Women Must Be Perfect By Bradis Mcgrif

Bradis McGriff

Sex And Love

Soci 174

Mitra Rokni

December 4, 2006

Women Must Be Perfect

Women Must Be Perfect

In Society today women are portrayed all less than equal to men, not only by society, but by the mass media as well. Women are looked down upon in society and are viewed as sexual beings. In the following essay I am going to examine how the process of women is brought down starts at a very young age. From the cartoons that young girls grow up watching, to the toys that they play with, women are brought up thinking and feeling as I they have to walk, talk, and look a certain way. Not only in the United States, but in countries all around the world. Here is a better look at the global situation between women, their sexuality, and life. I am a male but I am going to give you a perspective of women in the media and their sexuality.

Gender is the psychological characteristics and social categories that are created by human culture. (Webster's) Doing gender is the concept that humans express their gender when they interact with one another. Messages about how a male or female is supposed to carry themselves come from many different places in the society that we live in today. Schools, parents, and friends and especially religion can influence a person. Another major factor that influences millions of vulnerable females and males is television. Not only does the television teach each sex how to act, it also shows how one sex should expect the other sex to act. In the current television broadcasting stereotypical behavior goes from adult shows that can be found on expensive cable packages, to cartoons that young children watch. In this broadcasting range, females are portrayed as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked completely or seen as unimportant entities.

Stereotyping women is not only widespread in the adult world; it also flourishes in the world of young girls as well. Here, there are depictions of women and girls as motherly or innocent, and passive. This occurs not only in popular programming on Public Broadcasting, but also on television in other countries. Mothering images on Philippine TV has shown some of the same trends that are seen in the United States. Although "Teletubbies and Barney & Friends display an equal representation in number, each show displays gender stereotyped qualities," it is obvious that these programs are sometimes reinforcing the wrong ideas about gender roles to children, roles that feminists have been battling for almost half a century. "Both programs demonstrated clear gendered roles with males being more active and females being more social and passive. This distinction appeared most obviously in the real-life segments of both programs with women as mother or passive viewer of action. Neither program shows women or men in non-stereotypical roles, indicating at an early age children are exposed to gender-specific occupational expectations." Each show has children as additional characters, and each episode consists of a live action activity.

In Barney & Friends, Barney interacts with two female sidekicks. Baby Bop is "a silly, excitable, and giddy [dinosaur] carrying a blanket, wearing a bow--a stereotypical little girl". She plays dress-up, sings, and plays pretend where she might be a ballerina or princess. Ms. Etta is a bird that takes care of a tree house and doles out advice. She is "the typical elderly woman who gives out advice and she is caretaker." Boys are seen as more active than girls, "more often than not a boy is leading the activity." In one episode a boy is getting weighed, while the girl "sits very passively to get her ears checked." Girls are also seen working with their mothers, as in, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, and making dinner. When adults are shown on the show the men are seen as rugged construction workers or mailmen, while the women are seen as cooks and mothers. Also, children are shown examples of items that their sex is expected to like. When the children on the television are asked what animals are their favorite, "girls name teddy bears and kitties, boys name big lions, grizzly and polar bears." This makes the girls seem innocent, only liking things that are cuddly and do not post threats to those around them.

Teletubbies also shows a definitive way the females are supposed to act. This show "maintains sex-role stereotypes such as caretaker and follower for girls." The show has four main characters called TeleTubbies. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po are their names. They differ in size and color. The two larger TeleTubbies, Tinky Winky and Dipsy are the male characters and dressed in dark, masculine colors. Laa Laa and Po are the smaller TeleTubbies and dressed in light, feminine colors. The males are always seen as being more active, running around and dancing. The girls sing together and eat. Tinky Winky is also the leader of the group, as he the biggest and male. There is a female voice that is motherly and tells the TeleTubbies which activity to go to next. The male narrator explains different actions, "thus being more active, direct voice than that of a female." In this show as well, the male is in charge of the activity.

These two shows are only a small insight into how the rest of the programming world shows girls being virtuous and motherly. In commercials, girls are seen playing games like 'Pretty, Pretty, Princess' and 'Barbie'. Viewers rarely see girls in the sandbox digging holes with construction toys such as dump trucks and shevels. Also, women are more likely to be in some sort of serious romantic relationship or married. On the other hand the romantic status of most male characters is not known. These virtuous images not only give little girls the wrong ideas, but little boys as well. This can lead the males to think they can't enjoy dressing up and playing pretend. Or that if a girl is roughhousing with the boys or digging in the dirt, she is somehow not a real girl. This can cause boys to harass a so-called 'tom boy' or bully other boys who are 'sissies'. Female psyche is also damaged because little girls may think there is something wrong with them if they want to do 'boy' things. One study found that "viewing sex-stereotyped commercials caused college women to emphasize homemaking in descriptions of their long-term aspirations, whereas women who saw reversed-sex role