Female Occupations On Television example essay topic

Portrayal of Women in the Media Gender is the psychological characteristics and social categories that are created by human culture. Doing gender is the concept that humans express their gender when they interact with one another. Messages about how a male or female is supposed to act come from many different places. Schools, parents, and friends can influence a person.

Another major factor that influences millions of impressionable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting, stereotypical behavior goes from programming for the very small to adult audiences. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities. Stereotyping women is not only rampant in the adult world; it also flourishes in the kiddie universe as well. Here, there are depictions of women and girls as motherly or innocent, silly, and passive.

This occurs not only in popular programming on Public Broadcasting, but also on television in other countries. Mothering images on Philippine TV has shown some of the same trends that is seen in the United States. Although "Teletubbies and Barney & Friends display an equal representation in number, each show displays gender stereotyped qualities", it is obvious that these programs are sometimes reinforcing the wrong ideas about gender roles to children, roles that feminists have been battling for almost half a century. "Both programs demonstrated clear gendered roles with males being more active and females being more social and passive. This distinction appeared most obviously in the real-life segments of both programs with women as mother or passive viewer of action. Neither program shows women or men in non-stereotypical roles, indicating at an early age children are exposed to gender-specific occupational expectations".

Each show has children as additional characters, and each episode consists of a live action activity. In Barney & Friends, Barney interacts with two female sidekicks. Baby Bop is "a silly, excitable, and giddy [dinosaur] carrying a blanket, wearing a bow-a stereotypical little girl". She plays dress-up, sings, and plays pretend where she might be a ballerina or princess. Ms. Etta is a bird that takes care of a tree house and doles out advice. She is "the typical elderly woman who gives out advice and she is caretaker".

Boys are seen as more active than girls, "more often than not a boy is leading the activity". In one episode a boy is getting weighed, while the girl "sits very passively to get her ears checked". Girls are also seen working with their mothers, as in, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, and making dinner. When adults are shown on the show the men are seen as rugged construction workers or mailmen, while the women are seen as cooks and mothers. Also, children are shown examples of items that their sex is expected to like. When the children on the television are asked what animals are their favorite, "girls name teddy bears and kitties, boys name big lions, grizzly and polar bears".

This makes the girls seem innocent, only liking things that are cuddly and do not post threats to those around them. Teletubbies also shows a definitive way the females are supposed to act. This show "maintains sex-role stereotypes such as caretaker and follower for girls". The show has four main characters called Tubbies. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po are their names.

They differ in size and color. The two larger Tubbies, Tinky Winky and Dipsy are the male characters and dressed in dark, masculine colors. Laa Laa and Po are the smaller Tubbies and dressed in light, feminine colors. The males are always seen as being more active, running around and dancing. The girls sing together and eat. Tinky Winky is also the leader of the group, as he the biggest and male.

There is a female voice that is motherly and tells the Tubbies which activity to go to next. The male narrator explains different actions, "thus being more active, direct voice than that of a female". In this show as well, the male is in charge of the activity. These two shows are only a small insight into how the rest of the programming world shows girls being virtuous and motherly. In commercials, girls are seen playing games like 'Pretty, Pretty, Princess' and 'Barbie'. Viewers rarely see girls in the sandbox digging holes with construction toys such as dump trucks and pack os.

Also, women are more likely to be in some sort of serious romantic relationship or married. On the other hand the romantic status of most male characters is not known. These virtuous images not only give little girls the wrong ideas, but little boys as well. This can lead the males to think they can't enjoy dressing up and playing pretend. Or that if a girl is roughhousing with the boys or digging in the dirt, she is somehow not a real girl. This can cause boys to harass a so-called 'tom boy' or bully other boys who are 'sissies'.

Female psyche is also damaged because little girls may think there is something wrong with them if they want to do 'boy' things. One study found that "viewing sex-stereotyped commercials caused college women to emphasize homemaking in descriptions of their long-term aspirations, whereas women who saw reversed-sex role commercials were more likely to emphasize independence and career-related goals". This proves that TV is effecting the way people are thinking and perceiving themselves. In the Philippines, television mimics the sort of programming in the United States. Women are almost always projected as maternal, thus conveying the idea that every girl should aspire to be a mother. "Mothers are always portrayed as the doting parent of lovable children, the faithful wives of hardworking husbands, the neat homemakers who do not have or did not choose 'careers' outside of their homes".

Images like this shape the way males and females feel about how a mother is suppose to act. "Although more mothers are breaking out of the norm, somehow, they also do not stray afar". Women are seen as mothers first and the career pioneers second. There are also mothers that never represented on television.

Lesbians are hardly ever seen on Filipino television. Men are in primary control of television in that area, so whatever does fit their idea of correct and proper, does not make onto the screen. Gender typed-roles are not the only characterizations women on TV are given. They are also seen as sex objects. They are seen in sex objects in music videos, advertising, sporting events, and prime time television.

The sexual visualization gives society the ability to perceive women as inferior. Some people might believe that women are just candy for the eyes. Even though women should not serve this role in the real world, it gets harder and harder to overcome this idea as it is reinforced daily. This thought can cause young girls and adolescents to want to achieve unattainable levels of attractiveness. Thus leading to eating disorders and eventually, depression. In music videos, women are semi-nude 25% of the time.

For the same percentage, they are seen wearing revealing clothing. "Over a quarter of videos incorporate objectified shots of female body parts". For example, the cable station MTV has a daily countdown of the most requested videos for each day entitled, Total Request Live, TRL. This show featured a male artist introducing his new R&B video. First, he was wearing a shirt that communicated the message 'Sorry, No Fat Chicks'. His video then featured scantily clad women dancing and gyrating their hips, while the artist rapped about having sex with multiple partners.

Sadly, this is not the only video like this in circulation today. "Almost two-thirds of the music videos popular with boys show women as 'props' (secondary characters who appear as background, or whose bodies are used as props for action by the primary performer.) The teenage boys watching these videos are getting the message that it is ok to perceive women as sex objects. Girls that see boys enjoying this type of sexed-up female will only try to achieve the look of the women that are exposed. Commercials are also guilty of objectifying women.

"Women are often portrayed as sexual rewards for men who purchase a particular product". In beer commercials a man will crack open a certain brew and poof! He has a blonde, skinny, half naked girl at his side awaiting as if she will obey his every beckon call. It even occurs on computer commercials. "Women are more likely to be standing in a short skirt next to a computer than they are to be sitting down and using it".

Having women being seen not using computers but just pretty objects around them maybe the reason for girls' interest in computers to decline once they " ve reached adolescents. This may even be the reason why girls have so few role models in the position of engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. If the field is considered to make them look unattractive, it will be less appealing. "1990's television commercials tend to portray white men as powerful, white women as sex objects, African American men as aggressive, and African American women as inconsequential". If this occurred in the 1990's, what do the 2000's hold for the future of target marketing? In most television shows the main character is a male.

He has a female sidekick that is either his girlfriend or wife. She is secondary to his actions and is put in the light of nagging or a drag. It is portrayed that the male character should exchange the girl for "a more sexually objectified woman". On the television show 'Rescue Me' a New York fire department is dealing with the effects of losing four of their men to the tragedy of 9/11.

The men are instructed not to date or have relations with the widows of these men. When one of the firemen begins to have relationships with a widow, the fire department initiates a 'beat down', where they all get to punch the man for is going against 'fireman code. ' Not one time do these men consider what the feelings of this widow are. They looked at her as someone that was unable to make correct decisions about her own sex life. In turn, she became an object. Shows also use women as props.

Shows tend to give more speaking roles to men, while women are "ornamental girlfriends of episodic characters". Women are also more likely than men to be insufficiently dress, wearing more tight clothes and swim wear. Sporting events are the worst way that women are objectified. They are shown as cheerleaders and dancers showing as much skin as the women portrayed in music videos. On Monday Night Football they jump, hop, skip, fly, yell, scream, shout, and shriek. It goes far beyond showing team spirit.

The spandex and pom-poms say more than just 'Go, team, Go'. These women appear to be saying, 'Look at me, if you win or do well, look at the reward you will get!' To young men it makes women seem as if they are prizes to be won. This message says that women should follow men. If a man works hard, a perfect-bodied woman will be waiting. Females get the picture that they have to have flawless figures and be the man's 'personal cheerleader' to be considered worthy of being involved with. It would be better to have men on the ground cheering for the superstar athletes because they seem to make up more of the fan base than women.

Showing women as sex objects and reinforcing stereotypes is bad enough. For many women, though, there is a tool more damaging tool than the latter. This tool is when women are completely unnoticed and ignored in television broadcasting. Invisibility of women is a large theme in the psychology of women arena. Men are typically featured more prominently than women in areas that our culture considers important. Going through other forms of media, one will quickly find that males dominate headlines and masculine topics infiltrate the articles.

Woman topics are not only scarce, but sometimes even completely ignored. "Psychologists have helped to keep some important topics invisible. For example, several major biological events in women's lives have received too little attention from psychology researchers". Television is no exception to this ignorance. Women are constantly being unseen and disregarded.

It happens at every age group. Older women find it mostly involving advertising health products. They also find there are few elderly women that are represented on television shows. Teenagers and adult are also lacking role models, as well as current programming that can keep them up to date from a feminine standpoint. Television also fails to create realistic representations of women that are portrayed.

"Only about thirty percent of married women on television are employed outside the home, compared with more than half in real life". Even though there is an equal number of professional men and women, only twenty nine percent of women have professional jobs on TV. For elderly women, they are ignored in both advertising and entertainment. Viewers can see many commercials for Levitra or Viagra, but when it comes to sexual enhancement for women, where is the miracle pill? Heart medicine has also singled out men, even though heart disease is also the number one killer for women. Shows about women are not in the majority either.

They are practically non-existent. Without Golden Girls aging women are hardly represented at all. They are pushed into the back and rarely heard from. An elderly woman's issues, such as loss of a spouse or menopause, are almost never seen as subjects on the most popular shows. News coverage and talk show subjects are ando centric. Teenage and adult women are lacking powerful role models to relate to on television.

"On television women report only about 20% of the news stories about economic, political, or international issues". Not only are women lacking as anchors, they are also lacking as guests. "Between January 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001, women made up 11% of all guests experts on the political talk shows 'Face the Nation' (CBS), 'Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer' (CNN), 'This Week' (ABC, 'Meet the Press' (NBC), and 'Fox News Sunday' (FOX). Of repeat guests, women made up only 7% and female guests made fewer total repeat appearances than did male guests". This representation of women probably has to do with the fact that in 2001 "women comprised 21% of the Presidential Cabinet, 14% of the House of Representatives, and 13% of the Senate".

Male senators also are seen more on the talk shows. Men had 245 repeat appearances and females had only eight. In addition to that, women are being overlooked when they are guests on these shows. The material that they have to report is not seen as important or not as highly regarded as the information that the men have to share.

Women aren't showcased in the early, important segments; they are saved for last where they can be overlooked. Women also do not have a strong place in entertainment. Characters on TV shows are more than two times more likely to be men. With that, important plots are missed, and women can't relate to a strong, independent, female character. Instead they have the girlfriend or wife to identify with, which can make a woman feel insignificant and disregarded. The lack of characters feeds the fuel for women's insecurities.

If she is constantly seeing people enjoy a flawless female, then not being that woman is unacceptable. Women athletes also have the same problem. Jenny Thompson is a US Swimmer. She has participated in the past four Olympics and has won has won several medals each time. But the press refuses to focus on her as being an equal heroine to the other male athletes. Instead it's Michael Phelps this and Paul Hamm that.

Who are young girls suppose to look up too? They will continue to grow thinking any achievements that women make will be secondary to that of a man's. Professional sports also have a male centered approach. Women's professional sports, if there are any left, are seen as insignificant to the male teams. The only time that women's sports has sparked more interest than men's is during World War II. As professional baseball players went to fight the war overseas, a Woman's Baseball league was formed.

This league received so much television coverage that it was disbanded after the professional men cam home because it was in receipt of more favorable reviews. Today, even when woman are given a chance to have a professional league, they can't seem to hold on to it. Women's soccer, which is the most popular sport in the world, was given a league of their own. After a couple of years though, they league had folded and no one seemed to care enough to ask questions as to what went wrong. This ignorance seems to plague other women's sports such as football and basketball. Again Children's programming also makes women seen as being invisible.

"There are two episodes where girls and boys are equally involved in the action of washing a car and building a rock wall, yet only the father is actively participating or shown in the action, the mother is absent or passively observing". Even female occupations on television get less attention than male's. "On boys' favorite TV shows, male characters are frequently portrayed at work, while the occupations of nearly half of female characters are unidentified". This is damaging because boys will begin to think that either women are lazy and can't find work, or their work is not important enough to be seen as something to regard. The media and television broadcasting of women is not all negative. But current culture is constantly taking the easy way out.

It refuses to explore different ways in which women can be represented. That is why for years to come women will still be seen as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked or seen as unimportant entities. Whether it's motherly birds on kids TV shows or scantily clad dancers on Monday Night Football, the portrayal of women has yet to catch up with what real life women are like. There are single women, obese women, and smart women.

Women who are single mom's, lesbians, or don't have any children at all. Women are able to do the same type of work as men without being manly. The day that women are treated as equals on television will whole new level of success for feminism.