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The Unrealistic Portrayal of Women in the Media

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The Unrealistic Portrayal of Women in the Media
"All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values." Marshall McLuhan Media is one of the most influential aspects of modern society. It plays an enormous role in setting societal standards and depicting how people, especially women, should act and appear. In everything from advertising, television programming, newspapers and magazines, to comic books, popular music, film and video games the media sets unrealistic standards for women. These unrealistic depictions of the role that women must play, and the image that women must have in order to be accepted are drastically affecting societies views and the self-worth of women worldwide. In all forms of media, women are grossly misrepresented. Women are most often shown in the home, performing domestic chores; as sex objects who exist primarily to service men; as the romantic interest; as characters who rely greatly on men; as victims who can not protect themselves and are the natural recipients of beatings, harassment, sexual assault and murder. Women rarely play leading roles or roles of significance in movies and television shows, and when they do, they are rarely cast as independent or as a hero. Only 16 percent of films feature women protagonists (Richardson, 2011). In 2012, women represented less than one-third of the speaking characters (Eveleth, 2013). For every one female on screen, there were two and a half men. Women are not given enough positive role models. Even in Disney movies, female characters ride off into the sunset at age 16 with a prince they barely know; sending the message that we are reliant on men. Furthermore, almost every single cleaning product advertisement created features a woman cleaning up after her children and husband. Despite the fact that in real life, this concept of patriarchy and women being fragile and weak is largely is outdated, the media continues to portray women in this way. This is sending a entirely inaccurate image of


References: Richardson, S. (2011, August 29). “Miss representation” shows how media mistreats women. Ms. Magazine, Retrieved from http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/08/29/miss- representation-shows-how-media-mistreats-women/ Eveleth, R. (2013, May 15). Female representation in films is the lowest it 's been in 5 years. Smithsonian, Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/female- representation-in-film-is-the-lowest-its-been-in-five-years-62582503/ Portrayal of women in the popular media. (2009, May). Retrieved from http://worldsavvy.org/monitor/index.php?option=com_content&id=602&Itemid=1049 (n.d.). Statistics. The Confidence Coaliton, Retrieved from http://www.confidencecoalition.org/statistics-women (2012). Body image- girls. Media Smarts, Retrieved from http://mediasmarts.ca/body-image/body-image-girls (2011). Statistics: How many people have eating disorders?. ANRED Inc. , Retrieved from http://www.anred.com/stats.html (2013). Surprising self-esteem statistics. Dove, Retrieved from http://www.dove.ca/en/Article/Surprising-Self-Esteem-Statistics.aspx
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