It is true that media are responsible for many challenges we need to face today. The more technology is developed and used, the more unrealistic our ideas about perfect woman become. Women were and still are displayed to many stereotypical practices in media.
In the past, there were much fewer women shown on television than men. The percentage of female characters on U.S. TV only increased from 28 to 36% from 1975 to 1995, and only 20% of characters ages 45-64 were women (Gerbner, 1997).
Later on, when women were seen more often on TV, another concern came into account. Women were portrayed only as homemakers and mothers taking care of the household. This is especially true when talking about advertising. Women were typically promoting things like washing powder, cleaning stuff and all these products needed for keeping the house tidy. Not limited to the United States, the stereotyping of women in advertisements occurs in many societies (Gilly, 1988). Women seem to be obsessed by matters like dirty laundry or just gossiping with neighbours. They are shown like dependent on men with very little right to make their own decisions.
Today’s advertisements are quite different. Women are not used to sell only cleaning stuff but almost everything. The only condition is to be beautiful. And what means to be beautiful according to media? According to Jean Kibourne, writer awarded from the Association for Women in Psychology, beautiful woman in media has no lines or wrinkles, no scars or blemishes, indeed, she has no pores. She is thin, generally tall and long-legged, and, above all, she is young. All "beautiful" women in advertisements, regardless of product or audience, conform to this norm. I think that every woman in the world desires to be beautiful and if this is what they should try to look like then female population will become extinct. Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable and sensitive to media because they are new consumers with not very much experience. They are in the process of learning their values and roles. If they are constantly fed by unnaturally thin pictures of women, there will be high probability that they will suffer of some eating disorder.
Relatively new concern in regard to different portrayals of women in media is “Superwoman” who causes stress to many ordinary women. The Superwoman is defined as a woman who wants to “have it all” by excelling in both traditional feminine and masculine roles. She wants to be thin and attractive, a loving wife and mother, and a strong and independent career woman (Barnett, 1968; Orbach, 1978, 1986; Striegel-Moore et al., 1986). Expectations put on women who watch TV are so huge that the result is simply stress.
Women are forced to live with the pressure that media puts on them because these constraints are becoming societal ideal. These practices can seriously damage woman’s self-esteem and self-image. Even though some companies already started to shift from the media’s distorted picture of beauty, there is still a very long way to change the unrealistic portrayal of women in media.
Works Cited:
Richard Jackson Harris. “A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication.” Mahwah NJ, USA: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates, Incorporated, 2004
Cash, Thomas F. "The American Image of Beauty: Media Representations of Hair Color for Four Decades.", 1993.
Chapkis, Wendy. “Beauty secrets”. Southend Press, USA, 1986.
Covell, Katherine and Kyra Lanis. "Images of Women in Advertisements", 1993.
Schneir, Miriam. “Feminism In Our Time.” Vintage Original Press, N.Y.. 1994.
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