Representing Gender

Representing gender

For this short essay I am going to focus on women's representation in the media. There are many arguments surrounding the concept of women being objectified in the media, through intensive manipulation of images on magazine covers and in films, however I do also want to acknowledge a counter point. Women who take part in the photoshoots required for these images to surface must be aware of how their photograph will be used in a modern society. Therefore with this in mind, one cant merely argue that men objectify women, when these models are taking part willingly.

Modleski 1986 argues that "women have been held responsible for mass culture and its harmful effects, while men are privileged to have the responsibility for high culture or art." All though this is a valid point for her example, Harriet Beecher Stowes novel 'Uncle Tom's cabin', it is out dated due to the source been created in 1852. Culturally, I am arguing that it would be difficult to find media text examples which have negative views purely due to the fact they were created by women, from the 21st century.

Our society teaches us that women need to be beautiful and slender, whilst males need to be strong and successful. These are traditional values, which are subtly enforced by older members of communities on the younger generations, however cannot be enforced without the participation of the women involved. Modleski argues "consumption should be the concern of women", and with her feminist views I believe this point was made to encourage women to promote media texts to more direct people whose consumption will churn out positive results, however in order for pieces to appear successful the masses have to purchase it. All though this was initially focused on written texts, I believe it could also apply to photographic images of women on the covers of said texts, such as male health magazines.

In conclusion women are usually objectified in the media, however to argue that this is without ambition from both genders would be ignorant.