Women and The Mass Media

The nature of the relationship between women and the mass media has been considered in recent years by sociologists and psychologists as well as media critics, in part based on a concern that the way women are portrayed in the media has a deleterious effect on the way women are viewed in society at large. Women's roles in society have been changing through the determined efforts of feminists and sympathetic political groups over the past two decades, and some of these changes are clearly reflected on television, in film, and in other media portrayals. At the same time, it is evident that progress in changing media portrayals is behind the curve as far as the degree of equality that should be depicted, the roles given to women in the media, and the roles women play behind the scenes in the media as well. An examination of the portrayal of women in the mass media will show how the media have influenced the women's movement, how the women's movement has influenced (or tried to influence) the media, and the perception of sociologists and psychologists on the issue.

Women have become more prominent in society in the past half century, and the women's movement has increased the speed with which women are entering the workplace and gaining power in society. More and more women have been entering the job market in the years since World War II. This trend was noted by 1960, but the size of the trend was underestimated. By the mid-1970s, women had entered the job market at rate

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haracters had become stronger over the years and some new situations were explored: The new situation comedies are attempting to portray women more realistically than in the past. Willingness to explore controversial issues has resulted in the treatment of issues pertinent to women: rape, unwanted pregnancy, or job discrimination. Furthermore, the attempt to deal with issues such as these seems to have enriched the portrayals of the females in situation comedies (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977, 23). Dominick (1979) reports on a study of the portrayal of women in prime time between 1953 and 1977, extending from the beginnings of the television situation comedy to the era of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was found in this 1979 study that the number of women in starring roles remained relatively constant over the 25-year period studied. The number of women shown as housewives or housekeepers had declined over this period, but the makeup of the television labor force consistently demonstrated no relationship to the real-life employment patterns of women. This was in agreement with the findings of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which also concluded that females were underrepresented on network dramatic sho

Category: Psychology - W