Stereotyped Images of Women in the Media

In the age of the more or less institutionalized constituency of women's liberation, it is almost a tautology to deplore the negative, discriminatory, or contemptuous portrayals of women by the mass media. In the background of complaints that women are stereotyped in television commercials or in magazine ads is the overarching complaint that society has limited the scope of social roles that women typically play. For what one must begin with in any analysis of the commercial depiction of these roles is an acknowledgment that, in real life, women as a group do not have the same options, power, control, or wealth that men as a group do have. If women's social roles were as settled and as option-filled as those of men, the contemporary palaver about negative portrayals would be little more than a historical

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presentations suggests that the cultural climate for women in advertising has not kept pace with what real-world women believe is appropriate. Solomon (1992, p. 11) cites ads that are "making a decided effort to banish old stereotypes and lure the female consumer with image that reflect her more professional lifestyle and more educated attitudes . . . professional lifestyle and more educated attitudes . . . . It should come as no surprise that advertisers . . . increasingly are portraying and addressing women as active, confident and professionally accomplished." Elsewhere, however, Solomon notes that the reaction of consumers has been mixed and that, further, such changes as have been made in advertising's images of women are the result of the increasing presence and influence of women in the business world. Additionally, Solomon notes that ads "that target primarily men are more likely to be blatantly insensitive" to women's concerns. Stereotyped images of women in advertisements inevitably affect women in the real world. Irving (1990, p. 231) cites social comparison theory in this regard, noting the emphasis on the physical in advertising: "For women, models of physical comparison are found in images projected by the media
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Approximate Word count = 3647
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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