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Many would agree that progress has been made in how the media portrays women in cinema, television, and publications, and that the presence and influence of women in media behind the scenes has grown in recent decades. Despite this, feminine stereotypes persist in the media we consume on a daily basis.
The way the media portrays women by reducing them and all their talents down to their dress-sense and looks is quite laughable. It seems that no matter how successful a woman becomes, the media will not move past trivial aspects. The media’s gender traps can be narrowed down to 5 tactics:
1. Concentrating on women’s domestic lives
Female athletes, politicians and actresses are often asked how they balance their work and home lives and whether they “compromise” on raising a family by choosing to focus on their careers.
“It's unclear how Chelsea's pregnancy will affect Hillary Clinton, who is considering a race for president in 2016,” USA Today stated in 2014. When Mitt Romney flaunted his 18 grandchildren, or when George W. Bush and John McCain proudly displayed theirs for the press, how many newspapers asked the question? None.
2. Reporting women based on their relation to famous men
Another bias is to focus heavily on the "connections" that women must have in order to begin their professions. Women in the spotlight are frequently chided for exploiting their ties with powerful men to further their careers, completely ignoring their hard work and talent.
In 2016, the Chicago Tribune tweeted this:
Source: The Chicago Tribune
Corey Cogdell won her second Olympic Bronze medal in women’s trap shooting, yet they focused on the fact that she is married to a Chicago Bears Linesman.
In 2016, The Daily Mail decided that this is what good journalism looks like:
Source: The Daily Mail
P.S. Taylor Swift has won the Grammy for Album of the Year thrice, the Billboard Award for Top Female Artist 4 times (the highest number anyone has ever won) and has won the American Music Award for Artist of the Year 6 times. Her personal life should not be the focus of reporters.
3. Saying that women are “too emotional”
The media is notorious for propagating the stereotype that women are irrational and emotional. For the same reaction, a man would be considered passionate and driven, but a woman is seen as immature and not in control of herself. Female politicians are the most frequent victims of this little stunt.
In 2017, The New York Post published a huge photo of Hillary Clinton in the middle of an outburst during the Benghazi hearing. Sen. Ron Johnson grilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her department's early response to the attack, and Clinton became agitated. Clinton answered, increasing her voice at Johnson, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans."
Source: The Huffpost
4. Focusing only on their looks
Countless times, the media has captured images of women in the middle of exceedingly important and noble tasks and has chosen to talk about their looks, rather than their contributions. The same cannot be said for males in the spotlight.
In 2016, this was The Daily Mail’s take on Theresa May’s meeting with the EU Chief:
Source: The Daily Mail
Let us not forget how they decided to rank female Olympic gymnastics teams based on how their leotards looked *sighs* I’m beginning to see a pattern with The Daily Mail here.
In 2016, Angelina Jolie travelled to Syria as part of the UNHCR Special Envoy and The Mirror chose to focus on this:
Source: The Mirror
It’s quite appalling that she was there meeting Syrian refugees for relief and the media could focus only on her clothes.
In 2016, The Daily Mail, sticking to their reputation of publishing sexist articles, published this article about Shannen Doherty:
Source: The Daily Mail
Publicly addressing a battle with cancer is an extremely courageous step, one that would have required great mental strength without doubt. But in this case, the actress’s struggle was rudely disregarded, proving to us that even while battling a possibly fatal disease, women are still judged on how they look.
5. Objectifying them
Gross objectification of women, for some reason, appeals to journalists as report-worthy content. Paparazzi show up and invade the privacy of most famous people and their business is built around taking “compromising” pictures of celebrities. Very often, they photograph female celebrities partaking in normal day-to-day activities.
Angela Merkel's cleavage at an Oslo opera house gala in 2008 was the topic of quite a few discussions for some odd reason, with the Daily Mail, among others, posting an image of the German chancellor with the caption "Merkel's weapons of mass distraction”.
Source: The Daily Mail
In 2016, The Daily Mail (yes, them again) published this article:
Source: The Daily Mail
Maisie Williams clapped back with grace.
Women can't even go to the grocery store or make a coffee run without the media hounding them about how they’re dressed.
Amy Adams is an academy award winner, yet this reporter chose to focus on how she looks while shopping.
Source: The Daily Mail
How dare she grocery shop without a full face of make up?!
The list of such sexist reporting is nearly endless. As you may have already noticed, The Daily Mail is infamous for such articles. Many sites such as the Huffpost have called them out. The continuance of this degrading manner in which women are portrayed in the media is extremely harmful for many reasons. Not only does it reinforce illogical stereotypes about women, it pigeonholes all women to the false notions people have about them. As a result, the people end up focusing on irrelevant details about successful women rather than on their successes.
Granted, we have come a long way in improving the light in which women’s achievements are showcased, but there is still a lot of progress to be made. Due to the involvement of younger and more progressive journalists in the field of reporting along with the active social media presence of the younger generation, sexist reporting is being called out. The path to unbiased and legitimate journalism is being paved by them and a change is on its way.