Representation of men and women in the media

Representation of men and women in the media

In the past, women were always made out to be insignificant and manipulated, advertisements have long been sexist towards women and would portray them as subordinate to men. 'You mean a women can open it?' however as the realisation came that this was discriminating women, the media soon began to change to sexualising women.
In the present day media controls the way men and women think. These beauty standards affect the way women and men view the female body. From 2000 to 2009 there was a 36% increase in breast augmentation and a 84% increase in tummy tucks. a study has found that 50% of ads in wen magazines portray women as objects.In advertisement women are also portrayed as sexually submissive, and the sexualisation of women in advertisement has become a lot more violent.
However men are often represented as strong, dominant and aggressive, however they are affected by the hyper-masculine stereo types. Depression in men has increased dramatically in the past 2 decades, which shows that media does have a huge impact on men and women and can lead them to various illnesses.
Media plays a strong role in how we view each other and ourselves but how would ads look if they were reversed? they would look very silly.
'Heavy exposure to media alters the viewers perception of social reality in a way that matches the media world' - Levin and Kilbourne. Advertisement companies spend over £5 billion a year to tell you how to think.
After a media report a shocking fact was found that only 30% of women are behind the published articles and a shocking 70% are men, this shows that a lot of the media today is viewed in the way of a man which is very bias.

Women are not the only ones who do get effected by the media today men also do.
Hyper-masculinity is an extreme form of masculine gender ideology that consist of four inter-related beliefs:
-Toughness as emotional self-control
-Violence as manly
-Danger as exciting
-Calloused attitudes towards women and sex

The study found that 56% of the advertisements portrayed at least one or more hyper-masculine belief. They also found that two of the magazines depicted at least one hyper-masculine belief in 90% or more of its advertisements. The researchers claim that through print ads, products are paired with representations of culturally "ideal" hyper-masculine men which can be harmful because it normalizes and encourages these traits as socially acceptable and desired.