It’s surprising how we rarely view the line between genders as more of a ‘great wall of china’, rather than just a measly ‘line’. Perhaps the world shouldn’t have needed a speech from an ex Hogwarts student to bring this to the forefront of our minds, and should have been sufficiently covered by the suffragettes bravery, Marlene Dietrich’s eradication of the misconception that a women not wearing a skirt or dress would throw the world off its axis, and piles of Germaine Greer books. However, maybe the use of modern day media has begun to experience being in the unfortunate circumstance where the ideas of objectification and role allocation to certain genders has begun to be injured by the same thing that built it up; the media. Decades worth of ideas are suddenly being turned on their heads by the same thing that built them to be tall and to infect the thought patterns of every boy and every girl. Women seem to have always been the operative in the males plans, being the stagehand, working the glimmering lights and material for applause that only the man gets to experience the admiration for. The majority of religious texts also express deprecation of women to some degree, an unhealthy view to be preached to people, was this an early example of the effectiveness of large scale groups with high amounts of followers expressing opinions to easily influenced devotees? Throughout history, the woman has been a status symbol for men, proving to be mouldable to whatever society deemed necessary. Whether it to be standing and looking pretty to gain and maintain the man’s affections, or going to work every day, keeping countries running whilst husbands, fathers and sons were away fighting, women have shown versatility and admirability in every area. So why have we been turned into sexualised objects that come with a best before tag stating a woman’s shelf life in film and television is up the moment she reaches 40?
Women over the age of 40 made up 47% of all females in the US in 2011, yet out of every woman on TV over 40, only 26% were female. On the flipside, 20-39 year olds were 39% of the population, but made up a whopping 71% of women on television. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the imbalance in the figures here. Symbolic annihilation is evident here, as we see a group not being represented precisely or fairly. By not showing an accurate representation of the real amounts of women in the population, discreetly shows the viewer that the second women are no longer able to be the child bearer, they fall quickly into the background to be forgotten. Should we not only be valuing the women who were once young and are not denying the ageing process its path, but have completed the stage of raising children? These figures suggest also that once a woman has matured and had children she is ‘used goods’, and shall be cast off. Luckily for motion picture studios all over the world, there is an abundance of young, pretty girls hankering to be placed in front of a camera doing a job not particularly taxing; to have their form looked at for pleasure in return for fame and riches. We have become used to this, and when you see the world in a certain way for such a long time, you tend to begin not to challenge it often.
This theory fits perfectly in the patriarchal society that has developed. The world around us has been created to please the man, due to the simple reason that it has been created by men. Jobs that are onerous and hold reasonable levels of power and decision making are held mostly by men, leaving women unspoken for. This has formulated a cyclical structure to employment and the product or service it reveals to the public. The representation of women is lacked in the selection of things that will affect both men and women, therefore leaving an environment made by men, appealing to men. For a women to break into this male dominated workplace is difficult due to the few female role models in high end jobs, leaving you with a unempowering taste in your mouth after saying the quote “You can’t be what you can see”. The absence of role models of this nature is a direct relation of the glass ceiling theory, which explains how you are in good sight of the top, but have a distinctly inclined chance of breaking through to this type of high strength, highly influential vocation if you are a woman.
An area in particular that shows a deficiency in the amount of women present is the upper hierarchy of politics. The diminutive measure of women here means that it is still a grey area for people who are unsure if women have a place in superior politics. A video can be found of Hillary Clinton delivering a speech whilst being continually heckled by mainly men screaming, “Iron my shirt!” This is shocking behaviour that would never would have occurred had a male political been making the speech. This verifies that people have been lead to believe that women are ‘homemakers’ for so long, they are uncomfortable with women becoming strong and influential rather than doing a multitude of household chores. If a man if powerful, he is shown to be ambitious and aspiring, however, if a woman is powerful, she’s seen as pushy and hungry. This is shown in media, particularly in films that suggest women have a choice between a career and a family (whereas men do not face this object), as influential women are usually given a plot to do with their lack of love and no children, and are played to be robotic, heartless creatures who show no emotion. This type of film usually sees the plot marginally thicken when a man trots up on a hypothetical stallion and begins to melt her heart with a hairdryer before adorning her in clothes and jewels that express her body to be a male ideal. This storyline is seen in almost every film, as the woman is always the damsel in distress, and has to be saved from something (whether it is her own demons or those of others) by a knight in shining armour. This connotes to the viewer that women can’t fight their own battles, and this manufactured idea could be a contributing factor in the shortage of belief in female politicians. This really puts women in a box, making them appear an uncomplex gender, living around instead of alongside men. Little do the media like to let on, but women can be intellectuals, beauty queens, tomboys, athletes, girly girls or comedians and still be a woman. Yes that’s right, a women is still a women regardless of whether or not they ironed your shirt. Shocker.
An argument could be made for female superheroes. Undeniably, they are the protagonist. And for the majority of the time, they’re not vying for the attention of a man. Not within the script anyway. Female superheroes are the same as any other female character whose purpose is to please the male within the storyline, and the larger, more exterior, male audience. Female superheroes only have to impress the one of those categories; the male audience, meaning only one or two pairs of eyes are off of her. Due to this, the actress has to be, more importantly than anything, visually appealing. The Hollywood blockbuster ideal of this is the most commonly used type of actress, which is why we crave this look so much. Not only are we suffocated with images of stick thin women who have been sculpted by the plastic surgeons of Beverly Hills so often, we feel a familiarity and safety with this body shape, therefore making it become an object of desire. But this unachievable body shape is chiefly seen on women who possess a lifestyle unusual to the large proportion of women in the world. And we all know, there’s nothing more desirable to be part of an exclusive minority. Once you peel back the layers, you can see how the female superhero survives only for the male viewer. The provocative and revealing clothing confirm this. This closely links with Laura Mulveys ‘Male Gaze’ theory. This is a concept which believes media is made by the heterosexual male, for the heterosexual male. The main notion of this theory is that visual media is structured around a masculine viewer.
The male gaze consists of three different gazes,
- that of the person behind the camera,
- that of the characters within the representation or film itself, and
- the gaze of the spectator.
The concept was developed in 1975 by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, in an essay the wrote entitled “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Examples of the male gaze are shown through the medias overuse of slim, barbie doll-esque women, who appeal to men, which then leads female viewers to desire this look. This contributes to women and teenagers insecurity and correlates with rises in teenagers that are unhappy with their body, and rises is cosmetic surgery performed on under 25s. Men will show interest in a piece of visual media if their is an attractive woman on show. This will mean sales will increase and the company will make enough money. This proves that ‘sex sells’, and this can lead to a viscous cycle of women being objectified through media and men being will to pay for it, leaving companies whose only aim is to make money in an easy situation; to keep producing content that is explicit to how women should be treated in the 21st century.
Media that is shown to the public is regulated by various authorities. The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), screens every film that is made public and able to be purchased. It is a non government run organisation, founded by the film industry in 1912. It is responsible for the classification and censorship of films, and to a lesser extent, video games, in the UK. Another regulator is OFCOM (Office Of Communications), who are in charge of broadcasting rather than feature length film. They posses wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors in the UK. It has a statutory duty to protect members of the public from any material that could be seen as overly offensive, harmful or triggering. Both of these regulators do studies every 4-5 years of what content is acceptable and what is not. Every study is showing a decrease is the amount of material seen as harmful, leading age ratings to be lowered, and watershed regulations to become more lax. This will lead to younger members of the public being exposed to collections of media that would not have been previously legal. The younger the audience are, the more they will view the behaviour they are exposed to as standard. This will show a shift in the social norms to be seen from an early age, perhaps meaning this patriarchal society that is exposed and flaunted in television will become the regular mindset for younger generations, leading to yet more inequality in society.
Genders should not only be treated equally, but also portrayed equally. The media plays a toxic role in making this impossible, due to companies not caring about how society is forming and taking shape, even they have the most power to turn it on its head. The power being in the hands of the media is not a new concept, as propaganda has been around for centuries, to lead beliefs to sway in a certain persons favour, only this time round its being used to create superiority and a divide between two genders that were created as equals, and are made to live alongside each other perfectly. We can live without each other, but it seems also that we can’t live harmoniously with each other.
