Week 1-Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation Flashcards
What is the representation of Sex in Media?
■ Signorielli and Bacue (1999) 30-year study of television, women are underrepresented compared to men
■ Witt (2000) found approximately two-thirds of characters on television are male
■ Greenberg and Worrell (2007) More male than female new characters in all seasons reviewed
■ Importance of programme type – greater difference for action-adventure programmes and for prime-time viewing
-Cross-cultural differences as South Korea has equal gender split in television yet there was a bias representation in the way the women were shown.
What is advertising like in terms of representing sex?
■ Greater male representation (except beauty, health and household products)
■ Men typically provide voiceovers – even for products most commonly used by women (seen as the voice of authority doing the “science bit”)
■ Household chores completed by women in 2/3 of advertisements (Scharrer et al. 2006) (implying that women are happy to put their free side aside to do stuff for others whereas men will do nothing to contribute for them).
■ Advertising depicting men completing household chores involved humour (undermining men by saying its so simple even men can do this so not just bias against women).
How is sex represented in terms of sports media? What are four forms of gendered commentary? (i.e., live discussion around sport)
- Media sexualises female athletes (through what they’re wearing and looks like) despite impressive achievements.
- Undermines power and strength through focusing on appearance and grace where this would not happen with a male athlete.
- Emphasise femininity e.g. grace, balance.
- Additional material e.g. refer to marital status, whether they have children (does not include if they have come back from pregnancy but still takes away from their achievements).
How is sex represented in terms of children’s television?
■ Female characters particularly under-represented in children’s television
■ Males outnumber women 4 or 5 to 1 (2008-ask)
■ Males portrayed more aggressive and dynamic
■ Females portrayed more supportive and nurturing role in the group, fearful, reserved and interested in romance
■ Female characters increasingly are becoming more independent and intelligent
■ When females were superheroes they often worked for a mentor
How is sex represented in terms of Disney?
■ First princess created in 1937
■ Disney Princess line created in 2001 to sell more merchandise
■ Encourages children to identify with the characters adopting the roles + immersing themselves in that world and purchase the associated products (Do Rozario 2004)
■ Orenstein (2011), parents view Disney Princesses as “safe” compared to other
media models (i.e., without swearing and excessive violence)
■ When children own Disney films they watch this as much as other television programmes
■ However in the Disney princess films, female characters speak, on average, 20% fewer words than male characters and there are approximately nine fewer female than male characters with speaking roles per film (Fought & Eisenhauer 2015)
What did England et al. (2011) find when investigating sex/gender representation in Disney?
■ Examined gender role depictions (behavioural characteristics and climactic outcomes)
Three groups:
1. earlier movies e.g., Cinderella
- middle movies e.g., The Little Mermaid
- most recent Disney Princess film e.g., The Princess and the Frog
■ The princesses exhibited more feminine than masculine characteristics
■ Princesses displayed increasingly more masculine characteristics over the years, respectively showing a shift (e.g., being more independent and assertive)
What did Towbin et al. (2004) find when investigating sex/gender representation in Disney?
Five themes emerged related to what it means to be a boy/man based off the films:
1. Men primarily express their emotions physically or show no emotions
2. Men are not in control of their sexuality (grabbing someone and kissing them without consent)
3. Men are naturally strong and heroic
4. Men have non-domestic jobs
5. Overweight men have negative characteristics (e.g., mean or bafoon like)
Four themes emerged related to what it means to be a girl/woman:
1. A woman’s appearance is valued more than her intellect
2. Women are helpless and in need of protection
3. Women are domestic and likely to marry 4. Overweight women are ugly, unpleasant, and unmarried
What did Wiersma (2001) find when investigating sex/gender representation in Disney?
■ Analysed employment in Disney films
■ Male Disney characters held a diversity of jobs (26 male job categories across 16 Disney films), e.g. miner, governor, salesman, doctor, lawyer
■ Only four women had out-of-home employment, jobs were actress, sheep tender, thief, fairy
■ 24 examples of women performing domestic tasks
■ Four examples of men performing domestic tasks (2 by the butler in Aristocats which is a paid role)
■ Builds a role of gender roles and ideas
How is sex represented in terms of video games?
■ Initial female representations after male characters were unsophisticated e.g., Ms Pac-Man and designed to attract female consumers (first wave)
■ Female characters when introduced were more rounded but often damsels in distress (Dietz. 1998) e.g., Princess Toadstool (second wave)
■ Lead characters when introduced often adopt a very sexualised appearance e.g., Lara Croft (third wave)
■ National Institute on Media and the Family (Walsh et al. 2002) described recent video games as glorifying violence towards and objectification of women e.g., in the Grand Theft Auto games male characters can have sex with a prostitute, then kill her and take their money back.
■ Game developers typically male. Number of female characters (15%) closer to the number of gamemakers (11.5%) than the number of female players (38%).
What did Dill and Thill (2007) find when investigating sex/gender representation in video games?
■ Conducted a content analysis of images of video game characters from popular American gaming magazines
■ Male characters (83%) more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive
■ Female characters (60%) more likely than male characters (1%) to be sexualized
■ Female characters (39%) more likely than male characters (8%) to be wearing small amounts of clothing
■ Even if you don’t play that game, you may still be exposed to perceptions of these characters and thus gender and how it relates to other sorts of avenues
How is sex represented in terms of politics?
■ Female politicians receive less coverage and are often stereotyped e.g., described according to specific gender roles, there is a focus on appearance, or asked specific questions on womanhood, education etc., rather than on things such as economic policy
■ Hence, they are less likely to be viewed as a viable candidate
■ Female politicians more likely to be linked to social policy than finance or foreign policy (Bystrom et al. 2001).
■ Hooghe et al. (2015) examined over six thousand newscasts to investigate the speaking time given to MPs from 2003 until 2011 in the two main television news broadcasts in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium
■ Female MPs were less likely to be given speaking time and received less speaking time than male colleagues. This sex difference is particularly prominent for those in elite positions.
What did Lizotte and Meggers-Wright (2018) find when investigating sex/gender representation in politics?
‘Former beauty pageant contestant Palin is a head-turner who offers ample opportunities for trouble to a man who expresses appreciation for attractive women in ways that overstep the bounds of
political correctness’’ (Carlin & Winfrey 2009 quoting McAuliff 2008, para. 10) (i.e., women more likely to be discussed about their appearance than men)
■ Participants read an excerpt from a fictional candidate’s website (no photographs)
■ Labelled as an Attractive female, attractive male, or female and male where appearance/name wasn’t mentioned
■ Voters rate the candidate described as attractive as less intelligent, less trustworthy, less competent, and less qualified. This applied to both genders however was more frequently discussed for female candidates
What is the representation of sexual orientation in media?
■ Less papers regarding representations of trans men/women
■ Initial depictions of homosexuality – feminine men and masculine women, treated as an object of ridicule (1910s/1920s)
■ Later depicted as a social threat e.g., sadists, villains (e.g., perpetrators in Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ were gay)
■ Range of poor consequences associated with homosexuality (in the 80s) e.g., being disowned by families, more likely to be ill if gay
■ Following development of lesbian and gay rights (e.g., Stonewall riots), there was an increased acceptance of homosexuality within society (and therefore consumers of the media)
■ Inclusion of homosexual characters in mainstream media (e.g., ‘Will and Grace’) though often containing stereotypes and may be done to include a new marketing audience
■ Media targeted at homosexual consumers
■ Celebrities identifying as homosexual has increased the role of acceptance and positive representation
What did Raley and Lucas (2006) find when investigating sexual orientation?
■ Conducted a content analysis of prime-time television programs Of the 80 television programmes listed (2001), 7.5% of the shows had a reoccurring lesbian or gay character
■ They argued that the representation of lesbian and gay characters did not differ from their heterosexual counterparts (e.g.,
shown with children and in romantic relationships) (some argue its a positive depiction)
Difficulties of increased representation:
■ Borgerson et al. (2006) identified “straightening” gay characters - heterosexual consumers interpret explicit LGBT imagery as heterosexual or “straight”
What are the negative consequences of biased media representation for sex? (Wright and Tokunaga, 2016)
■ Men’s frequency of exposure to magazines and reality TV programs that objectify women and pornography predicted more objectified cognitions about women (must be other factors as we should all have the same views in theory?)
■ Objectified cognitions about women predicted attitudes supportive of violence against women e.g., “the way women dresses contributes to assault” (and this finding can also be seen in women’s perceptions too)
■ Exposure to sexually explicit movies on the internet may be most influential for the sexual objectification of women (Peter & Valkenburg, 2007)
■ Fischer and Greitemeyer (2006) reported that men who had listened to misogynous song lyrics were more aggressive toward a female confederate (fake participant) than men who had listened to neutral song lyrics (behaviour towards male confederates didn’t change)
