Gender in the Media

The media can be an important actor in the promotion of gender equality. The media can help to make the people realize that the uncommon (what we are not used to), does not have to be a bad thing. However, media is also responsible for gender inequality in our society since the roles and the stereotypes of men a women are marked in many ways. Gendered films and adds whose protagonist are women are normally represented as object of desire. In the video below we can see an example of those adds but swapping the roles, and making the men act like the women.

We see it pretty ridiculous when men act like this but we do not when women do.

The level of participation and influence of women in the media has implications for media content. The Bechdel Test, which got its name from the work of comic strip artist Alison Bechdel, is a sort of gauge for female presence in fiction, but it is not by itself indicative of a work that has feminist themes or a positive portrayal of women.

The test has three qualifiers. In order to pass, the work in question should (1)include at least two named/significant women who (2) have at least one conversation (3) about something other than a man/men. Try applying this test to modern works of media; you’d be surprised at how many works don’t pass.

When it comes to the media, unbalanced gender portrayal is widespread. Representing women has usually involved a binary opposition: virgin or whore, mother or killer, asexual or sexual. They are opposite to each other or they evolve from one to the other. But let´s talk about the bad women, the femme fatale: seductive, mysterious women who trap men, leading them to dangerous and deadly situations who is finally punished. Does this happens with men? well, althought it happens it is definitely not the most common.