Women and Media
Media influence is one of the most powerful economic and
cultural forces today. By deciding who
gets to talk, what shapes the debate, who writes, and what is important enough
to report, media shape our understanding of who we are and what we can be.
Julia T. Wood describes how "differences between gender
cultures infuse communication." Maltz and Broker’s research showed that
the games children play contribute to socializing children into masculine and
feminine cultures. For example, girls
playing house promotes personal relationships, and playing house does not
necessarily have fixed rules or objectives. Boys, however, tended to play more
competitive team sports with different goals and strategies.
Gender and Sex
According to John Money's definition of gender is based on
his understanding of sex differences among human beings. According to Money,
the fact that one sex produces ova and the other sex produces sperm is the
irreducible criterion of sex difference. However, there are other sex-derivative
differences that follow in the wake of this primary dichotomy.
These differences involve the way urine is expelled from the
human body and other questions of sexual dimorphism. According to Money's
theory, sex-adjunctive differences are typified by the smaller size of females
and their problems in moving around while nursing infants. This then makes it
more likely that the males do the roaming and hunting. Sex-arbitrary
differences are those that are purely conventional: for example, color selection
(baby blue for boys, pink for girls). Some of the latter differences apply to
life activities, such as career opportunities for men versus women.
Finally, Money created the now-common term gender role,
which he differentiated from the concept of the more traditional terminology
sex role. According to Money, the genitalia and erotic sexual roles were now,
by his definition, to be included under the more general term "gender
role;" including all the non-genital and non-erotic activities that are
defined by the conventions of society to apply to males or to females.
Money made the concept of gender a broader, more inclusive
concept than one of masculine/feminine. For him, gender included not only one's
status as a man or a woman, but was also a matter of personal recognition,
social assignment, or legal determination; not only on the basis of one's
genitalia but also on the basis of somatic and behavioural criteria that go
beyond genital differences.
Gender identity is one's own categorisation of one's
individuality as male, female, or ambivalent as experienced in self-awareness
of one's own mental processes and one's own actual behaviour.
Gender role is the public manifestation of one's gender
identity, the things that one says and that one does that gives people a basis
for inferring whether one is male, female, or fits neither of those categories.
Media and Gender
Gender Stereotypes In Disney Films
Disney films have a reputation for stereotyping gender roles
in their animations. When comparing female and male characters in Disney films
they are portrayed differently depending on their gender. Male characters have
been represented as the hero, reliable, handsome, independent and always ready
to sweep in and save the girl. The Female characters have been portrayed by
Disney as weak, frail, passive, domestic characters that are always seeking a
man. It is clear by looking at a timeline how these stereotyped gender roles
have progressed through Disney movies over time.
Media can have strong
influences over children and Disney can and possibly may play an important role
in this influence of stereotyped gender roles. Structural feminism was
constructed by Angela McRobbie, who created this feminism by combining
structuralism and feminism. She focused on the effects of media on teenage
girls. According to McRobbie, there were four codes that implied the
reinforcement of the housewife role and the division of the public sphere with
the private sphere. Her first code was aimed at heterosexual relationships,
emphasizing that “the right man is better than the right job” (Laughey, 2007),
dissuading the female population of striving for more than just love. The
second code was created by editors of media like magazines, individualising the
reader’s problems to make them seem as though they need to conform to the norms
demanded by society. This concept is called competitive individualism. The code
of fashion and beauty is also important for the reason that appearance is
portrayed as more important than intelligence and personality. Women are taught
to constantly consume and keep up-to-date with the latest fashions and fads and
get into a materialistic mindset (Bunting, 2009). The last code would be of pop
music which mostly used the need for romance in teenagers life to their
advantage to shape their perception of this. (Laughey, 2007).
Gender Roles
As we grow, we learn how to behave from those around us. In
this socialization process, children are introduced to certain roles that are
typically linked to their biological sex. The term gender role refers to
society's concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave. These
roles are based on norms, or standards, created by society. In American
culture, masculine roles are usually associated with strength, aggression, and
dominance, while feminine roles are usually associated with passivity,
nurturing, and subordination .
Role learning starts with socialization at birth. Even
today, our society is quick to outfit male infants in blue and girls in pink,
even applying these color-coded gender labels while a baby is in the womb.
Gender socialization occurs through four major agents: family, education, peer
groups, and mass media. Each agent reinforces gender roles by creating and
maintaining normative expectations for gender-specific behavior. Exposure also
occurs through secondary agents such asreligion and the workplace. Repeated
exposure to these agents over time leads men and women into a false sense that
they are acting naturally, rather than following a socially constructed role.
