With media

If there is one thing that irritates me a bit, is everything about women in media. I might admit that I have a mixed opinion about this. When I'm saying that it irritates me, I mean that yes, I still feel that society uses women as an object.

But, believe or not, I do think men is objectified too as a certain level. I will never disagree with the fact that men became objectified too, and priorly, I will never accept double standards myself and will reject any feminist theory that tries to do so.  Feminism is about equality so we must recognize anything that happens in BOTH spheres. We can't desire equality while being sexist.

 

Therefore, you will probably recognize too the fact that women is being more objectified... For a long time. That is not something to victime women about. It's just a fact, and something we must all work on. Not something men is guilty about. Men and women must do something about this. As much as men and women must do something about men's objectification. 

 

  

Let's state some facts with subjects of media such as:

NEWS

1. The highest-paid female movie star, Angelina Jolie, makes about the same per movie as the two lowest-paid male stars, Denzel Washington and Liam Neeson. Her $33 million paycheck is dwarfed by the $75 million Robert Downey Jr. rakes in as the highest-paid movie star for the Iron Man movies.
2. Female representation in newsrooms has budged very little since 1999: back then, women made up 36.9% of the newsroom staff– now, it’s 36.3%. The gender disparity is widest among white men and women, and there is slightly more gender equality among different races in newsrooms.
3. Women are vastly underrepresented in sports journalism: Of the 183 sports talk radio hosts on Talkers magazine’s “Heavy Hundred,” only two were women. The 2012 Associated Press Race and Gender Report Card gave most of the sports journalism industry straight Fs when it came to gender diversity.
4. Women were quoted in only 19% of news articles in January and February of 2013. This follows a pattern of men being 3.4 times more likely to be quoted on the front page of The New York Times, 4.6 times more likely to be quoted in political stories, and 5.4 times more likely to be quoted in international stories.
5. Women are faring worse at making movies in 2013 than they were in 1998. Of all the top-grossing movies of 2013, women accounted for only 16% of the writers, directors, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers.
6. Women had fewer speaking roles in movies in 2012 than in any year since 2007–only 28.4% of speaking roles in the top 100 films went to women. But on TV, 43% of speaking parts are played by women. Of the women who who did get speaking roles in movies, 34.6% were black, 33.9% were Hispanic, and 28.8% were white. And of all the speaking characters, Latina women were most likely to be depicted semi-nude.
7. The Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC has more diversity than all other Sunday news talk shows combined, with 67% non-white guests, compared to the 16% of guests on NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox combined. The gender breakdown of almost all the Sunday political talk shows hovers around 75% male, 25% female.
8. Only 33 directors of the 500 top-grossing movies from 2007 to 2012 were black, and only 2 of those were black women. In 2013, women directed 50% of the competition films at Sundance, but only 1.9% of the top-grossing movies.
9. Our columnists are still overwhelmingly old white men. There are four times as many male columnists as female columnists at the three biggest newspapers and four newspaper syndicates. (The Washington Post has 25 men to 7 women, and The New York Timeshas 10 men to 2 women.) The median columnist age is 60, while the median age for the American population is only 37. (http://time.com/8788/9-depressing-facts-from-the-latest-women-in-media-report/)

Women and News: Although there has been a steady increase in the number of women professionals over the past 20 years, most mainstream press coverage continues to rely on men as experts in the fields of business, politics and economics. Women in the news are more likely to be featured in stories about accidents, natural disasters, or domestic violence than in stories about their professional abilities or expertise. Women in politics are similarly sidelined. Canadian journalist Jenn Goddu studied newspaper and magazine coverage of three women’s lobby groups over a 15-year period. She discovered that journalists tend to focus on the domestic aspects of the politically active woman’s life (such as “details about the high heels stashed in her bag, her habit of napping in the early evening, and her lack of concern about whether or not she is considered ladylike”) rather than her position on the issues. Quebec political analyst Denis Monière uncovered similar patterns. In 1998, Monière analysed 83 late evening newscasts on three national networks—the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada (the French-language public broadcaster) and TVA.   He observed that women’s views were solicited mainly in the framework of “average citizens” and rarely as experts, and that political or economic success stories were overwhelmingly masculine. Monière also noted that the number of female politicians interviewed was disproportionate to their number in Parliament or in the Quebec National Assembly; nor, he noted, was this deficiency in any way compensated for by the depth and quality of coverage. Inadequate women’s coverage seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. In 2006 the Association of Women Journalists(Association des femmes journalistes – AFJ) studied news coverage of women and women’s issues in 70 countries. It reported that only 17 per cent of stories quote women; one in 14 women was presented as a victim (compared to one in 21 men) and one in five women was shown in the context of her family (compared to one in 16 men). Professor Caryl Rivers notes that politically active women are often disparaged and stereotyped by the media. When Hillary Clinton was still first lady, she was referred to as a “witch” or “witchlike” at least 50 times in the press. Rivers writes, “male political figures may be called mean and nasty names, but those words don’t usually reflect superstition and dread. Did the press ever call Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, or Clinton warlocks?” 

Women and Sports: Women athletes are also given short shrift in the media. Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Michael Messner studied sports coverage on three network affiliates in Los Angeles. They report that only nine per cent of airtime was devoted to women’s sports, in contrast to the 88 per cent devoted to male athletes. Female athletes fared even worse on ESPN’s national sports show Sports Center, where they occupied just over two per cent of airtime.  Duncan notes that commentators (97 per cent of whom are men) use different language when they talk about female athletes. Where men are described as “big,” “strong,” “brilliant,” “gutsy” and “aggressive,” women are more often referred to as “weary,” “fatigued,” “frustrated,” “panicked,” “vulnerable” and “choking.” Commentators are also twice as likely to call men by their last names only, and three times as likely to call women by their first names only. Duncan argues that this “reduces female athletes to the role of children, while giving adult status to white male athletes.” The Prix Déméritas (Brickbat Prize) for sexist reporting was awarded by Quebec’s Gazette des femmes to the journalists who covered the 2000 International Women’s Tennis Cup. The Gazette des femmes noted in particular the journalists’ keen interest in any of the athletes’ poses that could be seen as suggestive, as well as the excessive attention accorded Anna Kournikova—for her beauty rather than her game. Media images of women in sports are also very different from the familiar pictures of male athletes in action. Female athletes are increasingly photographed in what Professor Pat Griffin calls “hyper-sexualized poses.” Griffin notes, “When it was once enough to feminize women athletes, now it is necessary to sexualize them for men. Instead of hearing, ‘I am woman, hear me roar,’ we are hearing ‘I am hetero-sexy, watch me strip.’” 

Media and Girls: The mass media, especially children’s television, provide more positive role models for girls than ever before. Kids shows such as Dora the Explorer, Canadian Geographic for Kids, and The Magic School Bus feature strong female characters who interact with their male counterparts on an equal footing.There are strong role models for teens as well. A study of the media favoured by teenage girls discovered that a similar proportion of male and female characters on TV and in the movies rely on themselves to achieve their goals and solve their own problems. (The one discrepancy was in the movies, where 49 per cent of male characters solve their own problems, compared to only 35 per cent of their female counterparts.) [Television shows like Bones and Battlestar Galactica and computer games such as Mirror’s Edge and Portal star girls and women who are physically assertive and in control. And of course, Lisa has been acknowledged as the brains of the Simpson family since the start.Despite the progress that has been made there is a long way to go, both in the quantity of media representations of woman and in their quality.In terms of quantity, the media is still a long way from reflecting reality: women represent 49 per cent of humanity while female characters make up only 32 per cent of the main characters on TV, as shown by a broad survey done in 2008 by Doctor Maya Götz of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television. This study measured the representation of male and female characters in nearly twenty thousand children’s programs in 24 different countries. The media industry justifies this disparity by arguing that it is easier for girls than boys to identify with characters of the opposite sex. Götz argues that this argument reverses cause and effect, saying that it is the lack of female characters on TV is what leads to the higher popularity of male characters.So far as quality is concerned, the media still conform to a stereotyped image of women. Götz’s study identifies a number of sexual stereotypes found around the world: in general, girls and women are motivated by love and romance, appear less independent than boys, and are stereotyped according to their hair colour – blonds fall into two categories, the “girl next door” or the “blonde bitch,” while redheads are always tomboys – they are nearly always conventionally attractive, thinner than average women in real life, and heavily sexualized.Magazines are the only medium where girls are over-represented. However, their content is overwhelmingly focused on topics such as appearance, dating and fashion. 

Media, Self-Esteem and Girls’ Identities Research indicates that these mixed messages from media make it difficult for girls to negotiate the transition to adulthood: Girls’ confidence frequently drops in the pre-teen years as they begin to base their feelings of self-worth more and more heavily on appearance and weight. Carol Gilligan was the first to highlight this unsettling trend in her landmark 1988 study. Gilligan suggests it happens because of the widening gap between girls’ self-images and society’s messages about what girls should be like. Children Now points out that girls are surrounded by images of female beauty that are unrealistic and unattainable. And yet two out of three girls who participated in their national media survey said they “wanted to look like a character on TV.” One out of three said they had “changed something about their appearance to resemble that character.” In 2002, researchers at Flinders University in South Australia studied 400 teenagers regarding how they relate to advertising. They found that girls who watched TV commercials featuring underweight models lost self-confidence and became more dissatisfied with their own bodies. Girls who spent the most time and effort on their appearance suffered the greatest loss in confidence. 

 

Eroticization of Young Girls In addition to being under-represented, women are equally misrepresented: the hypersexualization of very young girls, most notably in fashion and advertising, is a disturbing trend given that these stereotypes make up most of the representations of themselves which girls and women see in the media. The pressures on girls are exacerbated by the media’s increasing tendency to portray very young girls in sexual ways. The fashion industry is a major driver for this trend, commonly presenting 12- and 13-year-old girls as if they are women. Camera angles (where the model is often looking up, presumably at a taller man), averted eyes, wounded facial expressions, and vulnerable poses mimic the visual images common in pornographic media.

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See Exploitation of Women in Mass Media on Wikipedia

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It seems like the media is bashing men and de-emphasizing the importance of fatherhood. “I can happily say that fatherhood is the greatest fortune I’ve ever experienced. It’s too bad that that sounds so cliché, because it’s true. It’s amazing how that such a deep, emotional connection can be reduced to the most banal of statements and the most banal of images on television” (Lynch, 2006, p. 12). The media makes men look lazy and stupid. The mother often solves problems because it seems the father would not understand. The truth is that fathers are great sources for wisdom and guidance, and they will always have their child’s best interest at heart. The media will create a fatherly role that is not accurate just to get some laughter out of the audience. “Today instead of being bombarded with unrealistic images of fatherly perfection, we too often suffer from the ‘sitcom dad’ epidemic: the buffoonish father who forgets birthdays and causes his kids to fail their school projects because his help is so misguided . . . . Here is the stunning reality: Dad’s are people too. In real life, dads are flawed, well rounded, sometimes wise, sometimes goofy, mostly somewhere in the middle, full of shades of gray. These are the dads we should see on television” (Lynch, 2003, p. 12). Fathers are getting upset with the way they are being portrayed because there are too many loving, caring fathers out there who have a great relationship with their children. If they are working hard to have a happy relationship with their children, then they should not be put down repeatedly in the media.

Feminism Has Impacted the Way Fathers Are Portrayed in the Media : Feminists feel that there is always a fight for power between men and women. As more women have been receiving jobs in the media, the roles and views of women in the media have also been changing. “Atkin assessed the portrayal of the single female from 1966 to 1990 and found more women in managerial or professional positions and fewer in assistant, subservient occupation positions over time. . . . Lauzen found in the 1997-1998 primetime season that programs with one or more female executive producers had an average of 6 % more female characters than programs with all male executive producers and female characters in programs using female writers displayed significantly more power in language uttered in interpersonal situations” (Scharrer, 2001, p. 24-25).The female writers feel they can show their power through their writing. A marriage is a team, yet these writers keep portraying marriage in these shows with the woman being the leader, and the husband doing whatever the wife tells, or nags, him to do. “Overall, during the last twenty-five years feminist media critics have explained how the portrayal of fathers and men on U.S. sitcom comedies has evolved and how humor can empower women on sitcoms” (Walsh and Fursich, 2008, p. 123). Many women desire independence because they want to feel like they achieved something. By showing their power through sitcoms and movies they feel like they have won, even though marriage is not a competition.

Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person as an instrument of sexual pleasure. Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity. Objectification is most commonly examined at the level of a society, but can also refer to the behavior of individuals. The concept of sexual objectification and, in particular, the objectification of women, is an important idea in feminist theory and psychological theories derived from feminism. Many feminists regard sexual objectification as deplorable and as playing an important role in gender inequality. However, some social commentators argue that some modern women objectify themselves as an expression of their empowerment.

Objectification of women has existed for as long as women have been used for men's sexual pleasure — at their own expense.[4] Early examples of the sexual objectification of women include strip tease shows, brothels and pornographic art. Prostitution itself is almost always a way of objectifying the prostitute, especially if she is a sexual slave, or is being pimped out. However high class courtesans often had greater social rights privileges than other women, such as the secular sector Greek Hetaira, Chinese Yiji, Japanese Oiran, or the religiously employed sacred prostitutes. [5] Goddesses and other powerful female spirits, like Yakshini or the angels of sacred prostitution, are often depicted in the forms of statues with rockin tits of rock. Alternatively Greek gods were all sculpted as having the ideal bodies, and in later centuries the brides of Christ would often depict their spiritual husband Jesus as looking particularly dreamy eyed, with his six pack abs framed by casual robe. Even the term "sex object," coined by men (not women), displays the awareness that these images are not about women, but about objects. A precursor to the concept of sexual objectification can be found in the thought of Immanuel Kant, who wrote that "sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite; as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry."[6] But, to Kant, this kind of "objectification" only occurs outside the context of monogamous marriage, and appears as part of his argument against prostitution and concubinage, and in favor of his predetermined position to support monogamous marriage. "Coverture", the mystic union of husband and wife, or something very much like that, is what makes legally enforced monogamous marriage magic and keeps objectification at bay: "the two persons become a unity of will". As feminism and feminist authors begin opening up discussions about women, about agency, and overall equality, the issue of objectification became a serious topic for academics. De Beauvoir's groundbreaking work The Second Sex is in no small part predicated on exploring the idea that women are mere objects for men's manipulation and not, themselves, agents in the world - even if they are in their own life. Are women the only victims of objectification? Of course not. Sex sells, and there are plenty of examples of images of men in calendars, there only to satisfy some woman (or man's) fantasy. There are even ads specifically designed to flip the "male gaze" on its head and objectify men. These ads, of course, are largely tongue in cheek, and are often done fully aware of the objectification - intending, successfully or not, to highlight the absurdity of ads for men that do the same to women. And even in instances of male objectification, there is still an awareness of the man. Rarely is his face removed, rarely is he shot from the back showing only his butt or his chest.

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