GENDER INEQUALITY

The Effects of Mass Media on Gender Inequality

The Effects of Mass Media on Gender Inequality

Thesis Statement

Gender inequality is still a prevalent issue in our American society and this is constantly perpetuated by our popular culture. Therefore change needs to first take place through mass media.

Introduction

This roundtable presentation is about “Gender Role Socialization and Inequality.” In keeping with the conference theme, we wish to explore how adult education can challenge public policy by examining the process of gender role socialization as it relates to the workplace. We will also examine how the development of gender role theories and achievement motivation models have been shaped, and continue to be shaped, by the mass media, which includes television, print media, and new media. (Cloutier, 2006, 66) We will utilize a feminist discursive framework and methodology to examine each of these areas. Most of the empirical research on issues of public policy has not adequately addressed theories of gender role socialization and its impact in the workplace. We will begin with a discussion of theoretical aspects of gender role socialization, gender differences, notions of masculinity/femininity/androgyny. Gender Role theory posits that gender roles are socially provided script for individual behaviors first learned and then enacted. (Gallagher, 2001, 173) Even though there are critiques of gender role theories as a form of social determinism, stressing the way individuals are trapped in stereotypes, and of the negligence about the function that individual agency and resistance have in the process of the socialization, the crucial part that socialization plays in the role learning process is extensively acknowledged. Parents, schools, and mass media are the major forces in the socialization.

Discussion

We will first examine the mass media by looking at television as a means of gender role socialization. An accumulating body of research has demonstrated that knowledge about gender begins in early childhood. The gender constancy stage has been researched extensively. We will look at studies that relate television to the gender role socialization process. We examine the correlation between television viewing and the extent of stereotypical gender evaluations in children. We will also see that there are many conflicting opinions on the effects of television viewing on children that many interested parties try to influence their views in order to preserve their position. We will talk about research that shows how unequally males and females are represented on television. After examining the impact of television viewing on the gender role socialization process of children, we will discuss how the print media's representation of women may serve to reinforce sex role stereotypes. (Ore, 2000, 41)

One of the ways in which society communicates its ideologies, values, and beliefs is through the various forms of print media. Discourse in the print media consists of words and images that espouse an understanding of the world and the status of men and women within the world. The print media can be regarded as a form of cultural production where hegemonic norms and values are created and ...