How men and women are represented in the media

Masculinity is represented very differently to femininity in the media. For example, men are represented as being ‘tough’, this is the idea that all men must be revealed to the public in a very masculine fashion constituting of aspects linked with masculinity e.g. being professional, strong, rational, competitive, muscular, independent and lastly respected. This is shown in all types of media like films for example, in an action/gangster film men are always the character with the gun and also always the character that is physically fighting with other men or abusing women. It is very rare to see women beating up men and pointing a gun at a man like men are seen to do to women in these types of films, it wouldn’t be seen as normal by the viewer as the ideology of a woman is being domestic, weak, emotional, sensitive and finally supportive. Women are also often shown as a ‘sex symbol’ in all types of media such as newspapers, adverts on TV and films. This is the dominant view of women and is the same in the majority of the world therefore making it seem normal without alternatives.

    Female Characters are sometimes constructed out of qualities that tend to be associated with masculinity. In addition to this, these characters will more often than not be portrayed in a negative way and will be punished through in one way or another for her actions as this is seen as wrong and not the way women should be which makes every woman watching it think that they will be punished if they do not act like this. Statistically men are represented as being extremely violent and aggressive. For example, 99.8% of the people in prison convicted of rape are a man, which means only 0.02% of the people in prison for this crime is a woman which is miniscule. In newspapers crimes such as people being assaulted are never shown as ‘man assaulted woman’ etc, they are nowadays shown as ‘a woman has been assaulted’. This could mean that the media just assume that everyone knows it’s a man because of reasons like statistics show that the majority of the time it is a man assaulting another man or a woman. On the other hand it could be that since the media is ran by men that they don’t want to portray men as being aggressive and violent as it would give men a negative view in society.