Women in the Media

• Symbolic annihilation

  • Tuchman et al - describes the way women are left out of media discourse as their achievements are ignored or minimised, interests and pursuits trivialised and devalued
  • Newbold researched sports reporting and found that women's sport was marginalised and also sexualised
• The cult of femininity

  • Research from the 70s and 80s that show the media presents an ideal of womanhood - 'the domestic goddess'
  • Ferguson found that women were encouraged through magazines to focus on their appearance, marriage and domestic roles instead of a career
• Sex objects

  • Wolf focuses on how the media represent women as sex objects for mens gratification. A particular body image is presented as ideal and anything short is a 'work in progress' - referred to as the beauty myth
  • Suggests women are used in the media for the male gaze (Mulvey)
  • Issue has been linked to body image and eating disorders
• Conflicted working

  • Media usually presents women in domestic and marginal roles
  • Working mothers are often represented as highly conflicted and worried about not fulfilling their domestic role
  • Working fathers are not presented this way as it is ideal for them to be the breadwinner of the family
• Transgressive

  • Suggested by post-feminists that media roles are changing for women - since the 1980s women are more likely to be focused on their careers and career women are presented much more positively
  • Liberal feminists argue that these representations are yet to catch up with social change, but there has definitely been progress
• Sexually powerful

  • Gill suggests that women are now much more likely to be seen as powerful and use their sexuality to get what they want
  • However, radical feminists argue that patriarchy has convinced women that they are in control but really it is the men getting what they want (sexualised images of women)
• Independent

  • Pop music is a particular source of independency with singers like Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga often singing about women's independence and control
  • Gauntlett and Winship suggest things have changed since Ferguson's research with greater emphasis on young women choosing their own path in life