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 perpetuate unrealistic, stereotypical,
and limiting perceptions. Three themes describe how
media represent gender. First, women are underrepresented,
which falsely implies that men are the cultural
standard and women 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.
Underrepresentation of
Women
A primary way in which media distort reality is in
underrepresenting women. Whether it is prime-time television,
in which there are three times as many white men
as women (Basow, 1992 p. 159), or children’s programming,
in which males outnumber females by two to one,
or newscasts, in which women make up 16% of newscasters
and in which stories about men are included 10
times more often than ones about women (“Study Reports
Sex Bias,” 1989), media misrepresent 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.
MEDIA’S MISREPRESENTATION OF
AMERICAN LIFE
The media present a distorted version of cultural life
in our country. According to media portrayals:
White males make up two-thirds of the population.
The women are less in number, perhaps because
fewer than 10% live beyond 35. Those who
do, like their younger and male counterparts, are
nearly all white and heterosexual. In addition to
being young, the majority of women are beautiful,
very thin, passive, and primarily concerned
with relationships and getting rings out of collars
and commodes. There are a few bad, bitchy
women, and they are not so pretty, not so subordinate,
and not so caring as the good women.
Most of the bad ones work outside of the home,
which is probably why they are hardened and undesirable.
The more powerful, ambitious men occupy
themselves with important business deals,
exciting adventures, and rescuing dependent females,
whom they often then assault sexually.
From Gendered Lives:
Communication, Gender, and Culture by Julie T. Wood, Chapter 9, pp. 231-244. 0 1994. Reprinted with
permission of Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning. Fax 800-730-2215.
3 1
T LI Y IIYC~
WI I H MEDIA
Other myths about what is standard are similarly fortified
by communication in media. Minorities are even
less visible than women, with African-Americans appearing
only rarely (Gray,
1986; Stroman, 1989) and other
ethnic minorities being virtually nonexistent. In children’s
programming when African-Americans do appear,
almost invariably they appear in supporting roles
rather than as main characters (O’Connor, 1989). While
more African-Americans are appearing in prime-time
television, they are too often cast in stereotypical roles.
In the 1992 season, for instance, 12 of the 74 series on
commercial networks included large African-American
casts, yet most featured them in stereotypical roles. Black
men are presented as lazy and unable to handle authority
as lecherous, and/or as unlawful, while females are
portrayed as domineering or as sex objects (“Sights
Sounds, and Stereotypes,” 1992). Writing in 1993, David
Evans (1993, p. 10) criticized television for stereotyping
black males as athletes and entertainers. These roles
wrote Evans, mislead young black male viewers in&
thinking success “is only a dribble or dance step away”
and blind them to other, more realistic ambitions. l&-
panics and Asians are nearly absent, and when they are
presented it is usually as villains or criminals (Lichter,
Lichter, Rothman, & Amundson, 1987).
Also under-represented is the single fastest growing
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 significantly
outnumber men (Wood, 1993~). Older people not only
are under-represented in media but also are represented
inaccurately In contrast to demographic realities,
media consistently show fewer older women than
men, presumably because our culture worships youth
and beauty in women. Further, elderly individuals are
frequently portrayed as sick, dependent, fumbling and
passive, images not borne out in real life. Distirted
depictions of older people and especially older women
in media, however, can delude us into thinking they
are a small, sickly, and unimportant part of our
population.
The lack of women in the media is paralleled by the
scarcity of women in charge of media. Only about 5% of
television writers, executives, and producers are women
(Lichter, Lichter, & Rothman, 1986). Ironically, while twothirds
of journalism graduates are women, they make up
less than 2% of those
papers and
in corporate management of newsonly
about 5% of newspaper publishers
(“Women in Media,” 1988). Female film directors are
even rnonz-scarce, as are executives in charge of MTV It
is probably not coincidental that so few women are behind
the scenes of an industry that so consistently portrays
women negatively Some media analysts (Mills
1988) believe that if more women had positions o;
authority at executive levels, media would offer more
positive portrayals of women.
Stereotypical Portrayals of Women and Men
In general, media continue to present both women
and men in stereotyped ways that limit our perceptions
of human possibilities. Typically men are portrayed as
active, adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive and
largely uninvolved in human relationships. Just as’ consistent
with cultural views of gender are depictions of
women as sex objects who are usually young, thin beautiful,
passive, dependent, and often incompetent and
dumb. Female characters devote their primary energies
to improving their appearances and taking care of homes
and people. Because media pervade our lives, the ways
they misrepresent genders may distort how we see ourselves
and what we perceive as normal and desirable for
men and women.
Stereotypical portrayals
of men.
According to J. A.
Doyle (1989, p. ill), whose research focuses on masculinity
children’s television typically shows males as “aggressive,
dominant, and engaged in exciting activities
from which they receive rewards from others for their
‘masculine’ accomplishments.” Relatedly, recent studies
reveal that the majority of men on prime-time television
are independent, aggressive, and in charge (McCauley
Thangavelu, & Rozin, 1988). Television programming foi
all ages disproportionately depicts men as serious confident,
competent, powerful, and in high-status ‘positions.
Gentleness in men, which was briefly evident in
the 197Os, has receded as established male characters are
redrawn to be more tough and distanced from others
(Bayer, 1986). Highly popular films such as LethaI
Weapon, Predator, Days of Thunder, Total Recall, Robocop
Die Hard,
and Die Harder star men who embody the
stereotype of extreme masculinity Media, then reinforce
long-standing cultural ideals of masculinity:’ Men are
presented as hard, tough, independent, sexually aggressive,
unafraid, violent, totally in control of all emotions,
and-above all-in no way feminine.
Equally interesting is how males are not presented.
J. D. Brown and K. Campbell (1986) report that men are
seldom shown doing housework. Doyle (1989) notes that
boys and men are rarely presented caring for others.
B. Horovitz (1989) points out they are typically represented
as uninterested in and incompetent at homemaking,
cooking,
and child care. Each season’s new ads for
cooking and cleaning supplies include several that caricature
men as incompetent buffoons, who are klutzes in
the kitchen and no better at taking care of children. While
children’s books have made a limited attempt to depict
women engaged in activities outside of the home there
has been little parallel effort to show men involbed in
family and home life. When someone is shown taking
care of a child, ‘1t is’ usually the mother, not the father.
This perpetuates a negative stereotype of men as uncaring
and uninvolved in family life.
Stereotypical portrayals
of women.
Media’s images of
women also reflect cultural stereotypes that depart markedly
from reality As we have already seen, girls and
