Gender Stereotypes in Magazines - Literature review Example

Analyse and Account for the Stereotype of Gender in Magazines It seems there is no use discussing whether gender stereotypes in printed press exist or not: it is sufficient to take any women`s or men`s magazine and look on its cover. This is exactly the case when the whole “book” can be judged by the first page. There you will definitely see a skinny celebrity with a perfect make-up, perfect hair, dressed in fashionable clothes. From the very photo it becomes clear how women`s magazines construct gender stereotypes regarding appearance: they show that to be worth something and to be popular a woman needs to look like a movie star twenty four hours a day. Additionally, model parameters are the main attribute of success, and every woman should strive to transform her body to fit the category of sexuality .The titles of the articles on the cover page will also give a hint on what a decent woman must think of beside her good look: romantic and sexual relationships with her partner, personal life of famous people, and household. The same story with magazines for men: they promote physical power and make accent on machismo while the materials about relationships are usually concentrated on sexual aspect of men`s and women`s communication. So it is impossible to deny that female`s and male`s magazines shape and impose stereotypes about genders. They promote perverted perception of appearance narrowed to sexuality, show relationships between men and women in distorted binary opposition, and impose unrealistic gender requirements in personal life and career. Understanding stereotypes help to make it clear how the society sees its cultural values and how it eventually develops because stereotypes reflect major social tendencies. Stereotyping is inevitable process in social relationship as it presupposes cognitive analysis of one group and distinguishing its peculiar features in opposition to another (Susan, 1998). Stereotypes demonstrate some stable concepts and beliefs about group of people belonging to a different race, gender, religion, and are supposed to reduce the quantity of time needed to receive some information about these groups. That is why stereotypes are always narrow, superficial, and limited in terms of authenticity and reliability of the information provided (Plotik & Kouyoumidjian, 2014).Therefore, stereotyping gender characteristics allows male and female perceiving each other as set of distinct characteristic features devoid of personal peculiarities. Unfortunately men`s and women`s magazines do not only shape these stereotypes with their primitive approach to gender differences but also reinforce them. Despite strong feminist movement of the recent decades stereotypes about women are still prevalent in media of all kinds. Early researchers on the topic of women stereotypization allowed shaping four distinct roles according to which women in printed media were perceived several decades ago: homemaker engaged in housekeeping and care about children; servant, inferior to a man, aimed to help a man earn money though not having financial freedom and consumer`s potential; sex object aimed to satisfy man`s needs and serve as a decoration; emotional, unintelligent human being with small intellectual needs (Persing, 1983). And though it is possible to suggest that financial situation of recent decades has changed traditional division of roles between men and women, not much has changed in other categories: women are still perceived as sexual objects unable to be equal to men in terms of intellectual potential (Spitzer et al., 1999). The depiction of women as sex objects is still very popular in printed media even today. According to Brown (1966) promotion of sexually attractive bodies in women`s magazines along with products, such as clothes, cosmetics, and underwear, that are supposed to enhance attractiveness create perverted stereotypical sexual attitude towards female: the attitude to a product. It seems that the primary quality that a woman should have is sexual attractiveness for men. Skinny figure, bright and seductive make-up, sexy clothes are the attributes of the women on the cover of a magazine which make them desirable. When a typical American or European woman weighs more than 140 pounds (taking into account age pecularities) while an average model from the cover of a women`s magazine has weight around 117 pounds and the smallest size (Cash & Pruzinsky, 2002) So magazines promote beauty and youth making millions of women around the world feel stressed and unsatisfied about their own appearance. It is especially harmful to teenage girls who are unable to understand all complexity of marketing and can suffer from depressions and have low self-esteem. Polivy and Herman state that unrealistic image of female body is one of the main reasons of teenage problems with eating, psychological complexes, and anorexia (2004). In such an artificial and inappropriate way magazines distort the image of healthy body by imposing unrealistic model parameters to all women. The only aim of this unfair policy is to sell diets and goods on the pages of magazines which women should understand. And though changes of paradigms can take years there still appear promising initiatives such as Dove advertising campaign or photos of celebrities without make-up and Photoshop which have purpose to destroy harmful stereotypes about women`s unrealistic appearance Though there are certain positive shifts in the stereotypes about women created in recent decades. For a long period of time women were portrayed exclusively as housewives and all the materials in magazines reflected these stereotypes very accurately: the majority of articles was dedicated to effective housekeeping, cooking, and care about children. Women were depicted as creatures dependent on men completely, submissive and not able to take personal decisions. A woman had to be a mother, a good wife, and an object of admiration first of all with little attention paid to internal development (Kang, 1997). Courtney ad Lockeretz who studied advertisements in women`s magazines in the 1970s and 1980s emphasized that women were never depicted in the situations and the environment apart from home. Their perception of domestic adjusts and submissive to men sex objects was obvious and did not require additional proves. The goods that were supposed to be sold to women in magazines advertisements consisted of children`s products, drugs, home appliances, and cosmetics (1971). It was presumed that a normal woman cannot be interested in anything apart from keeping her house comfortable and her family fed. Nevertheless, the establishment of a woman in a role of bread winner in the Western society resulted in broadening the scope of topics potentially interesting to women: career, interpersonal communication, and private business It is common to find articles about women on the top positions or women capable of making social changes. It has become possible for a woman of XXI century to combine two different roles: of a housewife and a business woman (Wolin, 2003). Another important stereotypization concerns the nature of relationships between men and women in magazines. The definition of romantic relationship is narrowed, and male and female are usually depicted as the representatives of their biological qualities primarily. Thus, men are often portrayed as driven by sex instincts and obsessed with idea of domineering while women seem concentrated on the search of a stable partner for creation of long-term monogamous relationships. The authors of the articles presuppose that these two set roles are biologically encoded in the behavior of men and women and cultural differences play o substantial role. Thus, magazines neglect possible orientation deviations, career goals, family modifications and all other attributes of free society presuming that men and women can act only as biological creatures. It is one of the most spread stereotypes to represent all women as aiming to attract and please men that is why such articles as “What men really want” or “What men think” or “How to Surprise Him in bed” are compulsory for women`s magazines. The articles often concentrate on the qualities that all men supposedly want to see in women pushing readers to follow their pieces of advice. Surprisingly such articles are based on the opinions of “experts” or polls conducted by authors among friends (Bielay & Herold, 1995). In reality most magazines fail to encourage fruitful and effective communication between partners reinforcing the stereotype of “natural differences between sexes. Probably the longer magazines will promote perception of men as creatures being “focused on sex” the longer women will be perceived as “sexual objects driven to attract men”. Unfortunately, for many young women such magazines serve as the only guides to interpreting and understanding the nature of relationships between men and women. Thus, stereotypes are inevitable part of social relationships and as long as society exists they will flourish because stereotypes reduce the time which is used for judging about people of different groups. However, all stereotypes are narrow and superficial, and gender stereotypes are not the exclusion. Women still remain the objects of stereotypization and their perception in public eyes is narrowed to sexual objects, housekeepers, and creatures inferior to men. Magazines reinforce these stereotypes by posting images of women with unrealistic model-size parameters and perverted beauty standards. Additionally, magazines distort the image of a woman making her someone obsessed with finding a man for long-term monogamous relationships. Fortunately, the stereotypical perception of women as housewives is becoming less and less popular due to the establishment of a woman in a role of a bread-winner. Bibliography Bielay, G. & Herold, E. (1995). Popular Magazines as a Source of Sexual Information for University Women.The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 4(4):247-262. Brown, Jane D. (1996). Sexuality and the mass media. Siecus Report, 24,3-9. Cash, T., & Pruzinsky, T. (Eds.), Body Image: A handbook of theory, research, and clinical practice. New York: Guilford Press. Courtney, Alice E. & Lockeretz, Sarah (1971). A womens place: An analysis of the roles portrayed by women in magazine advertising. Journal of Marketing Research, 8, 92-94. Fiske, Susan T. (1998). Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination, The Handbook of Social Psychology. Volume Two (4th ed.). Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill. Kang, Mee-Eung (1997). The portrayal of womens images in magazine advertisements: Goffmans gender analysis revisited. 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