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Gender Representations on Television

Module 4_Topic 10: Gender Representations on Television

Gender Representations on Television

At the completion of the topic, you will be able to: Demonstrate a clear understanding of feminist television criticism; Explain the theory of the male gaze; Illustrate how stereotypes of femininity are perpetuated through the medias selection of news presenters; and Comment on how some topics on television (for example, sports and fashion news and advertisements) remain heavily gendered.

Turner, Roger, Keeping Meteorology Masculine: The American Meteorologys Response to Television Weather Girls in the 1950s in Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life, edited by Vladimir Jankovic and Christina Barboza, Mast, Rio Di Janeiro, 2009, available online at: http://people.rit.edu/rdtgpt/research/Keeping_Meteorology_Masculine.pdf [Accessed 8 August, 2011]

Gender Representations on Television

In this two-part lecture we will examine how gender is represented on television. The first part posits questions relating to gender and news delivery on television. In the second part, television news content is critically analysed in relation to the areas of sports, fashion and advertisements.

Television News Delivery The 2010 GMMP Report stated that women around the world delivered 52% of news stories on television (GMMP, 2010). In the Caribbean and Asia, for example, women presenting the news make up 60% and 52% respectively. In Fiji, for example, 64% of television presenters are women (GMMP National Report, 2009).

Why do you think more women deliver the news on television considering womens overall underrepresentation in the media?

It has been suggested that women (mostly young women) are chosen to present the news because they are attractive or have a certain charm that will satisfy viewers. In this context, the theory of the male gaze is useful for analysing how consumers of the news media (public) view news presenters on television. Briefly, this theory focuses on who is doing the looking. It is based on the idea that men are usually the watchers and women are the watched (Mulvey, 1975; Berger, 1972).

Can you think of an example from television that can be used to illustrate this theory?

Gender Representations on Television

The representation of weather girls on television as hot and sexy is an illustration of how the male gaze works to satisfy the heterosexual male viewer. Since the late 1940s television weather reports were used to inform military pilots about the weather. In the early 1950s, cartoonist and weathercaster, Tex Antoine, commented that the weather report was a rather dull subject in need of sugar coating (Time, 1968, 83). As a response to this comment, WABC and WCBS in New York City began hiring women to present the weather from 1952. Station manager of WABC, Joseph Stamler, explained: We feel that women or ladies have greater acceptance than men because, well, with the combination of an attractive looking personality the men prefer to look at and the women are attracted to because of the fashions they wear, weve really got a two-fold program (Turner, 2001, 16). These weather girls, comprising beauty queens, models and actresses, were not trained in metrology. They represented hegemonic femininity and appeared on the screen to attract the male heterosexual gaze.

Since the 1970s, feminists have criticized the way attractive and especially young women dominate as the faces on television while males of all age groups are selected to present the news. Attacks of ageism against women have prompted television stations to recruit older women to present the news. For example, in December 2009, the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC) tried to counter attacks of ageism by recruiting women over 50. This attack came after leading news presenter, Moira Stuart, was removed from her role as news reader. Click on the link below to view this story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6851231/BBC-tries-to-counter-ageism-attacks-byrecruiting-women-presenters-over-50.html

In 2010, GMMP confirmed that in addition to an increase in the number of women presenting the news, the percentage of women presenters between 50 and 64 years has also increased significantly in the last five years. Currently, 51% of stories by presenters in this age bracket are delivered by women (GMMP Report, 2010, viii).

Television Content: Sports and Fashion News and Advertisements In this section we will analyse three areas that remain heavily gendered in television: sport, fashion and advertisements. Sport The construction of masculinity in sport is institutionalised and reflects the hierarchal and competitive nature of this institution (Connell, 1995, 35). Media coverage in sport reinforces hegemonic masculinity.

Gender Representations on Television

Quite often, there is a tendency to reinforce constructions of violent masculinity. As The Media Awareness Network points out: By praising athletes who continue to play while injured, and by using language of conflict and war to describe action, sports commentary reinforces violence and aggression as exciting and rewarding behaviour (2010). Sports coverage in the media also places an emphasis on rivalry, conflict and competition. This reinforces the view that violence and aggression are natural expressions of masculine identity (Media Awareness Network, 2010). The haka performed before the New Zealand game reflects this. See for example http://www.live-rugbychannel.com/1/.

Although women have, and continue to, make a significant contribution to sports, on the whole, their achievements receive limited and often biased coverage in the mass media. The New South Wales Sport and Recreation body argues that the media coverage of sport in Australia is usually selective and inadequate and does not accurately reflect the amount of sport played or watched by women (Information Sheet). In addition to the underrepresentation of women in sport, we must also consider the way their representation is often sexualised or hyper-sexualised. The Health Resource Centre draws attention to a crucial point: the media falls in love with female athletes who are sexy or who are willing to vamp for the camera; these women, not surprisingly, get more news coverage and endorsements, even if they arent the best in their field (2008). The call for female soccer players to wear tighter uniforms to attract television viewers by Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, is another illustration of the attempt to sexually objectify women in sports (The Washington Post, January 17, 2004, D2).

Fashion and Beauty Pageants Mainstream media often dictates a sense of what we should look like. Fashion models are presented as ideal symbols or icons of masculinity and femininity. Scholars often argue that constant reinforcement of such images in the mass media can have a significant impact of young people, especially young women (De Groat, The University Record, 1997). Media studies research in the 1990s established a link between body image and the mass media. For instance, a significant increase in the number of eating disorders among young women who were dissatisfied with their body image was reported. When asked why they felt dissatisfied, most of the women cited the fact that they regularly compared their own bodies to models, media figures and actresses (DeGroat, The University Record, 1997).

Gender Representations on Television

The relationship between fashion and femininity is also an interesting one. As Ussher states: Fashion is one of the core components of the feminine masquerade, for through constructing our clothed image, we construct ourselves (1997, 59). Representations of the female body often highlight how femininity is culturally constructed. Reflect on the following example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYW_XIglC0A&feature=grec_index

Advertisements Mens bodies are also idealised and eroticised by the mass media. This is particularly clear in

advertisements. The Media Awareness Network examines how masculine violence is encoded into advertisements. The image of the hero, the warrior, the sex god and the muscle man are often presented as idealized images of masculinity. Advertisements featuring men often stress tough

attitudes, for example, rebellion. Heroes from popular history (cave men) are remembered and celebrated for their brutal and aggressive behaviour. The image of the warrior (featuring military or sports figures armed with appropriate weapons and other gear) is also used to promote an adventurous, brutal and aggressive masculine ideal. Another common portrayal of masculinity in advertisements is the muscular and sexualized body where size and strength are crucial. Below is an example of how masculinity is represented in a Tongan rugby advertisement on television:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7WQvpWw9BM

Advertisements for food, clothing, technology and beauty products, for instance, produce and reproduce stereotypical images associated with femininity. Values such as care, cleanliness, sensuality and compassion are emphasized in advertisements featuring women. Some common images of women in advertisements are women as: goddesses, mothers, carers and cleaners. The woman as goddess image presents the female body as a (highly sexualised and eroticised) object to be gazed at by both women and men. When women are represented as mothers and wives in advertisements, they are positioned in the domestic sphere and confined to the home. In the domestic sphere, they are either portrayed as pleasing men by serving them tea or food or they depicted as persistent and loving carers of children. In these ways, there is a constant reinforcement of the stereotype of the traditional housewife and the underlying (stereotypical) view that A womans place is in the home.

Gender Representations on Television

Consider the portrayal of women in the following BMW advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWz1jwCaDXA

Gender Representations on Television

Berger, John (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: British Broadcasting Commission and Penguin Books. Connell, R. W. (1995) Masculinities, NSW, Allen and Unwin. DeGroat, Bernie (1997) Media Influence Eating Disorders The University Record, available online at: http://ur.umich.edu/9798/Oct22_97/media.htm The Global Media Monitoring Project (2010) available at: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 30 July, 2011] _____ Regional Report (2009) available at: http://www.whomakesthenews.org/ [Accessed 30 July, 2011] Turner, Roger, Keeping Meteorology Masculine: The American Meteorologys Response to Television Weather Girls in the 1950s in Weather, Local Knowledge and Everyday Life, edited by Vladimir Jankovic and Christina Barboza, Mast, Rio Di Janeiro, 2009, available online at: http://people.rit.edu/rdtgpt/research/Keeping_Meteorology_Masculine.pdf [Accessed 8 August, 2011] Mulvey, Laura, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema originally published in Screen 16.3 Autumn 1975 pp. 6-18, available online at: http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html [accessed 8 August, 2011] The Media Awareness Network, Masculinity in Sport (2010), available online at: http://www.mediaawareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/men_and_masculinity/masculinity_sports.cfm [accessed 8 August, 2011] The Health Resource Centre (2008) Our Bodies in Motion: The Politics of Sports available online at: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/excerpt.asp?id=7 [accessed 8 August, 2011] Sepp Blatter, cited in The Washington Post, January 17, 2004, D2. Ussher, Jane (1997) Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex, London, Penguin Books.