Images of Women

1
Images of Women

• Chapter 3
• How cultural attitudes about women find
  expression through language and visual images

2
LANGUAGE ABOUT MEN WOMEN

• Linguistic sexisminequitable treatment of women
  and gender issues that is built into the
  language.
• Peoplemale biasassumption that a male is the
  subject
• Animalmale biasbias toward using masculine
  pronouns and believing animals are male
• Children learn early that male is the norm

3
LANGUAGE ABOUT VIOLENCE

• According to feminist theorists, people overuse
  the passive voice when talking or writing about
  rape and other violence against women.
• The tendency to focus on the victims rather than
  the perpetrators in violence against women is
  widespread.
• What does this do to our perceptions?
• Terms like domestic violence, spousal abuse and
  abusive relationships
• What effect does this have on our perceptions?

4
LANGUAGE, IMAGERY STEREOTYPES ABOUT MEN WOMEN

• Stereotypeswidely held beliefs about members of
  a social group
• Schemanetwork of associations around a group, or
  mental network that guides people as they
  experience the world around them
• Gender stereotypesnetworks or schemas of related
  beliefs that reflect the common wisdom about
  women and men

5
THE CONTENT OF GENDER STEREOTYPES

• Physical stereotypes these act as primary
• Womendainty, soft, graceful
• Mentall, strong, sturdy
• Personality traits
• Womenaffective and communalconcerned with
  feelings and other people
• Meninstrumental and agenticactive agent and
  effective doer
• Role stereotypes
• Womenhousewife/mother, sexy woman, athletic
  woman, career-oriented woman
• Menblue-collar worker, athletic man, macho,
  businessman

6
SEXUALITY STEREOTYPES

• Women who are particularly strong in physical
  skills or personality traits tend to be
  stereotyped as lesbians.
• Men who are more effeminate and enjoy girly
  pursuits such as fashion and decorating are
  stereotyped as gay.

Photo courtesy of Photodisc.
7
ARE STEREOTYPES ACCURATE?

• Sampling biasin forming a belief about a person,
  thinking about those one has previously
  encountereda non-random sample
• Selective encodingentering into memory
  stereotype-congruent rather than
  stereotype-incongruent examples
• Selective retrievalremembering
  stereotype-congruent rather than
  stereotype-incongruent examples

8
MEDIA IMAGES

• Women are underrepresented in the mass media.
• These patterns are cross-cultural
• How are female news anchors portrayed?
• Women are underrepresented in prime-time network
  commercials for all products except for health
  and beauty items (Ganahl, Prinsen Netzley,
  2003).
• Women and girls are underrepresented in comics.
• What are the effects?

9
Gender Stereotypes in Media Images

• In movie roles, men are likely to be portrayed as
  aggressive and dominant, women as passive and
  relatively powerless (Haskell, 1997).
• In popular comic strips, female characters are
  less active than male characters (Brabant
  Mooney, 1986, 1997).
• In male-oriented magazines,
• men are more likely to be shown
• in occupational roles and rarely
• as fathers or husbands
• (Vigorito Curry, 1998).

10
FACE-ISM SEXUALIZATION

• Face-ism refers to the prominence of the face
  in relation to the body, in images of men
  women.
• measured by comparing the size of the body and
  head in images and expressing it as a proportion
  (Archer, Iritani, Kimes Barrios, 1983).
• The facial prominence in published images is
  usually higher for men.
• 2/3 of a typical photo of a man
• is his face
• In photos of women, lt1/2
• Is face.

11
Sexualization of Images

• Clothing
• Females are shown partly or completely undressed
• Focus on body parts
• Shown in poses that emphasize submissive
  sexuality (or other stereotyped male fantasies)

12
Images of African American Women

• These images are biased in racist as well as
  sexist ways (West, 2004).
• Mammyhappy slave whose huge breasts and
  perpetual smile symbolize her as a nurturer,
  while her dark complexion, bandana-covered hair,
  broad features and fat body mark her as asexual
• Jezebelblack woman portrayed as immoral,
  seductive, promiscuous
• Matriarchdomineering, aggressive, strong,
  unfeminine often portrayed as a hostile,
  tongue-lashing nag that drives men away and
  bullies everyone else

13
INVISIBLE WOMEN

• Many women are left out of media representations
• Older women
• Bigger women
• Poor women
• Athletic women
• Women as experts or voices of authority
• What is the effect?

Photo courtesy of Michelle R. Kaufman.
14
THE IMPACT OF STEREOTYPES

• The gender schema becomes part of the self
  schema.
• Stereotype threatWhen people know there is a
  negative stereotype about their groups
  abilities, the pressure caused by their fear of
  confirming the stereotype can interfere with
  performance.
• People with more power tend to engage in
  stereotyping of people with less power.
• Stereotypes can prime sexist behavior, such as
  sexual harassment or sex discrimination.
• Stereotypes are relatively stable - people tend
  to maintain stereotypical beliefs even when they
  are challenged by new or incongruent information
• (von Hippel et al., 1995).

15
Choose-an-ad Analysis

• What is(are) the message(s) in this photo?
• Is there a message about gender?
• To whom is the message directed?
• Is the message tied to the product?
• What devices are used to convey the message?
• Pose and activity?
• Aspects of the body that are emphasised?
• Other?
• What impact might this have on a female viewer?
• Age 10-17 18-30 50-85?
• Male viewers?

16
MAKING A DIFFERENCE

• Transforming Language
• Feminist language reform efforts to eliminate
  gender bias in the structure, content and usage
  of language, and to provide nonsexist
  alternatives.
• Alternative Images
• Reversing stereotypes (e.g., Xena The Warrior
  Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Inclusion of feminist messages in popular music
  (e.g., Queen Latifah, Pearl Jam)
• Using media to publish ones own words and images
  (e.g., BUST zine)

17
Dreamworlds III Pornographic Images in Music
Video

• Filmaker Sut Jhally (1995) reveals and analyzes
  the pornographic imagery in music video
• Objectification of women reduction of women to
  body parts entertainment for mens pleasure.
• One dimensional representation of femininity,
  endlessly repeated in the white male pornographic
  imagination.
• What are the elements of this representation?
• The Pornographic Gaze
• Destructive portrayal of masculinity