Gender Oppression example essay topic

Through the mass media, our patriarchal capitalist system has created the illusion that Women's Liberation has progressed when gender equality policies were introduced, such as "equal salaries" and the right to vote. It has convinced the common North American woman to believe that she is not socially restrained, that her accomplishments can be unlimited, that she is in total charge and control of her life. However, conventional norms veiled deeply and expressed indirectly in the mass media continue to dictate and subdue lives according to gender. Seemingly innocent short TV ads, still remarkably traditional in depicting gender roles, condone and reinforce gender oppression.

This paper will focus on the underlying imagery of several advertisements, which help perpetuate gender oppression and reinforce the patriarchal system. The first advertisement was extracted from the popular magazine Cosmopolitan, targeted to a predominantly young female adult audience. The ad illustrates a young couple in which the man is kissing the hand of his soon-to-be wife, with an engagement ring on her finger. The picture itself places both the male and the female in their corresponding gender roles in mainstream society: buying his bride an expensive ring, the man fulfills his role as 'Good Provider' and the woman not only willingly accepts this symbol of belonging to the man, but is extremely satisfied and blissful. This ring, of course, does not fall short of its symbolic expectations. The act of offering her a ring, the man may be seen as manifesting deep love; but he is also making an investment, expressing it in the form of commitment.

In a sense, this is also a form of tenure and possession; he is expecting her to completely give herself to him. The subtext to the slogan "Platinum. For a lifetime of love" also suggests a lifetime of ensured financial security and protection for the woman. It reduces the expression of love to a brand of jewelry, selling it not just as a product, but as a standardized lifestyle. How can a woman become truly emancipated if she is economically dependent of man throughout her life, typically from father to husband? In the ad, the man has also fallen victim to the expectations of his gender role in society.

Under pressure to fit the masculine profile, he must financially provide for his partner and shower her with pricey gifts, not to mention choose a proper trophy wife: feminine, attractive, submissive and delighted at everything he does. With bombarding messages like these, how can marriage truly be about love and not about private property within a social institution? The message behind this advertisement reflects the traditional expectations of both genders powerfully, yet subtly and indirectly. In the second example also extracted from Cosmopolitan, accomplished female pop icon Beyonce Knowles is advertising for a Hilfiger fragrance. Most consider this woman to be an empowered career woman, a "true star" for achieving her goals by her talent and skills. However, in this ad (as well as in many others to which she sells her image) she is degraded to only an erotic representation of females, a creature of beauty poised in a way to suggest that she is sexually available.

The allusion reverts this 'empowered modern woman' back on track to her ordained role in society to service herself for the male enjoyment. The subtext "a private performance" degrades her career as a performer to a sex object for the consumption of man, specifically for the consumption of the targeted reader "privately". Although she is portrayed as sexually available, she is only sexually active for the viewer. The double standard that a woman must be preoccupied in adorning herself for men's approval, but must save and reserve herself for only one man is also depicted here. Finally, the TV advertisement for "The Swiffer" is one of many examples in which gender roles are blatantly overstated in household product ads. The woman in the ad is singing and dancing to "The Swiffer" theme song while cleaning the house.

She appears as if she would die happy to deliver a spotless house (to none less than her husband, no doubt) and she is practically ecstatic to tend to her family's every need. Here, domestic work is trivialized by the dancing and singing, and dismissed as fun, pleasant yet insignificant. Sadly, advertisements of household products still remain in this traditional framework which almost always display females doing domestic work in joyful spirits, often with the man walking in only at the ending scene to passively commend her work. Implicit messages such as this places women in a subordinate position, portrays them as happy slaves of their spouse's needs. They undermine the work of housewives, as if their intrinsic nature is to service men and children, and to be in absolute glee when doing so.

In conclusion, the mass media has etched social doctrines and gender roles into the subconscious minds of its viewers without them even being conscious of it. The media's strategy is to bombard audiences with subtle messages to ensure that gender roles remain intact, in turn so do patriarchy and the nuclear family. Since political correctness has forced overt sexism underground, the latter has been replaced with clever indirect imagery. It is still ever present and even more complex since it has changed its form of expression. Some believe this is more dangerous because we are somewhat unaware of the doctrines which govern our lives, making us powerless and less in control of our decisions.

The media especially conditions women to exploit their sexuality as a means to an end for their interests and to ensure a secure future. They are objectified to only parts of a mechanism in which their intelligence is unaccounted for, only their sex appeal and their duties as a homemaker. Since integrity reflects how strongly a person follows mainstream values (wife caring for her children and contentedly obeying her husband, who in turn provides for the family), one whose lifestyle counters this reality is neglecting his / her integrity and has become unpredictable. This marginal person is now a threat to the archetypical family, refusing his / her inherent role as a mother / wife and husband / father. This yearning to belong to cultural values is a powerful incentive to obey the norms of society. Through the media, women as well as men have their life blueprinted for them, are guided towards lifestyles sanctioned by social constructs; thus the perpetuation of gender oppression.