an ad might be given a three-page story
on how to prepare meals using that brand of soup; likewise, an ad for hair coloring
products might be accompanied by interviews with famous women who choose to
dye their hair. Thus, the message of advertisers is multiplied by magazine content,
which readers often mistakenly assume is independent of advertising. Ms. ts the only
popular magazine that refuses to accept advertising so that it can control content.
Advertisers support media, and they exert a powerful influence on what is presented. To understand the prevalence of traditional gender roles in programming,
magazine copy, and other media, we need only ask what is in the best interests of
advertisers. They want to sponsor shows that create or expand markets for their
prod-ucts. Media images of women as sex objects, devoted homemakers, and mothers buttress the very roles in whieh+he-rrrajorityofeonsuming-lakes
place. To live
up to tliaJe images, women have to buy cosmetics and other personal cart products,
diet aids, food, household cleaners, utensils and appliances, clothes and toys for children, and so on. In short, it is in advertisers'interests to support programming and
copy that feature women in traditional roles. Lana Rakow (1992) demonstrated that
much advertising is oppressive to women and is very difficult to resist, even when
one is a committed feminist.
t'.
Women's role in the home and men's role outside of it are reinforced by newspapers and news programming. Both emphasize men's independent activities and,
in fact, define news almost entirely as stories about and by men ("Study Reports Sex
(Luebke,
Bias,"1989).Storiesabout men focuson work ^nd/or their achievements
1989), reiterating the cultural messagethat men are supposedto do, perform.
Meanwhile the few stories about women almost invariably focus on their roles as
wives, mothers, and homemakers ("Study Reports Sex Bias," 1989). Even stories
about women who are in the news becauseof achievementsand professionalactivities typically dwell on marriage,family life, and other aspectsof women'straditional role (Foreit et al., 1980).
Womenas ztictimsand sexobjects/men
as aggressors.
A final theme in mediated reprewomen and men is the view of women as subsentationsof relationshipsbetvrreen
ject to men'ssexualdesires.The irony of this representationis that the very qualities
in
women are encouragedto develop(beaury sexiness,passiviryand powerlessness)
orderto meet cultural idealsof femininity contribute to their victimtzation. Also, the
dominance,sexualiryand
qualitiesthat men are urged to exemplifr (aggressiveness,
strength)are identical to those linked to abuseof women. It is no coincidencethat
all but one of the women nominated for Best Actressin the 1988 Academy Awards
playeda victim (Faludi, 1991.,p. 138). Women are portrayed alternativelyeither as
decorativeobjects,who must attract a man to be valuable,or asvictims of men'ssexual-.unpu15!.,Either way, women are defined by their bodies and how men treat
TORYOUR INFORMATION
Girl Poa:er???
Spice Girls burst on the scene with the cry for Girl Power and slogans such as
"Silence is golden but shouting is fun." What is the girl power this group offers?
Many yor.tng *orr,.n see the Spice Girls as sassy,sexy gals who are redefining
female power. But Kim Gordon, bassist and guitarist for Sonic Youth, doesnt
agree. She says,"I think they're totally ridiculous. They're masquerading as little
girls. It's repulsive" (Schoemer, 1998, p. 90).
The Spice Girls may present themselves as little girls, but they're involved in
some very adult ideas. Spice Girls wallpaper was recalled when the manufacturer
was flooded with objections from parents who discovered Baby Spice's nightgown
uF--said,
off." Defiant sexualiry is not unique to Spice Girls. Girl rockers such as
Ani DeFranco and Tori Amos advocate sexual freedom and fun for women. New as
this may seem to the current generation, women's sexual liberation was a major
theme in the late 1960s and 1970s. Most women of that earlier time later reflected
that women's sexual liberation was far more liberating for men than women. This
leads to the question of whether there might be ways of defining women's power
that depart from traditional themes such as sexuality.
3131
314
@ TIFFANY
It makes black guys angry when I say it, but I think gangsta rap is
totally sexist and destructive. Some of my girlfriends say they like
rap and don't take the antiwoman lyrics personally.The way I see it,
though, calling women bitches and whores is as hateful as you can
get. It totally disseswomen. If black men talk that way about black
women, how can we respect ourselvesor expect others to?
them. Their independentidentities and endeavorsareirrelevantto how they arerepresented in media, and their abilities to ieSist exploitation by othe++ereobscuredThis theme, which was somewhattoned down during the 1970s,returned with
vigor in the 1980sand 1990sas the backlashpermeatedmedia.According to S. A.
Basow (1'992,p. 160), since 1987 there has been a "resurgenceof male prominence,
pretfy female sidekicks,female homemakers."Advertising in magazinesalso communicatesthe messagethat women are sexualobjects.While men are seldom pictured nude or evenpartially unclothed,women habitually are.For example,the 1,995
film Shougirls was describedas a "peep show" whose "drawing card is female flesh"
(Ansen & Bunn, 1995,p.74). Advertisementsfor makeup,colognes,hair products,
and clothes often show women attracting men becausethey got the right products
and made themselvesirresistible.Stars on prime time and films, who are beautiful
and dangerouslythin, perpetuatethe idea that women must literally starve themselvesto death to win men'sinterest (Silversteinet al., 1986).
Portrayals of wa.men"aa,s-glg_bie-91_s
and.ryen as sexualaggressorsoften occur in
music videos as shown on MTV and many &68-rtrtions. Typically, females are
shown dancing provocativelyin scant and,/orrevealingclothing as they try to gain
men'sattention (Texier,1990)"Freqqently,._me{!
afq s_gen
coercingwgmen into sexuphryT?Uy _ebg._ilm=. Violence against women is also con_,U +.g!*'l*:T99:
doned in many recent films. R. Warshaw (199I) reported that cinematic presentations of rapes,especiallyacquaintancerapes,are not presentedas power-motivated
violations of women but rather as strictly sexual encounters. Similarly, others
(Cowan,Lee, Levy,& Snyder,1988;Cowan & O'Brien,1990) havefound that male
dominance and sexualexploitation of women are themes in virtually all R- and Xrated films, which almost anyone may now rent for home viewing. These media
images cury to extremeslong-standing cultural views of masculiniry as aggressive
and femininity as passive.They also make violenceseemsexy(D. Russell,1993).In
so doing, they re-createthese limited and limiting perceptionsin the thinking of
anothergenerationof women and men.
Tiffany's response(seecommentar/) to gangstarap is not unusual.A number of
commentators, of different sexesand races,have strongly criticized gangsta rap.
According to Leonard Pitts, Jr., an African American music critic, "There's some-
315
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thing vile and evil moving beneath the surface of this music. Something that hates
you. And shames me" (1.993, p. 7E). The National Political Congress of Black
Women (NPCBW)
agrees and has pressured record companies to stop distributing
gangsta rap that uses street language to applaud drug use, impersonal sex, rape, and
murder. C. Delores Tucker, chair of the NPCBW,
says that the lyrics of gangsta rap
"offer negative images of human relationships [that] too often teach African
American men how to mistreat African American women. For our women to accept
this is nothing
short of mental and spirirual contaminatiori'
(cited in Ransom,
1993). Scholar and social critic bell hooks (1994) agrees, and she urges African
American women to speak out against the violence to women that is glorified in
much gangsta rap.
In sum, we have identified basic stereotypes and themes in media's representations of women, men, and relationships between the two. Individually and in combination these images sustain and reinforce socially constructed views of the genders, views that have restricted both men and women and that appear to legitimize
destructive behaviors ranging from anorexia to battering. Later in this chapter, we
will probe more closely how media versions of gender are linked to problems such
as these.
B I A SI N N E W SC O V E R A C E
Television is the primary source of news for at least two-thirds of Americans
(Basow,1.992,p. 160), with newspapersranking second.This suggeststhat our
understandingof issues,events,and people is shapedsubstantiallyby what televi-
J
)
t.
I
l
@ LOUISE
Talk about biased coverage.Last year a group of us went to
Washington, DC, for a pro-choice march. The turnout was fabulous
and showed that a lot of women support freedom to choose what
happens to their bodies. But was it given coverage?It got less than
1 minute on the nightly news that night, but a big business deal got
over 2 minutes, and an athlete's decision to switch teams was the
newsmaker interview that night. The march was covered in the next
day's papers, but not well. It didn't even make the first section in
some papers. If you just tuned in the news you could think the
whole march never happened. In fact, my mother and father told
me they'd heard virtually nothing about it when I got home.
sion and newspapers define as news and the manner in which they present it. As
gatekeepers of information,
news reporting selectively shapes our perceptions of
issues related to gender.

Beginning with the second wave of American feminism in the 1960s, media
have consistently misrepresented the goals, activities, and members of women's
movements. Because most editors and media executives are men, they have not
experienced the daily frustrations women face in a society where they lack rights,
opportunities, and status equal to those of men. Some men may feel threatened by
women's demands for more prerogatives and for equal treatment. Their lack of personal acquaintance with inequities and their apprehension about women who step
out of familiar roles probably account for much of the distortion in coverage of feminism and women.
In the early days of radical feminism, media portrayed feminists as man-hating,
bra-burning
extremists. The famous bra-burning, in fact, never happened, but was
erroneously reported by a journalist who misunderstood the facts (Faludi, 1,991,,

p.75). This was no isolated effort to discredit the women's movement, since many
stories caricatured feminists and undermined women's efforts to gain rights. In the
early 1970s, an editor at Nezasdaygave these instructions to a reporter he assigned
to research and write a story on the women's movement (Faludi, 1,991,,pp.75-76):
"Get out there and find an authority who'll say it's all a crock of shit." Little wonder that the story that later appeared reported that the women's movement was a
minor ripple without much validity or support.
One of the most famous-or
manifestation
infamous-media
of the backlash movement
stunts of the 1980s was another
against feminism, which
consistently
received more favorable press than the women's movement itself. The cover story for
the June 2I,1986, issue of Nevssweekwas about the so-called man shortage. With
dramatic charts showing that chances for marrying plunge precipitously as a working
woman ages,Neztsstaeekproclaimed that after age 40, a woman was more likely to be
Chapter10: GenderedMedia:The Infuenceof Media on Viewsof Gender
killed by a terrorist than to marry, a comment that led one wit to declare that was the
best rationale shed ever heard for terrorism! Behind the headlines, the facts were
shaky.The predictions of women's opportunities to marry were based on a study by
researchersat Harvard and Yale, but the data of the study were discredited and the
study was withdrawn from publication. Did the flaws in the study and its withdrawal get headlines? No way. When
the accurate U.S. Census Bureau's figures were
releasedsome months later and disproved the bogus study, Neusueek relegated that
information to a mere two paragraphs in a minor column (Faludi, 1.991.,pp.98-100).
Another incident illustrative of media's distortion of feminism came in 1989,
when Felice Schwartz, a management consultant, published an article in the prestigious Haraard BusinessReaiew, in which she argued that women who want to have
children cost businesses too much money and should be placed on a separate track
in which they do not get the opportunities for advancement that go to men and
women who are career oriented. Dubbing this "the mommy track," newspapers and
mtgazines took Schwartz's article as occasion to reassert the viewpoint that women's
place really is in the home and that they are lesser players in professional life. Once
again, though, facts to support the claim were scant. Schwartz's article was speculative, as was her opinion that most women would willingly
trade promotions and
opportunities for more time with their families. When the annual Virginia
Poll (1990) directly asked women working
Slims
outside of the home whether they
favored mommy tracks, nearly three-fourths thought such a policy was regressive
and discriminatory. Schwartz later retracted her suggestions, saying she had erred in
claiming women were more expensive as employees than men. Her retraction, however, got iittle coverage, since Schwartz's revised point of view did not support the
media's bias regarding women's roles. Because there was virtually no coverage of
Schwartz's change of opinion (Faludi, 1.991,,p.92), many people read only the first
article and continue to believe it is credible.
Other gender issues have been similarly transformed to fit media's biases. Two
instances of bending events to fit stereotypes of gender occurred in the 1990 Gulf
War. As substantial numbers of women joined men in fighting, traditional values
were shaken. Throughout
the war, newspapers and magazines featured melodra-
matic picrures of children watching mothers go to war, while talk shows asked the
question "Should a woman leave her baby to go to war?" (Flanders, 1990). Surely,
this is a reasonable question to ask about any p^rent, but it was rarely applied to
fathers.In focusing on women's roles as mothers, the media communicated two gender messages.First, they implied that women-real
women-d6n'1
leave their chil-
dren. The second gender messagewas that fathers are not primary parents. In dismissing fathers'abilities to take care of children while mothers were overseas,media
reinforced men's marginality in family life.
A second gender issue relating to the GulfWar
came when an American woman
in the military, along with several men, was taken as a prisoner of war. Rather than
31.7
318
Part II: GenderedCommunicationin Practice
presenting this as straightforward news, however, media focused on her femininity

rather than on her military role. Newspapers showing photographs of all POWs fearured the male ones in military uniform and the female in a glamour shot from her
school yearbook. In highlighting
her femininiry
timent about women's fragiliry
vulnerabiliry
media ignited powerful public senand, therefore, inappropriateness in
positions of danger. All attention focused, as the media directed it to, on possibilities of sexual assault of women POWs, thereby reinforcing images of women as sex
objects. Only ^ yer later, we learned of the Tailhook scandal in which numerous
male naval personnel sexually harassed female personnel. This made it clear that
women are at least as likely to suffer sexual assault from male peers in the service as
from enemies who capture them.
When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president and Pat Schroeder ran for president in the late 1980s, morning talk shows focused on whether women's hormonal
swings disqualified them for leadership. A thorough review of all research on the
effects of hormonal cycles on women's abilities (Golub, 1988) somehow never made
the airwaves, perhaps because it demonstrated conclusively that women's cycles do
not consistently impair their performance. This issue resurfacesvirtually every time a
woman runs for high office, yet media have yet to cover James Dabbs and Robin
Morris's (1990) finding that male hormonal cycles do affectbehavior. A fewyears later
when it was revealed that President Bush was taking Halcion, a drug demonstrated
to affect judgment and sometimes to cause hallucinations, scant attention was paid.
Facts and fairness were sacrificed in the media's quest to reinforce views of women as
irrational, emotional, and frail and men as i3
1ontr91,
c9m-p-e19"t,;a;bil-
TIteMedia\ Creationof "Postfeminism

Posfeminismis a popular term in media today, and no wonder: Media created the
term! Beginning in the late 1980s, media began declaring "the death of feminism,"
a demise that was attributed to the fact that "feminism had failed women."
The media declared that feminism had failed women by not caring about child
care and support of mothers, particularly single mothers. In actualiry feminists have
fought hard, and they continue to fight, for support of mothers and children, but
conservative politicians have refused to pass legislation that would benefit women
and children. Blaming feminism may make for good sound bites, but it doesn't
square with the facts.
Sources: Davis, F. (1991). Moting the mountain: The qtomen\ novement in America since1960. New York Simon
and Schuster; Press,A. (1991). Womentoatclting television:Gender,classand generation in the American television
experiene
e. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Stacey,J. G987). Sexism by a subtler name?
Postindustrial conditions and postfeminist consciousnessin the Silicon Valley. SocialistReoieu, t7,7-28.
Chapter 10: Gendered Media:The Influence of Media on Views of Gender
Do media representationsof eventsshapeour perceptions?To find out, I asked

studentsto answerfive questionson the first day of class.First,I askedwhether feminists had burned bras in the 1960s to protest inequities;second,whether women
who havechildren cost more to employthan men; third, whether men havehormonal
cyclesthat affect their behavior; fourth, whether women's hormonal swings affect
their behavior;and fifth, whether there is a shortageof men for women who want to
marry.In every case,the majority of studentsbelievedthe myths createdby media,
with nearly all students thinking that women
rn&. expensiveto employ and are
"r.
subjectto severehormonal swingsbut that men either do not have hormonal cycles
or arenot affectedby them. Too often the messages
media createmisinform us about
issuesthat affect our lives and perceptions.
I M P L I C A T I O NOSF M E D I A
R E P R E S E N T A T IO
OFNC
SE ND E R
319
u
z
,E
E
!r
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I
ti
We have seen that media passesalong gendered themes and skews coverage of gender issues. Acting as the announcer of culrural values, media reinforce traditional
stereofypes of men and women and of relationships between them. Media encourage
us to perceive women as dependent, decorative, passive, and subservient and men as
independent, powerful, active, and superior. Besieging us from childhood through
adult life, media messagesreinforce and reproduce gendered identities.
In this final section of the chapter, we want to probe the consequences of media
communication about gender. As we will see, media potentially hamper our understandings of ourselves as women and men in three ways. First, media perpetuate
unrealistic ideals of what each gender should be, implying that normal people are
inadequate by comparison. Simultaneously, because cultural ideals promoted by
media are rigid, they limit views of each gender's abilities and opportunities, which
may discourage us from venturing into areas outside of those that media define for
our sex. Second, media pathologize the bodies of men and especially of women,
prompting us to consider normal physical qualities and functions as abnormal and
requiring corrective measures. Third, media contribute significantly to normahzing
violence against women, making it possible for men to believe they are entitled to
abuse or force women to engage in sex and for women to consider such violations
acceptable.
u
E
!(
t
Fostering Unrealistic and Limited Gender Ideals
Manyof the imagesdispensed

by mediaareunrealistic.
Most menarenot asstrong,
bold, and successfulas males on the screen.Few women are as slender,gorgeous, and
320
well dressedas stars and models,whose photographsare airbrushedand retouched

to createtheir artificial beauty.Most peoplewill not reachexecutivepositionsby the
ageof 35, and those who do are unlikely to be as glamorous,stress-free,and joyous
as the atypical few featured in magazineshke Saztay,BusinessWeek,Fortune, and
WorkingWoman.Further, no woman who is healthy can avoid crossing40, which is
the age at which women virtually disappearfrom media ("Women on T\4" 1990).
The relationshipsdepicted in media also defy realisticpossibilities,sincemost of us
will encounter problems that cannot be solved in 30 minutes (minus 4Vz minutes
for commercialinterruptions), and most of us will not be able to pursuea demanding career and still be as relaxed and available to family and friends as media
characters.
Do idealizedimagesin media really affectus?You might reasonablyassumethat
we all know the difference between fantasy and reality,so we dont accept media
imagesas models for our own lives and identities. Research,however,suggeststhat
the unrealisticidealsin popular media do influencehow we feel about ourselvesand
our relationships.Mediated imagesseemto function ^t a lessthan consciouslevel as
implicit modelsfor our own lives.In Chapter2,we noted that modelingcontributes
to developmentof genderidentity. We look to others-including mediatedothersto define how we are supposedto be. Especiallyduring the earlyyearswhen children often do not clearly distinguish reality from fantasy,they seem susceptibleto
confusingmedia characterswith real people (Woodman, L99L).In one interesting
study,Kimball (1986) comparedthe sex-stereotypical
attitudesof children who lived
in areaswithout television and those in similar areaswho watched television.He
found that children who watched televisionhad more stereot)?edviews of the sexes;
further, when television was introduced into communities that had not had it, the
children'sbeliefs becamemore sex typed. Other researchconfirms the finding that
television is linked to sex-fyped attitudes in children and adolescents(Morgan,
1987), especiallyones in working-class families (Nikken & Peeters,1988). One
exception is programming that presentsnonstereotypicalportrayals of males and
females,which tends to decrease,not fortify, sex stereotypes(Eisenstock, 1984;
Rosenwasser,
Lingenfelter, & Harrington, 1989).
The effects of media are not limited to childhood. For adolescents,radio is a
major influence,with the averagelistening time being 5 hours a day-slightly less
for Caucasians and slightly more for African Americans, especially African
American females (Brown et a1.,1990). While most popular music reflectssex
(Lont, 1990),this is lesstrue of work composedand/or sungbywomen
stereofypes
(Groce & Cooper, 1.990).However, becausemost songs are written and sung by
males, rock and rap music generally reflects a male point of view (Brown &
Campbell, 1,986) in which women ^re depicted sexually and negatively (St.
321,
@ KALYN
If movies are going to show explicit sex scenes,I wish they would at
least show normal sex like ordinary people have. Have you ever
noticed that films and TV never show a woman being unaroused by
a man or a man being less than a superstar stud in bed? Nobody on
screen ever has to deal with an averagesexual experience,much less
a disappointing one. I think watching super sex all the time makes
us think something is wrong in our own relationships when fireworks don't go off every time. And they dont every time.
Lawrence &Joynder,1,991.).Other media stereotypeshave similar distorting effects

on our identities. For instance, popularized images of men as independent and
women as nurturing and as relationship expertsencouragewomen to feel responsible for others and men to regard caring as peripheral in their lives.
A study by J. Shapiro and L. Kroeger (7991) suggeststhat mediated myths of
relationshipscontribute to socializingpeopleinto unrealisticviews of what a normal
relationship is. In particular,they found that MTV's and rock music'semphasison
eroticism and sublime sexis linked to an expectationof sexualperfectionismin real
relationships.Further, Shapiro and Kroeger reported that readersof self-help books
tended to have more unrealisticidealsfor relationshipsthan did nonreadersof such
books. Consequently,thosewho read self-help books experiencedmore than typical
amounts of frustration and disappointmentwhen their relationshipsfailed to meet
the idealspromoted by media.
Of the many influenceson how we feel about ourselvesand what we expectin
our relationships,media are substantial.Clinicians such asA. T. Beck (1988) aswell
(Adelmann, 1989;McCormick &Jordan, 1988;Wadsworth, 1989)
as researchers
maintain that unrealistic images of what we and our relationshipsshould be contribute significantly to dissatisfactionand its consequences,
including feelings of
inadequacy,anorexia,cosmeticsurgery,and emotional difficulties.Media's imagesof
women, men, and relationshipsare ideals-they are not real, and few of us can even
approximatethe standardsthey establish.Yet when we are constantlybesiegedwith
ideals of how we should look, feel, act, and be, it's difficult not to feel inadequate.
As Paul's earlier journal entry indicated, men as well as women may feel woefully
deficientif theyrelyon media charactersas models.If we use media as a reference
point for what is normal and desirable,we may find ourselvesconstantlyfeeling that
we and our relationshipsare inferior by comparison.To the extent that we let ourselvesbe influenced by the unreal and unreasonableimagespresentedby media,we
may be hindered in our abiliry to enjoy real people and real relationships.
322
Patltologizing tlte Human Body

One of the most damagingconsequences
of media'simagesof women and men is
that theseimagesencourageus to perceivenormal bodiesand normal physicalfunctions as problems.It's understandable
to wish we weigheda little more or less,had
better developedmuscles,and never had pimples or cramps.What is neither reasonablenor healthy,however,is to regardhealthy,functional bodiesasabnormal and
unacceptable.Yet this is preciselythe negativeself-imagecultivated by media portrayalsofwomen and men. Becausesexsellsproducts (Muro, 1,989),sexualand erotic images are the single most prominent characteristicof advertising(Courtney &
Whipple, 1983). Further, advertisingis increasinglyobjecti$,ing men, which probably accountsfor the rise in men'sweight training and cosmeticsurgery.Media, and
especiallyadvertisinBtate equal opportunity dehumanizersof both sexes.
Not only do media induce us to think we should measureup to artificial standards,but they encourageus to seenormal bodiesand bodily functionsaspathologies.A good exampleis the media'sconstructionof premenstrualsyndrome(PMS).
Historically, PMS has not been a problem, but recently it has been declareda disease(Richmond-Abbott,1992).In fact,a good dealof research(Parlee,1.973,7987)
indicates that PMS affectedvery few women in earlier eras.After World War II,
when women were no longer neededin the work force, opinion changed and the
term premenstrualtensionwas coined (Greene& Dalton,1,953)and usedto define
women as inferior employees.In L964, only one article on PMS appeared;in
1988-1989,a total of 425 were published(Tavris,1.992,p. 1a0). Drug companies
funded researchand publiciry since selling PMS meant selling their remediesfor
the newly createdproblem. Behind the hoopla, howeveqthere was and is little evidence to support the currently widespreadbelief that PMS is a seriousproblem for
a significant portion of the female population. Facts aside,the myth has caught on,
carrying in its wake many women and men who now perceive normal monthly
changesas abnormal and as making women unfit for positions of leadershipand
authority. Another consequenceof defining PMS as a seriousproblem most women
suffer is that it leadsto labeling women in generalas deviant and unreliable(Unger
& Crar,vfo:.ic,1.992),
an image that fortifies long-held biasesagainstwomen.
Menopause is similarly pathologized.Carol Tavris (1,992,p. 159) notes that
books describemenopause"in terms of deprivation, deficiency,loss, shedding,and
sloughing,"languagethat defines a normal processas negative.Like menstruation,
menopauseis representedas abnormalcyand disease,an image that probablycontributes to the negative attitudes toward it in America. The cover of the May 25,
1,992,Neztssrpeek
featured an abstractdrawing of a tree in the shapeof a woman's
head.The tree was stripped of all leaves,making it drab and barren.Across the picture was the cover-storyheadline "Menopause."From first glance,menopausewas
representednegatively-as desolateand unfruitful. The article focusedprimarily on

the problems and lossesof menopause.Only toward the end did readersfind reports
from anthropologists,whose cross-culturalresearchrevealedthat in many cultures
menopauseis not an issueor is viewed positively.Women in Mayan villagesand the
Greek island of Evia do not understandquestionsabout hot flashesand depression,
which are symptoms often associatedwith menopause in Western societies
("Menopause,"L992,p.77).These are not part of their experiencein culturesthat
do not define a normal changein women asa pathology.BecauseWestern countries,
especiallyAmerica, stigmatizemenopauseand define it as"the end of womanhood,"
Western women are likely to feel distressedand unproductiveabout the cessationof
menstruation (Greer, 1.992).
Advertising is very effective in convincing us that we need products to solve
problems we are unawareof until some clever public relations campaignpersuades
us that something natural about us is really unnatural and unacceptable.Media have
convinced millions of American women that what every medical sourceconsiders
FORYOURINFORMATION
Tlte Eternal Barbie
Eleven and one-half inch Barbie made her debut in 1959 at the American Toy Fair.
Her small size hasnt kept Barbie from becoming the single most popular and bestselling toy in American history (Beauchamp, 1988).
Whether off to the beach or a date with her steady guy, Ken, Barbie is always
dressedfor success.To make sure she can continue to get all of the clothes she
needs in her busy life, customers can buy tiny credit cards for Barbie. If that isn't
enough, Barbie admirers can buy comic books, lunch boxes, barrettes, sheets,sneakers, and various other personal items that feature Barbie on them. And then there
are Barbie trading cards and the Barbie magazine, which had a circulation of over
650,000 (Green, 1989).
Many young girls see Barbie as the epitome of female beauty.They want to look
just like the pint-size doll,.Meeting that ideal was impossible until recently, since
the traditional Barbie's measurements,when translated into human size, were
38-18-34.
But at the ripe old age of 38 years, Barbie underwent plastic surgery.In response
to criticism that Barbie represented an unrealistic body ideal and a superficial image
of women, in 1998 Mattel introduced a new Barbie who has a wider waist, slimmer
hips, and a reduced bustline. Barbie also got a bit of facial surgery. Gone are the
toothy grin, the heavily made-up eyes, and the blank stare. The new Barbie has a
closed mouth, less makeup, and more natural looking hair ("38-18-34 No More,"
7997).
323
324
"normal body weight" is really abnormal and causefor severedieting (Woli l99I).
Similarly, gray hair, which naturally developswith age,is now something all of us,
especiallywomen, are supposedto cover up (Sharkey,7993). Facial lines, which
indicate a person has lived a life and accumulatedexperiences,can be removed so
that we look younger-l- prime goal in a culture that glorifies youth (Greer, 1992).
Body hair is another interesting caseof media'sconvincing us that something
normal is really abnormal. Beginning in 19L5, a sustainedmarketing campaign
informed women that underarm hair was unsightly and socially incorrect. (The
campaign against leg hair came later.) Harper\ Bazaar, an upscale magazine,
launched the crusadeagainstunderarm hair with a photograph of a woman whose
raised arms revealedclean-shavenarmpits. LJnderneaththe photograph was this
caption: "Summer dress and modern dancing combine to make necessarythe
removal of objectionablehair" (Adams, 1,991).Within a few years,ads promoting
removal of underarm hair appearedin most women'smagazines,and by 1922,razors
and depilatorieswere firmly ensconcedin middle America as evidencedby their
inclusion in the women'ssection of the SearsRoebuck catalog.
Media efforts to pathologize natval physiology can be very serious.As we have
seenin prior chapters,the emphasison excessivethinnesscontributesto severeand
potentially lethal dieting, especially in Caucasian women (Spitzack, 1,993).
Nonetheless,the top female models in 1.993were skeletal(Leland & Leonard,
1,993),and arestill so in the late 1990s.Phillip Myers and Frank Biocca(1992),professorsof journalism, report that women in media advertisementsare significantly
thinner than average, healthy women, and the models ^re getting thinner.
Approximately one in five collegewomen today deliberatelyeats less food than is
required to meet adequatedaily nutrition standards(Finstein, 1993).Women who
WhatAbout Etlrnic Variationin Appearance?

A11cultures have standards for beauty in women, making it inevitable that some
women will always fail to meet the cultural standards. The U.S. standards for
female beaury howeveE are particularly disturbing because they reflect qualities of
one racial group, despite the fact that many races-ethnicities exist in the United
States.The tall, slender look currently promoted as the Western standard of feminine beauty is virtually impossible for many African American and Eastern
European women whose genes dictate against that morphology. Also unattainable
and unnatural for many women of color are thin lips, straight hair, and light skinall elements of the current feminine ideal in the United States.
Source:Finstein, K. (1993, fall). Media-made beauty. CarolinaAlumni Reaiett,pp.74-83.
Chapter10: GenderedMedia:The Influenceof Media on Viewsof Gender
diet excessively do so to force their bodies to fit a socially constructed feminine

ideal-an
ideal that is unrealistic and unhealthy.
Many women's natural breast size exceeded the cultural ideal in the 1960s when
thin, angular bodies were represented as ideal. Thus, breast reduction surgeriesrose.
By the 1980s, culrural standards changed to define large breasts as the feminine
ideal. Consequently, breast augmentation surgeries accelerated, and fully 800/oof
implants were for cosmetic reasons ("The Implant Circus," 1992).In
an effort to
meet the cultural standards of beautiful bodies, many women endured and continue
to endure unnecessary surgery, leading to disfigurement, loss of feeling, and sometimes death for women when silicone implants result in fatal conditions. Harming
the body in an effort to meet social ideals for the feminine form is not new. In the
19th century when a tiny waist and large bosom were ideals of womanliness, most
middle-
and upper-class women wore corsets. These garments forcefully pushed
women's natural bodies into unnatural forms. Corsets often crushed women's ribs,
interfered with breathing and sometimes injured lungs, and squeezed and injured
internal organs (Lauer & Lauer, 1981). Implicitly, media argue that women's natural state is abnormal and objectionable, a premise that is essential to sell products and
advice for improving oneself. Arcc,epting media messages about our bodies and ourselves, however, is not inevitable: We can reflect on the messages and resist those
that are inappropriate and/or harmful. We would probably all be considerably happier and healthier if we became more critical in anzlyzrng medias communication
about how we should look, be, and act.
Norma lizing ViolenceAgains t Women

Violenceis so pervasive
in modernlife that the majoriryof Chapter11 is devoted
to examiningit. Yet,it wouldbe irresponsible
not to begindiscussing
violencein the
context of media. Recall that, on aver^ge,a 6-year-old in the United States has
watched 5,000 hours of television, and an l.8-year-old has watched a stunning
19,000 hours.What do we watch in all of those hours of viewing?According to one
estimate,by the age of 18, the averageperson in this country has viewed 200,000
acts of violenceon television,including 40,000 murders (Zuckerman, 1993).ln a
TV Guide investigation, 1.,846 acts of violence occurred on L0 channels in an
1S-hour period (Zuckerman,\993).
But, you may ask, is watching violence related to engaging in violence?The
answerseemsto be yes.According to one critic of media violence(Gelman, L993,
p. 48), "Teenagersdon't invent violence,they learn it." From RoboCop,Rambo, and
Pulp Fiction to violent video games,children learn to perceiveviolence as part of
normal sociallife. Children who watch a lot of televisionviolencein their earlyyears
are more likely to commit violent crimes as adults (Zuckerman, L993).The rela-
325
@ MIRIAM
My kids are so much more violent than I was or than my friends
were when we were young, and I think the violence they see on television is a big part of the reason.When I caught my 3-year-old trying to hit our dog, he told me that he'd seen that on a cartoon
show-a cartoon show! I try to screenwhat my children watch, but
it's getting so there ^re very few programs that don't include violence. How can kids think it is anything but normal when they see
it everv dav?
tionship between media violence and actual violence is one of the most studied
aspectsof media (Gelman, 1993).
As we will see in the next chapter, media, along with other sociai structures and
practices, tend to normalize violence in our culture. When
we continuously see
aggression, physical assault, murder, rape, and other forms of violence depicted in
media, it is small wonder that we become desensitized to violence. In sum, media
offer us a view of the world, and that view is of a world in which violence is commonplace, normal, and increasingly acceptable as part of ordinary life.
Substantial violence toward women punctuates movies, television-including
children's programming-rock
music, and music videos, desensitizing men and
women alike to the unnaturalness and unacceptability of force and brutality between
human beings. We will explore violence, particularly gendered violence, in more
depth in Chapter 11.
Summary
In this chapter,we haveseenthat mediasendpowerfulmessages
aboutgenderabout who we are as men and women, about the nature of normal relationships
between the sexes, and about gender issues. In concert with other cultural institutions and practices, media contribute to gendering our identities and influence how
we think about issues, people, and events related to gender.
Ranging from children's cartoons to pornography, media influence how we perceive events in our world, ourselves, each other, and the nature of normal relationships between women and men. Three implications of media representations that
stereorype gender and condone male aggression and domination
are promoting
unrealistic gender ideals in men and women, pathologizing the human body and
naturalizinq violence against women. These potential consequences are facilitated by
media communication that defines masculinity and femininity in ways that limit us
and our possibilities as human beings. Understanding the overt and subtle gender
Chapter 10: GenderedMedia:The Influenceof Media on Views of Gender
messages in media empowers us to be more critical about what we hear and see and
to raise our voices in resistance to media messageswe find harmful. As individuals,
parents, and citizens we have opportunities and responsibilities to criticize media
representations that demean men and women and that contribute to attitudes that
harm all of us and our relationships with each other.
Discussion Questions
1'. I point out that media are pervasivein our society.How much are media part
of your life? How many hours a week do you spendwatching televisionand
movies,listening to radio and stereo,and reading popular magazines?
Media Organizationsfor ConsumerAction

To request government investigation or intervention into media operations:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Consumer Assistance Office
1919 M. Street, NW
Washington, DC 20554
The following public organizations are receptive to complaints about sexism
and/or violence in programming:
Action for Children's Television (ACT)
46 Austin Street
Newtonville, MA 02760
Goal To encourage and support quality programming for children.
American Council for Better Broadcasts (ACBB)
120 E. Wilson
Madison, WI 53707
GoaL To support development of critical-viewing skills and broadcasting of
good radio and television programs. ACBB sponsors education to improve children's critical-vie*irg
skills.
Foundation to ImproveTV (FIT)
50 Congress Street, Suite 925
Boston, MA 02109
Goat To support and represent individuals who are attempting to promote
healthy uses of television, particularly for children.
327
328
2.
Watch children's programming on Saturday morning and report back to the

class on gender themes you identify. Are men or male characters more prominent than women and female characters? Are there differences in the activities,
integriry intelligence, and so forth of male and female characters? How do you
think commercial children's programming influences children's ideas about
gender?
3.
As a class, select three prime-time weekly television shows that all of you will
watch. When you've viewed the programs, discuss the gender roles in them.
How are women and men represented? Are there inequalities in the power,
stature, and ability of women and men in these shows? To what extent are
women portrayed in autonomous and powerful roles? To what extent are men
portrayed within relationships and involved in caring for others?
4. Focus on relationships between women and men in television programming.

How many relationships seem relatively egalitarian? Are male and female partners shown equally involved in work outside the home and inside of it? Do
they participate equally in making decisions that affect them both, or does one
partner exercise more influence than the other?
5.
As a class, discuss media representations that challenge and change traditional

prescriptions for gender and backlash media that reinscribe conventionally
gendered roles. Find examples of each. Which is more prevalent? What does
the simultaneous existence of both traditional and nontraditional gender
images tell us about current social attitudes toward gender?
6 . Do you agree with the chapter's criticism of violence and sexual aggression
against women in the media? Do you think what happens in the media affects
how average women and men define themselves and what is normal in relationships? Why or why not?
,7
As a class,watch some MTV
programs. Discuss the ways women and men are
represented in these. Are women sexually exploited? Are they presented as

subject to men's power? What does this imply about men's identity?
8.
Watch morning and evening news programming. What kinds of stories do

male and female reporters and newscasters present? Are there differences in
story content? Are there differences in the communication styles of male and
female newscasters?
9 . I suggest that media present unrealistic and unhealthy images of women and
men and that this can be harmful. Do you agree? Bring advertisements from
magazines to class and discuss the images of women, men, and relationships in
them. Are these healthy? What are your options as a reader and consumerl
10. Watch for new products introduced into the market and notice how they are
advertised.Are there any examplestoday like the marketing campaignbeginning in 1,915to convincewomen that underarm hair is undesirable?What
relational meaningsexist in advertisingmessages-what do they tell us we
should be, do, and think aswomen and men?
11. Listen to music on popular stations.With othersin your class,discussdifferencesand similarities in music by women and men artists.Do you find there
are different themes or alternativeemphasesin lyrics and music?Are thesedifferencesconsistentwith what youVe learned about genderedidentities?
329

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ChapterL0

n this chapter,we examineanother important form of communication about

circulate to over 62 mtllion

1,992, p. 18), news programming, and talk shows provide

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

Underrepresentationof Womenand Minorities

presentedas !^zy and unable to handle authorify, as lecherous,and/or as unlawful,

Chapter 10: GenderedMedia: The Influenceof Media on Views of Gender

TV jokes are made about

portrayals of men. According to J. A. Doyl. (1.989,p. 1L1), whose

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice

trqually interesting is how males are not presented.Specifically,they are seldom

Popular women's magazines are another source of stereotypical portrayals.

zinesaimed primarily at women. She revieweda broad range of magazines,including Seaenteen,

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

tious, independent women as lonely, embittered spinsters who are counterpoints to

television continues the double standard for

Stereotypical Imagesof Relationshi?s

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice

(whores)-not exactly respectful names (Wood, 1,998).News programs that have

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

white men as news anchorsand expertswho inform us of happeningsin the world

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice

glad to come home." Constantly, these advertisements emphasize pleasing others,

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

SigneWilkinson O Cartoonist and Writers Syndicate.Reprinted with permission.

agrees and has pressured record companies to stop distributing

says that the lyrics of gangsta rap

short of mental and spirirual contaminatiori'

news reporting selectively shapes our perceptions of

issues related to gender.

extremists. The famous bra-burning, in fact, never happened, but was

erroneously reported by a journalist who misunderstood the facts (Faludi, 1,991,,

of the backlash movement

stunts of the 1980s was another

against feminism, which

Chapter10: GenderedMedia:The Infuenceof Media on Viewsof Gender

the accurate U.S. Census Bureau's figures were

trade promotions and

outside of the home whether they

the war, newspapers and magazines featured melodra-

leave their chil-

came when an American woman

Part II: GenderedCommunicationin Practice

presenting this as straightforward news, however, media focused on her femininity

timent about women's fragiliry

media ignited powerful public senand, therefore, inappropriateness in

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

TIteMedia\ Creationof "Postfeminism

Chapter 10: Gendered Media:The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

Do media representationsof eventsshapeour perceptions?To find out, I asked

Manyof the imagesdispensed

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice

well dressedas stars and models,whose photographsare airbrushedand retouched

Lawrence &Joynder,1,991.).Other media stereotypeshave similar distorting effects

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice

Patltologizing tlte Human Body

Chapter 10: Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender

representednegatively-as desolateand unfruitful. The article focusedprimarily on

Part II: Gendered Communication in Practice