Impact of Social Media on gender
The society of today is
not only saturated with media, advertisements but also with stereotypes that are cultivated through
media. As people
advance in age, the outside
influences that are
from media and
different platforms have a great
impact on how they
perceive and take
the world around
them. With the ubiquity
of media exposure
on society, it would
be difficult not to
become swayed by what is perceived to be societal norms because media insinuate their messages into people’s consciousness at every angle. There are
three themes that describe how
media represents gender and its weight on how people perceive it. First, men and women are depicted in
stereotypical ways that
reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of
gender. Second, women are underrepresented falsely
implying that men
are the cultural
standard and women are invisible, unseen, or unimportant. Third, delineations of
relationships between men and women emphasize traditionally
roles and normalize
violence against women. All these are discussed below;
First,
stereotypical of men
and women; Generally, media and different advertisement forms are continuing to depict or present men and women in stereotyped ways that limit people’s perceptions and views of human possibilities. Typically, men are delineated
as active, influential,
adventurous, sexually aggressive
and largely uninvolved
inhuman relationships. While on the other hand, women are depicted as sex objects who are usually young, thin, beautiful, passive, lazy, dependent on men, and often dump and incompetent. In these depictions, females devote their primary energies to improving themselves and taking care of homes and people around them. This is because Media pervades the people’s lives, and in the process of misrepresentation of genders, it distorts how people see themselves
and their pervasiveness as
normal and desirable
for men and
women.
Second, the under-representation of women; The primary way media distorts reality is in the under-representation of women’s gender. For instance, in prime television, in which there three times as many men as women (Basow, 1992 p. 159) depicts how women are underrepresented, creating a negative view of women by the society. In communication platforms, women are portrayed as significantly younger and thinner than women in the population. Most of them are passive, dependent on men, and enmeshed in relationships or housework. Hence media misrepresent the actual proportions of men and women in the population. This constant distortion sways people to believe that there are more men than women and, further, that men are the cultural standard.
Third, the stereotypical image of the relationship between men and women; the Media’s stereotypical portrayals of women and men relationships, does not surprise people because it is depicted in ways that reinforce stereotypes and its seen as gender based violence. Men’s authority and women’s incompetence depict that men are the competent authorities to save women from incompetence. This motif tends to casts females as helpless and males as coming to their rescue. Advertisers also support media, and they exert a powerful influence on what is presented, and these messages contribute to the abuse of and violence against women. In one of the mediated representations from traditional cultures, women are depicted as men’s sexual desires swaying society.
In conclusion, media and advertisements are instrumental in persuading society that something natural is unnatural and unacceptable, impacting society’s view about gender. In most cases, the most targeted audience is women.