Statistics for Sociology: Media Representations - Gender 2

1. The Joker - who uses laughter to avoid displaying seriousness or emotion.

2. The Jock - who avoids being soft, and who shows aggression to demonstrate his power and strength to win the approval of other men and the admiration of women.

3. The Strong Silent Type - who is in control, acts decisively, avoids talking about his feelings or showing emotion as this is a sign of weakness, and is successful with women.

4. The Big Shot - who is economically and socially successful and has high social status with possessions to match.

5. The Action Hero - who is strong but not necessarily silent, and who shows extreme aggression and often violence.

6. The Ruffoon - who is well-intentioned and light-hearted, but is the bungling or inept figure found in TV ads and sitcoms, who is completely hopeless when it comes to parenting or domestic matters (confirming that men shouldn't be doing these things).

This organisation's study also found that more than 1/3 of boys had never seen a man doing domestic chores on TV - these images support the idea that traditional images of masculinity generally continue to dominate mass-media coverage of boys and men.

-These are nearly always conventionally attractive and glamorous women, like Angelina Jolie, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Milla Jovovich and Lucy Liu.

-They are not becoming masculinised or unfeminine, and remain traditionally attractive, thereby conforming to the male gaze and the beauty myth, and posing no threat to a patriarchal society.

-Nonetheless, she suggests that female action heroes and other new gender representations have at least opened up choices for girls which enable them to explore and construct new identities outside the norms of traditional femininity.

-The report found that the tabloid press in particular often focused on women's appearance and reduced them to sexual commodities to be consumed by the male gaze.

-It also found that 'women's issues' were often covered in a very narrow and stereotyped way and women who had achieved some level of social status as politicians or actors were often denigrated and humiliated by the media.

-She observes that as consumers of the music industry young girls: "learn that women are, almost without exception, required to bare as much skin as possible when singing ... while male artists, remaining fully clothed themselves, will strew writhing bikini-clad women around the sets of their videos like Christmas decorations".

-This cult of femininity included themes like getting and keeping a partner, being a good wife/partner, keeping a family happy, what to wear, how to be a good cook and so on.

-These themes socialised young girls into the stereotyped values and roles of femininity as established in our society, and are often reflected in adult women's magazines, with their concerns with personal and emotional relationships, family, beauty, health and fashion.

-Women continue to be disproportionately found in costume design, make-up and hair, which have less status are are paid less than male-dominated technical areas such as camera, sound and lighting.

-She accuses the media, especially women's magazines, of encouraging young girls and women to be unhappy with their bodies.

-She notes that they create the potential for eating disorders by constantly exhorting females to be concerned with their weight, shape, size and looks, by using pictures of size-zero supermodels to illustrate articles and, through adverts, encouraging dieting and cosmetic surgery.