gender representation in media essay

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Gender and Media Representations: A Review of the Literature on Gender Stereotypes, Objectification and Sexualization

Media representations play an important role in producing sociocultural pressures. Despite social and legal progress in civil rights, restrictive gender-based representations appear to be still very pervasive in some contexts. The article explores scientific research on the relationship between media representations and gender stereotypes, objectification and sexualization, focusing on their presence in the cultural context. Results show how stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing representations appear to be still very common across a number of contexts. Exposure to stereotyping representations appears to strengthen beliefs in gender stereotypes and endorsement of gender role norms, as well as fostering sexism, harassment and violence in men and stifling career-related ambitions in women. Exposure to objectifying and sexualizing representations appears to be associated with the internalization of cultural ideals of appearance, endorsement of sexist attitudes and tolerance of abuse and body shame. In turn, factors associated with exposure to these representations have been linked to detrimental effects on physical and psychological well-being, such as eating disorder symptomatology, increased body surveillance and poorer body image quality of life. However, specificities in the pathways from exposure to detrimental effects on well-being are involved for certain populations that warrant further research.

1. Introduction

As a social category, gender is one of the earliest and most prominent ways people may learn to identify themselves and their peers, the use of gender-based labels becoming apparent in infants as early as 17 months into their life [ 1 ]. Similarly, the development of gender-based heuristics, inferences and rudimentary stereotypes becomes apparent as early as age three [ 2 , 3 ]. Approximately at this age, the development of a person’s gender identity begins [ 4 ]—that is, the process through which a person tends to identify as a man, as a woman or as a vast spectrum of other possibilities (i.e., gender non-conforming, agender, genderfluid, etc.). These processes continue steadily throughout individuals’ lives as they receive and elaborate information about women and men and what it means to belong to either category, drawing from direct and indirect observations, social contact, personal elaborations and cultural representations [ 5 , 6 ]. As a result, social and mental representations of gender are extremely widespread, especially as a strictly binary construct, and can be argued to be ubiquitous in individual and social contexts.

Among the many sources of influence on gender representations, media occupies an important space and its relevance can be assessed across many different phenomena [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. The ubiquity of media, the chronicity of individuals’ exposure to it and its role in shaping beliefs, attitudes and expectations have made it the subject of scientific attention. In fact, several theories have attempted to explore the mechanisms and psychological processes in which media plays a role, including identity development [ 12 , 13 , 14 ], scripts and schemas [ 15 ], cultivation processes [ 16 , 17 , 18 ] and socialization processes [ 5 , 6 ].

The public interest in the topic of gender has seen a surge in the last 10 years, in part due to social and political movements pushing for gender equality across a number of aspects, including how gender is portrayed in media representations. In the academic field as well, publications mentioning gender in their title, abstract or keywords have more than doubled from 2012 to 2022 [ 19 ], while publications mentioning gender in media representations have registered an even more dramatic increase, tripling in number [ 20 ]. Additionally, the media landscape has had a significant shift in the last decade, with the surge in popularity and subsequent addition of social media websites and apps to most people’s mediatic engagement [ 21 ].

The importance of media use in gender-related aspects, such as beliefs, attitudes, or roles, has been extensively documented. As reported in a recent review of the literature [ 22 ], several meta-analyses [ 17 , 23 , 24 ] showed support for the effects of media use on gender beliefs, finding small but consistent effect sizes. These effects appear to have remained present over the decades [ 25 ].

Particular attention has been given to stereotypical, objectifying and sexualizing representations, as portrayals that paint a restrictive picture of the complexity of human psychology, also producing sociocultural pressures to conform to gender roles and body types.

Gender stereotypes can be defined as an extremely simplified concept of attitudes and behaviors considered normal and appropriate for men and women in a specific culture [ 26 ]. They usually span several different areas of people’s characteristics, such as physical appearance, personality traits, behaviors, social roles and occupations. Stereotypical beliefs about gender may be divided into descriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender to be; [ 27 ]), prescriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender should be and behave; [ 28 , 29 ]) or proscriptive (how one perceives a person of a certain gender should not be and behave; [ 28 , 29 ]). Their content varies on the individual’s culture of reference [ 30 ], but recurring themes have been observed in western culture, such as stereotypes revolving around communion, agency and competence [ 31 ]. Women have stereotypically been associated with traits revolving around communion (e.g., supportiveness, compassion, expression, warmth), while men have been more stereotypically associated with agency (e.g., ambition, assertiveness, competitiveness, action) or competence (e.g., skill, intelligence). Both men and women may experience social and economic penalties (backlash) if they appear to violate these stereotypes [ 29 , 32 , 33 ].

Objectification can be defined as the viewing or treatment of people as objects. Discussing ways in which people may be objectified, Nussbaum first explored seven dimensions: instrumentality (a tool to be employed for one’s purposes); denial of autonomy (lacking self-determination, or autonomy); inertness (lacking in agency or activity); fungibility (interchangeable with others of the same type); violability (with boundaries lacking integrity and permissible to break into); ownership (possible to own or trade); denial of subjectivity (the person’s feelings or experiences are seen as something that does not need to be considered) [ 34 ].

In its initial definition by Fredrickson and Roberts [ 35 ], objectification theory had been offered as a framework to understand how the pervasive sexual objectification of women’s bodies in the sociocultural context influenced their experiences and posed risks to their mental health—a phenomenon that was believed to have uniquely female connotations. In their model, the authors theorized that a cultural climate of sexual objectification would lead to the internalization of objectification (viewing oneself as a sexual and subordinate object), which would in turn lead to psychological consequences (e.g., body shame, anxiety) and mental health risks (e.g., eating disorders, depression). Due to the pervasiveness of the cultural climate, objectification may be difficult to detect or avoid, and objectification experiences may be perceived as normative.

Sexual objectification, in which a person is reduced to a sexual instrument, can be construed to be a subtype of objectification and, in turn, is often defined as one of the types of sexualization [ 36 ]. As previously discussed by Ward [ 37 ], it should be made clear that the mere presence of sexual content, which may be represented in a positive and healthy way, should not be conflated with sexualized or objectifying representations.

The American Psychological Association’s 2007 report defines sexualization as a series of conditions that stand apart from healthy sexuality, such as when a person’s value is perceived to come mainly from sexual appeal or behavior, when physical attractiveness is equated to sexual attractiveness, when a person is sexually objectified or when sexuality is inappropriately imposed on a person [ 36 ]. Sexualization may involve several different contexts, such as personal, interpersonal, and cultural. Self-sexualization involves treating oneself as a sexual object [ 35 ]. Interpersonal contributions involve being treated as sexual objects by others, such as family or peers [ 38 , 39 ]. Finally, contributions by cultural norms, expectations and values play a part as well, including those spread by media representations [ 36 ]. After this initial definition, sexualization as a term has also been used by some authors (e.g., Zurbriggen & Roberts [ 40 ]) to refer to sexual objectification specifically, while others (e.g., Bigler and colleagues [ 41 ]) stand by the APA report’s broader meaning. In this section, we will explore scientific literature adopting the latter.

These portrayals have been hypothesized to lead to negative effects on people’s well-being on a mental and physical level, as well as bearing partial responsibility for several social issues, such as sexism, gender discrimination and harassment. However, the pathways that lead from an individual’s relationship with media to these detrimental effects can be complex. Furthermore, they seem to involve specificities for men and women, as well as for different sexual orientations. A wealth of publications has been produced on these themes and, to the authors’ knowledge, no recent review has attempted to synthesize their findings.

The present article aims to summarize the state of the art of research on stereotyping, sexualization and objectification in gender and media representations. A focus will be placed on the definitions of these concepts, the media where they occur, and verifying whether any changes over time are detectable or any specificities are present. The possible effects of these representations on people’s well-being will be explored as well.

A search of the literature was conducted on scientific search engines (APA PsycArticles, CINAHL Complete, Education Source, Family Studies Abstracts, Gender Studies Database, MEDLINE, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Sociology Source Ultimate, Violence & Abuse Abstracts, PUBMED, Scopus, Web of Science) to locate the most relevant contributions on the topic of media and gender representation, with a particular focus on stereotypes, objectification and sexualization, their presence in the media and their effects on well-being. Keywords were used to search for literature on the intersection of the main topics: media representation (e.g., media OR representation* OR portrayal*), gender (e.g., gender OR sex OR wom* OR m*n) and stereotypes, objectification and sexualization (e.g., stereotyp*, objectif*, sexualiz*). In some cases, additional keywords were used for the screening of studies on specific media (e.g., television, news, social media). When appropriate, further restrictions were used to screen for studies on effects or consequences (e.g., effect* OR impact* OR consequence* OR influence* OR outcome*). Inclusion criteria were the following: (a) academic articles (b) pertaining to the field of media representations (c) pertaining to gender stereotypes, objectification or sexualization. A dataset of 195 selected relevant papers was created. Thematic analysis was conducted following the guidelines developed by Braun and Clarke [ 42 ], in order to outline patterns of meaning across the reviewed studies. The process was organized into six phases: (1) familiarization with the data; (2) coding; (3) searching for themes; (4) reviewing themes; (5) defining and naming themes; and (6) writing up. After removing duplicates and excluding papers that did not meet the inclusion criteria, a total of 87 articles were included in the results of this review. The findings were discussed among researchers (LR, FS, MNP and TT) until unanimous consensus was reached.

2.1. Stereotypical Portrayals

Gender stereotypes appear to be flexible and responsive to changes in the social environment: consensual beliefs about men’s and women’s attributes have evolved throughout the decades, reflecting changes in women’s participation in the labor force and higher education [ 31 , 43 ]. Perceptions of gender equality in competence and intelligence have sharply risen, and stereotypical perceptions of women show significant changes: perceptions of women’s competence and intelligence have surpassed those relative to men, while the communion aspect appears to have shifted toward being even more polarized on being typical of women. Other aspects, such as perceptions of agency being more typical of men, have remained stable [ 31 ].

Despite these changes, gender representation in the media appears to be frequently skewed toward men’s representation and prominently features gender stereotypes. On a global scale, news coverage appears to mostly feature men, especially when considering representation as expert voices, where women are still underrepresented (24%) despite a rise in coverage in the last 5 years [ 44 ]. Underrepresentation has also been reported in many regional and national contexts, but exact proportions vary significantly in the local context. Male representation has been reported to be greater in several studies, with male characters significantly outnumbering female characters [ 45 ], doing so in male-led and mixed-led shows but not in female-led shows [ 46 ] in children’s television programming—a key source of influence on gender representations. Similar results have been found regarding sports news, whose coverage overwhelmingly focuses on men athletes [ 47 , 48 ] and where women are seldom represented.

Several analyses of television programs have also shown how representations of men and women are very often consistent with gender stereotypes. Girls were often portrayed as focusing more on their appearance [ 45 ], as well as being judged for their appearance [ 49 ]. The same focus on aesthetics was found in sports news coverage, which was starkly different across genders, and tended to focus on women athletes’ appearance, featuring overly simplified descriptions (vs. technical language on coverage of men athletes) [ 48 ]. In addition, coverage of women athletes was more likely in sports perceived to be more feminine or gender-appropriate [ 47 , 48 , 50 ]. Similarly, women in videogames appear to be both underrepresented and less likely to be featured as playable characters, as well as being frequently stereotyped, appearing in the role of someone in need of rescuing, as love interests, or cute and innocent characters [ 51 ]. In advertising as well, gender stereotypes have often been used as a staple technique for creating relatability, but their use may lead to negative cross-gender effects in product marketing [ 52 ] while also possibly furthering social issues. Hust and colleagues found that in alcohol advertisements, belief in gender stereotypes was the most consistent predictor of intentions to sexually coerce, showing significant interaction effects with exposure to highly objectifying portrayals [ 53 ]. Representation in advertising prominently features gender stereotypes, such as depicting men in professional roles more often, while depicting women in non-working, recreational roles, especially in countries that show high gender inequality [ 54 ]. A recent analysis of print ads [ 55 ] confirmed that some stereotypes are still prominent and, in some cases, have shown a resurgence, such as portraying a woman as the queen of the home; the study also found representations of women in positions of empowerment are, however, showing a relative increase in frequency. Public support, combined with market logic, appears to be successfully pushing more progressive portrayals in this field [ 56 ].

Both skewed representation and the presence of stereotypes have been found to lead to several negative effects. Gender-unequal representation has been found to stifle political [ 57 ] and career [ 58 ] ambition, as well as foster organizational discrimination [ 59 ]. Heavy media use may further the belief in gender stereotypes and has been found to be linked to a stronger endorsement of traditional gender roles and norms [ 60 ], which in turn may be linked to a vast number of detrimental health effects. In women, adherence and internalization of traditional gender roles have been linked to greater symptoms of depression and anxiety, a higher likelihood of developing eating disorders, and lower self-esteem and self-efficacy [ 36 , 61 , 62 , 63 ]. In men as well, adherence to traditional masculine norms has been linked to negative mental health outcomes such as depression, psychological distress and substance abuse [ 64 ], while also increasing the perpetration of risky behaviors [ 65 , 66 ] and intimate partner violence [ 65 , 67 ].

2.2. Objectifying Portrayals

Non-sexual objectifying representations appear to have been studied relatively little. They have been found to be common in advertising, where women are often depicted as purely aesthetic models, motionless and decorative [ 68 ]. They may also include using a woman’s body as a supporting object for the advertised product, as a decorative object, as an ornament to draw attention to the ad, or as a prize to be won and associated with the consumption of the advertised product [ 55 ].

The vast majority of the literature has focused on the sexual objectification of women. This type of representation has been reported to be very common in a number of contexts and across different media [ 69 ], and several studies (see Calogero and colleagues’ or Roberts and colleagues’ review [ 69 , 70 ]) have found support for the original model’s pathway [ 35 ]. Following experimental models expanded on the original (e.g., Frederick and colleagues or Roberts and colleagues [ 69 , 71 ]), highlighting the role of factors such as the internalization of lean or muscular ideals of appearance, finding evidence for negative effects on well-being and mental health through the increase in self-objectification and the internalization of cultural ideals of appearance [ 71 , 72 ].

Sexual objectification also appears to be consistently linked to sexism. For both women and men, the perpetration of sexual objectification was significantly associated with hostile and benevolent sexism, as well as the enjoyment of sexualization [ 73 ]. Enjoyment of sexualization, in turn, has been found to be positively associated with hostile sexism in both men and women, positively associated with benevolent sexism in women and negatively in men [ 74 ].

Exposure to objectifying media in men has been found to increase the tendency to engage in sexual coercion and harassment, as well as increasing conformity to gender role norms [ 75 ]. Consistently with the finding that perpetration of objectification may be associated with a greater men’s proclivity for rape and sexual aggression [ 76 ], a study conducted by Hust and colleagues found that exposure to objectifying portrayals of women in alcohol advertising was also a moderator in the relationship between belief in gender stereotypes and intentions to sexually coerce. Specifically, participants who had a stronger belief in gender stereotypes reported stronger intentions to sexually coerce when exposed to slightly objectifying images of women. Highly objectifying images did not yield the same increase—a result interpreted by the authors to mean that highly objectified women were perceived as sexually available and as such less likely to need coercion, while slightly objectified women could be perceived as more likely to need coercion [ 53 ].

Research on objectification has primarily focused on women, in part due to numerous studies suggesting that women are more subject to sexual objectification [ 73 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ], as well as suffering the consequences of sexual objectification more often [ 81 ]. However, sexually objectifying portrayals seem to have a role in producing negative effects on men as well, although with partially different pathways. In men, findings about media appearance pressures on body image appear to be mixed. Previous meta-analyses found either a small average effect [ 82 ] or no significant effect [ 72 ]. A recent study found them to be significantly associated with higher body surveillance, poorer body image quality of life and lower satisfaction with appearance [ 71 ]. Another study, however, found differing relationships regarding sexual objectification: an association was found between experiences of sexual objectification and internalization of cultural standards of appearance, body shame and drive for muscularity, but was not found between experiences of sexual objectification and self-objectification or body surveillance [ 83 ]: in the same study, gender role conflict [ 84 ] was positively associated to the internalization of sociocultural standards of appearance, self-objectification, body shame and drive for muscularity, suggesting the possibility that different pathways may be involved in producing negative effects on men. Men with body-image concerns experiencing gender role conflict may also be less likely to engage in help-seeking behaviors [ 85 , 86 ]. This is possibly due to restrictive emotionality associated with the male gender role leading to more negative attitudes toward help-seeking, as found in a recent study by Nagai, [ 87 ], although this study finds no association with help-seeking behavior, conflicting with previous ones, and more research is needed.

Finally, specificities related to sexual orientation regarding media and objectification appear to be present. A set of recent studies by Frederick and colleagues found that gay men, lesbian women and bisexual people share with heterosexual people many of the pathways that lead from sociocultural pressures to internalization of thin/muscular ideals, higher body surveillance and a lower body image quality of life [ 71 , 88 ], leading the authors to conclude that these factors’ influence applies regardless of sexual orientation. However, their relationship with media and objectification may vary. Gay and bisexual men may face objectification in social media and dating apps rather than in mainstream media and may experience more objectification than heterosexual men [ 89 ]. In Frederick and colleagues’ studies, gay men reported greater media pressures, body surveillance, thin-ideal internalization, and self-objectification compared to heterosexual men; moreover, bisexual men appeared to be more susceptible to ideal internalization, displaying stronger paths from media appearance pressures to muscular-ideal internalization compared to heterosexual men; lesbian women, instead, demonstrated weaker relationships between media pressures and body image outcomes [ 71 , 88 ]. Consistently with previous studies suggesting a heightened susceptibility to social pressures [ 90 ], bisexual women appeared to be more susceptible to media pressures relative to other groups [ 88 ]. Another recent study of lesbian and bisexual women supported previous evidence for the pathway from the internalization of cultural appearance standards to body surveillance, body shame and eating disorder symptoms; however, it found no significant connection between experiences of objectification and eating disorder symptoms [ 91 ].

2.3. Sexualized Portrayals

Several studies have found sexualizing media representations to be commonplace across a number of different media contents and across different target demographics (i.e., children, adolescents or adults) and genres. Reports of common sexualized representations of women are found in contexts such as television programs [ 92 ], movies [ 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 ], music videos [ 97 , 98 ], advertising [ 54 , 55 ], videogames [ 51 , 99 , 100 ], or magazines [ 101 ].

Exposure to sexualized media has been theorized to be an exogenous risk factor in the internalization of sexualized beliefs about women [ 41 ], as well as one of the pathways to the internalization of cultural appearance ideals [ 102 ]. Daily exposition to sexualized media content has been consistently linked to a number of negative effects. Specifically, it has been found to lead to higher levels of body dissatisfaction and distorted attitudes about eating through the internalization of cultural body ideals (e.g., lean or muscular) in both men and women [ 71 ]. It has also been associated with a higher chance of supporting sexist beliefs in boys [ 103 ], and of tolerance toward sexual violence in men [ 104 ]. Furthermore, exposure to sexualized images has been linked to a higher tolerance of sexual harassment and rape myth acceptance [ 76 ]. Exposure to reality TV programs consistently predicted self-sexualization for both women and men, while music videos did so for men only [ 103 ]. Internalized sexualization, in turn, has been linked to a stronger endorsement of sexist attitudes and acceptance of rape myths [ 105 ], while also being linked to higher levels of body surveillance and body shame in girls [ 106 ]. Internalization of media standards of appearance has been linked to body surveillance in both men and women, as well as body surveillance of the partner in men [ 107 ].

As a medium, videogames have been studied relatively little and have produced less definite results. This medium can offer the unique dynamic of embodiment in a virtual avatar, which has been hypothesized to be able to lead to a shift in self-perception (the “Proteus effect”, as formulated by Yee & Bailenson, [ 108 ]). While some studies have partially confirmed this effect, showing that exposure to sexualized videogame representations can increase self-objectification [ 109 , 110 , 111 ], others [ 112 ] have not found the same relationship. Furthermore, while a study has found an association between sexualized representations in videogames, tolerance of sexual abuse of women and rape myth acceptance [ 113 ], and in another, it was linked to a decreased real-life belief in women’s competence [ 114 ], a recent meta-analysis [ 115 ] found no effect of the presence of sexualized content on well-being, sexism or misogyny.

Research on social media has also shown some specificities. Social media offers the unique dynamic of being able to post and disseminate one’s own content and almost always includes built-in mechanisms for user-generated feedback (e.g., likes), as well as often being populated by one’s peers, friends and family rather than strangers. Sites focusing on image- or video-based content (e.g., Instagram, TikTok) may be more prone to eliciting social comparison and fostering the internalization of cultural appearance ideals, resulting in more associations to negative body image when compared to others that have the same capabilities but offer text-based content as well (e.g., Facebook) [ 116 ]. Social media appears to foster social comparison, which may increase appearance-based concerns [ 117 ]. Consistently with previous research, exposure to sexualized beauty ideals on social media appeared to be associated with lower body satisfaction; exposure to more diverse standards of appearance, instead, was associated with increased body satisfaction and positive mood, regardless of image sexualization [ 116 , 118 ].

3. Discussion

3.1. critical discussion of evidence.

The reviewed evidence (summarized in Table 1 ) points to the wide-ranging harmful effects of stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing media portrayals, which are reported to be still both common and pervasive. The links to possible harms have also been well documented, with a few exceptions.

Summary of findings.

These representations, especially but not exclusively pertaining to women, have been under social scrutiny following women’s rights movements and activism [ 119 ] and can be perceived to be politically incorrect and undesirable, bringing an aspect of social desirability into the frame. Positive attitudes toward gender equality also appear to be at an all-time high across the western world [ 120 , 121 ], a change that has doubtlessly contributed to socio-cultural pressure to reduce harmful representations. Some media contexts (e.g., advertising and television) seem to have begun reflecting this change regarding stereotypes, attempting to either avoid harmful representations or push more progressive portrayals. However, these significant changes in stereotypes (e.g., regarding competence) have not necessarily been reflected in women’s lives, such as their participation in the labor force, leadership or decision-making [ 31 , 122 , 123 ]. Objectifying or sexualizing representations do not seem to be drastically reduced in prevalence. Certainly, many influences other than media representations are in play in this regard, but their effect on well-being has been found to be pervasive and consistent. Despite widespread positive attitudes toward gender equality, the persistence of stereotypical, objectifying and sexualizing representations may hint at the continued existence of an entrenched sexist culture which can translate into biases, discrimination and harm.

Despite some conflicting findings, the literature also hints at the existence of differences in how media pressures appear to affect men and women, as well as gay, lesbian and bisexual people. These may point to the possibility of some factors (e.g., objectification) playing a different role across different people in the examined pathways, an aspect that warrants caution when considering possible interventions and clinical implications. In some cases, the same relationship between exposure to media and well-being may exist, but it may follow different pathways from distal risk factors to proximal risk factors, as in the case of gender role conflict for men or body shame for lesbian and bisexual women. However, more research is needed to explore these recent findings.

Different media also appear to feature specificities for which more research is needed, such as videogames and social media. The more interactive experiences offered by these media may play an important role in determining their effects, and the type of social media needs to be taken into consideration as well (image- or video-based vs. text-based). Moreover, the experiences of exposure may not necessarily be homogenous, due to the presence of algorithms that determine what content is being shown in the case of social media, and due to the possibility of player interaction and avatar embodiment in the case of videogames.

Past findings [ 37 , 69 ] about links with other social issues such as sexism, harassment and violence appear to still be relevant [ 67 , 73 , 103 , 105 ]. The increases in both tolerance and prevalence of sexist and abusive attitudes resulting from exposure to problematic media representations impact the cultural climate in which these phenomena take place. Consequently, victims of discrimination and abuse living in a cultural climate more tolerant of sexist and abusive attitudes may experience lower social support, have a decreased chance of help-seeking and adopt restrictive definitions for what counts as discrimination and abuse, indirectly furthering gender inequalities.

Exploring ways of reducing risks to health, several authors [ 22 , 41 , 75 ] have discussed media literacy interventions—that is, interventions focused on teaching critical engagement with media—as a possible way of reducing the negative effects of problematic media portrayals. As reported in McLean and colleagues’ systematic review [ 124 ], these interventions have been previously shown to be effective at increasing media literacy, while also improving body-related outcomes such as body satisfaction in boys [ 125 ], internalization of the thinness ideal in girls [ 125 ], body size acceptance in girls [ 126 ] and drive for thinness in girls and boys [ 127 ]. More recently, they were also shown to be effective at reducing stereotypical gender role attitudes [ 128 ], as well as fostering unfavorable attitudes toward stereotypical portrayals and lack of realism [ 129 ]. Development and promotion of these interventions should be considered when attempting to reduce negative media-related influences on body image. It should be noted, however, that McLean and colleagues’ review found no effect of media literacy interventions on eating disorder symptomatology [ 124 ], which warrants more careful interventions.

Furthermore, both internal (e.g., new entrants’ attitudes in interpersonal or organizational contexts) and external (e.g., pressure from public opinion) sociocultural pressures appear to have a strong influence in reducing harmful representations [ 55 , 56 ]. Critically examining these representations when they appear, as well as voicing concerns toward examples of possibly harmful representations, may promote more healthy representations in media. As documented by some studies, the promotion of diverse body representations in media may also be effective in reducing negative effects [ 70 , 118 ].

3.2. Limitations

The current review synthesizes the latest evidence on stereotyping, objectifying and sexualizing media representations. However, limitations in its methodology are present and should be taken into consideration. It is not a systematic review and may not be construed to be a complete investigation of all the available evidence. Only articles written in the English language have been considered, which may have excluded potentially interesting findings written in other languages. Furthermore, it is not a meta-analysis, and as such cannot be used to draw statistical conclusions about the surveyed phenomena.

3.3. Future Directions

While this perception is limited by the non-systematic approach of the review, to what we know, very few studies appear to be available on the relationship between media representation and non-sexual objectification, which may provide interesting directions to explore in relation to autonomy, violability or subjectivity, as was attempted in the context of work and organizations [ 130 ].

More cross-cultural studies (e.g., Tartaglia & Rollero [ 54 ]) would also prove useful in exploring differences between cultural contexts, as well as the weight of different sociocultural factors in the relationship between media representation and gender.

More studies focusing on relatively new media (e.g., social media, videogames) would possibly help clear up some of the identified discrepancies and explore new directions for the field that take advantage of their interactivity. This is particularly true for niche but growing media such as virtual reality, in which the perception of embodiment in an avatar with different physical features than one’s own could prove to be important in sexualization and objectification. Only preliminary evidence [ 131 ] has been produced on the topic.

Studies to further explore the relationship between media representations, gender and sexual orientation would also be beneficial. As already highlighted by Frederick and colleagues [ 132 ], gay, lesbian and bisexual people may deal with a significantly different set of appearance norms and expectations [ 133 ], and face minority-related stresses [ 134 ] that can increase susceptibility to poorer body image and disordered eating [ 135 , 136 ]. Additionally, none of the reviewed studies had a particular focus on trans people, who may have different experiences relating to media and body image, as suggested by the differences in pathways found in a recent study [ 137 ]. Sexual orientation and gender identity should be kept into consideration when investigating these relationships, as their specificities may shed light on the different ways societal expectations influence the well-being of sexual minorities.

The examined literature on the topic also appears to feature specificities that need to be taken into account. As previously reported by Ward [ 37 ], the vast majority of the studies continue to be conducted in the United States, often on undergraduates, which limits the generalizability of the results to the global population. Given the abundance and complexity of the constructs, more studies examining the pathways from media exposure to well-being using methodologies such as path analysis and structural equation modeling may help clarify some of the discrepancies found in the literature about the same relationships.

Finally, as previously reported by many authors [ 37 , 69 , 138 ], sexualization, self-sexualization, objectification and self-objectification are sometimes either treated as synonymous or used with different definitions and criteria, which may add a layer of misdirection to studies on the subject. Given the divergences in the use of terminology, clearly stating one’s working definition of sexualization or objectification would possibly benefit academic clarity on the subject.

4. Conclusions

Consistent empirical evidence highlights the importance of media representations as a key part of sociocultural influences that may have consequences on well-being. Despite some notable progress, harmful representations with well-researched links to detrimental effects are still common across a number of different media. Exposure to stereotyping, objectifying and sexualized representations appears to consistently be linked to negative consequences on physical and mental health, as well as fostering sexism, violence and gender inequity. On a clinical level, interventions dealing with body image and body satisfaction should keep their influence into account. The promotion of institutional and organizational interventions, as well as policies aimed at reducing their influence, could also prove to be a protective factor against physical and mental health risks.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, F.S. and L.R.; methodology, T.T. and M.N.P.; writing—original draft preparation, F.S.; writing—review and editing, T.T. and M.N.P.; supervision, L.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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15 Representations of Gender in the Media

Erica L. Scharrer, Department of Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA

• Published: 28 January 2013
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Individuals young and old can learn a great deal from the ways in which men and women and boys and girls are depicted in the media. Alongside other socializing influences such as family and peers, the media help form perceptions of gender roles, and can shape the behaviors that stem from those perceptions. This chapter first reviews the evidence from content analysis research to determine the most prevalent patterns in gender representations in the media, with particular emphasis on television, video games, advertising, and magazine content. It then connects the themes that emerged in the content analysis literature—underrepresentation of women, depictions of physical appearance, domestic roles, and professional roles—to studies measuring the influence of such media depictions. In doing so, the topics of gender role socialization and body image disturbance are discussed, and the social implications of such media effects are identified.

Introduction

The media are among the most important socializing agents of the modern era, informing audiences directly and indirectly of cultural norms, beliefs, and expectations. With both adults and children spending vast and increasing amounts of time with various media forms, the media join the ranks of parents, other family members, friends, and others in shaping individuals’ perceptions of the world around them and their position within. Audience members learn a great deal about what is valued and accepted in the culture (and what is less so) from the media, and identities can form and reform from what is gleaned from the characters and other individuals who populate the programs on television and the advertisements between and within them, the pages of magazines, web sites and social media, and video and computer games.

Chief among the various messages communicated to audiences through media are messages about gender. Witnessing the men and women and boys and girls who appear on television and in other media forms, including what they say, what they do, what they look like, and how they interact, can help form audience members’ views of gender roles and their corresponding conceptions of themselves and others. The media can thus shape perceptions of masculinity and femininity, attitudes regarding gender roles (including what is deemed acceptable for girls and women or for boys and men) and behaviors that derive from these conceptions.

The socialization of gender roles is an especially important topic of scholarly inquiry. Very young children begin to develop a sense of themselves and others based on biological sex and socially constructed gender. These conceptions are likely to shift and reshape as children mature, primarily in adolescence as identity is in flux. Yet, adults too are guided by their own perceptions of gender roles. From division of household chores to beliefs about occupations, and from views of one's own attractiveness to ideas about romantic or familial roles, gender role conceptions can govern the daily lives of individuals young and old.

This chapter examines social science research on media representations of gender and the consequences of attending to these representations for the ideas, beliefs, and behavior of audiences. It begins by reviewing the most recent content analyses documenting patterns in gender portrayals, primarily on television, magazines, advertising, and video games, because the bulk of the research investigates these media types. Next, it synthesizes the body of research regarding media effects on gender role–related outcomes, including the experiments that show causal connections and the surveys that demonstrate correlations. In doing so, the chapter provides important insights into social norms for gender as reflected and shaped through media.

Content Analysis Research

What types of information might viewers receive from monitoring the media regarding what it means to be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, in our society? The body of evidence from decades of content analysis research, a body that traces long-term, stable patterns as well as provides many important updates, answers that critical question. Content analysis research allows for systematic estimations of aggregate patterns in media content, thereby illuminating the most common themes. An overarching conclusion from media content research is that although one can point to some progress in wider and more encompassing gender roles, stereotypical portrayals persist.

Numbers of Characters

Women continue to be underrepresented on television and in other media forms compared with men on television and the actual population. The very first content analyses of television programming documented this pattern (Head, 1954 ) and the situation persisted through the 1970s, when there were approximately three male characters for every one female character on network television (Signorielli, 1985 ). There was some progress toward greater parity in the 1980s and through the 1990s, but even then the distribution of characters by gender was 60% in favor of males, and 40% females (Signorielli & Bacue, 1999 ). More recently, Greenberg and Worrell ( 2007 ) determined that female characters comprised on average just 39% of the new characters introduced each fall season by the networks between 1993 and 2004. Signorielli's ( 2013 ) analysis of an extensive database consisting of prime time broadcast network programming over time finds a 58% male, 42% female split that has characterized the last 10 years.

Although underrepresentation of women on television is the consistent conclusion from this research, studies show some variation according to genre as well as additional evidence of male dominance in other media types. The underrepresentation of female characters is particularly profound in drama and action-adventure programming and somewhat less so in situation comedies (Lauzen & Dozier, 1999 ; Signorielli & Bacue, 1999 ; Signorielli, 2013 ). A recent analysis of music videos from multiple music television networks found three times as many males as females (Turner, 2011 ). Within film rather than television, Smith, Pieper, Granados, and Choueiti ( 2010 ) conducted a content analysis of popular G-rated titles and found a 2.57:1 ratio in favor of males.

Among cartoons, a perennially popular aspect of children's programming, the tendency either mirrors or further distorts the favoring of male characters. The number of males outdistanced the number of females 58% to 42% among major characters in the sample of programs that had been labeled as satisfying the social/emotional aspect of the Children's Television Act analyzed by Barner ( 1999 ). Leaper, Breed, Hoffman, and Perlman ( 2002 ) discovered that male characters outnumbered female characters four to one in traditional adventure cartoons (e.g., Spiderman) , two to one in comedy cartoons (e.g., Animaniacs ), and 1.5 to one in educational/family cartoons (e.g., Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, The Magic School Bus ). Most recently, Baker and Raney ( 2007 ) found an unequal distribution of superheroes in preference of males and Signorielli ( 2008 ) determined that the lopsided male-to-female ratio pervaded all Saturday morning cartoon types. In television as well as in film, therefore, implicit messages about who is privileged with a larger presence on the screen are sent to very young viewers and continue throughout general audience programming, as well.

The numbers are often even more uneven within the increasingly popular medium of video games. In an analysis of more than 1,000 ads appearing in video game fan magazines, Scharrer ( 2004 ) found males outnumbered females by 3 to 1. In the games themselves, Beasley and Collins Standley ( 2002 ) found 71.5% of all characters appearing in the first 20 minutes of game play were males and only 14% were females (the rest were gender indeterminate). Williams, Martins, Consalvo, and Ivory ( 2009 ) examined thousands of human characters in video games, and found males comprised 85.23% of all characters, 89.55% of primary characters, and 85.47% of secondary characters (after weighting by sales figures of the games so as to emphasize those most widely circulating). Downs and Smith ( 2010 ) studied top-grossing games for the most popular consoles and found males appeared more frequently within the games than females at a rate of approximately 7 to 1.

The overall tendency to overrepresent men compared with women is also consistent across race. A recent analysis found, for example, women comprised 45% of all prime time television characters of color, whereas men made up the remaining 55% (Signorielli, 2009a ). Both black/African-American female characters and Latino female characters tend to populate situation comedies more frequently than their male counterparts, who enjoy a wider array of roles across other program types (Signorielli, 2009a ). Thus, underrepresentation is both the overall condition for female characters and is exacerbated in particular genres for female characters of color. (See Chapter 13 for more research on race and ethnicity.)

Physical Appearance

The media present a narrow definition of attractiveness, emphasizing thinness as an essential component, particularly for females. On television, in the programs that are broadcast and the commercials between them, thinness and a narrow definition of attractiveness are presented as the overwhelming ideal. As evident in this section, content analysis research consistently finds that media characters are thinner than individuals in the actual population, thin characters tend to be portrayed more positively than less thin characters, and the emphasis on attractiveness and physical appearance—particularly for women but also for men—is profound.

Fouts and Burggraf ( 2002a ) found, for instance, characters on sitcoms underrepresent above-average weight individuals compared with population statistics, and overrepresent female underweight individuals. In a study of more than 1,000 primary characters on prime time television, Greenberg, Eastin, Hofschire, Lachlan, & Brownell ( 2003 ) found that overweight characters were also coded as less attractive, and they were less likely than their thinner counterparts to be shown dating, interacting with romantic partners, or engaging in sexual behavior. In an analysis of programming on Fox, the WB, and UPN (the latter two now merged but then separate networks), Glascock ( 2003 ) also determined that female characters were dressed more provocatively than male characters, calling attention to their attractiveness and sexuality. Thinness and sexuality appear to co-occur in televised depictions, therefore, and heavier characters are not typically shown as objects of romantic or sexual interest.

These emphases occur within particular television genres as well. Females were coded as more attractive than males in a study of Spanish-language prime time programming, for instance, and their appearance was emphasized to a greater degree in the narrative (Glascock & Ruggiero, 2004 ). A recent study of rap music videos by Zhang, Dixon, and Conrad ( 2010 ) found 51% of the female characters appearing were coded as thin, a percentage that was consistent across race. Thinness was associated with sexuality in the study, and because the US Centers for Disease Control estimates that just 24% of women in the actual population meet the clinical definition of “thin,” the finding points to a decided overrepresentation. In another study of music videos representing multiple musical genres, Turner ( 2011 ) found women were more likely than men and black characters more likely than white to be dressed provocatively.

In advertising, males outnumber females in commercials for all product types except health- and beauty-related and household products (Bartsch, Burnett, Diller, & Rankin-Williams, 2000 ; Ganahl, Prinsen, & Netzley, 2003 ), thereby establishing the association of femininity with beauty (as well as domestic roles). Female characters are typically younger than male characters and older women are the least visible group that appears in advertising (Ganahl et al., 2003 ). Stern and Mastro ( 2004 ) found further that young adult females were the most attractive as well as the thinnest group of characters appearing in television advertising, whereas older females were shown to be less attractive and heavier. In children's programming on Nickelodeon and Disney, Northrup and Liebler ( 2010 ) discovered a strong emphasis on a slender white body as the standard for beauty. Indeed, the tendency of media forms from advertising to video games and from magazines to music videos to present young women and girls in a sexualized manner that emphasizes not only thinness, but also presents them as objects for others’ sexual stimulation prompted the American Psychological Association to issue both a report on the topic and a call for more research into the phenomenon (APA, 2011 ).

The physical appearance of characters belonging to varying racial and gender groups has been compared in a number of content analyses of magazine advertising content, as well. Baker ( 2005 ) studied characters in ads appearing in magazines targeted primarily toward white women (e.g., Cosmopolitan ), white men (e.g., GQ ), black women (e.g., Essence ), and black men (e.g., Black Men ), and found white characters were more often shown as objectified (defined by a strong emphasis on their bodies and physical attributes and a de-emphasis on their faces) than black women across most magazine types. Yet, black female characters across magazine types largely conformed to a white norm for attractiveness, with medium complexions, straight hair, and curvy figures. And when black female characters appeared in the magazines targeted toward primarily white audiences, they were more likely to have lighter skin, straighter hair, and thinner bodies. Many of these themes were echoed in a more recent analysis of gender and race in ads appearing in Essence and Jet magazines (geared toward black women and black men and women, respectively) conducted by Hazell and Clarke ( 2008 ). They found black women characters were often shown as dominant—with faces presented as a focal point or “head shots” used rather than visuals emphasizing body parts—but also with light to medium complexions, straight and long hair, and increasingly thin figures, thereby reflecting the dominant white standard for beauty.

Television content analysis research has not only tracked the relative attractiveness and body size and shape of characters, but has also analyzed comments made about appearance, as well. Northrup and Liebler ( 2010 ), for instance, found evidence of the reinforcement of the importance of attractiveness and low body weight in characters’ verbal interactions. Lauzen and Dozier ( 2002 ), in a sample of prime time characters, found that although males and females were equally likely to make appearance-related comments, females were twice as likely to receive them. Somewhat similarly, Fouts and Burggraf ( 2002a ) found that those female characters who were below average in weight received more positive comments about their appearance from other characters than those female characters who were average or above in weight. Female characters who were portrayed as dieting admonished themselves for their weight and body shape, adding further force to a drive toward thinness (Fouts & Burggraf, 2002a ). In a parallel study, Fouts and Burggraf ( 2002b ) found that heavy male characters frequently made negative verbal comments about their own weight, often played to the audience for laughs.

Once again, video game content stands out as among the most problematic of media types in the sexualization of female characters and the strong emphasis on their attractiveness. Dietz ( 1998 ), in a content analysis of top-selling and top-renting titles, found female video game characters to frequently have clothing that exposed their bodies and to have exaggerated sexual features. Beasley and Collins Standley ( 2002 ) found female characters in video games were more likely than males to wear fewer items of clothing and show more skin, and 41% of all female characters were coded as having “voluptuous” breasts. Downs and Smith ( 2010 ) found approximately 40% of the female characters who appeared in the popular games in their sample wore clothing that emphasized curves or other body parts and another approximately 40% were partially or fully nude. The body proportions of many of the female characters were skewed toward large breasts and curvaceous hips accompanied by a very thin waist. In magazine ads for video games, Scharrer ( 2004 ) found the female characters appearing in the ads were more likely to be coded as attractive, wore more revealing clothing, and were more likely to be presented with an emphasis on sexuality than the male characters.

Although the topic has received comparatively less research attention, the depiction of male media characters’ attractiveness and physical appearance has been examined, as well. Across these studies, the body type that pervades and is presented as the most ideal for men is muscular and lean. For example, Lin ( 1998 ) studied more than 500 commercials appearing on ABC, CBS, and NBC and determined that a common body type for male characters was muscular (30%), with only very few male characters coded as either “skinny” (4%) or “chunky” (9%). Within magazine content, an increasingly muscular male body has been identified as the norm (Leit, Pope, & Gray, 2000 ; Hatoum & Belle, 2004 ; Frederick, Fessler, & Haselton, 2005 ). Morrison and Halton ( 2009 ) studied a random selection of top-grossing action films from 1980 to 2006 and found the body fat among the male characters decreased over time and their muscularity increased. The muscular male characters in the films were more likely than their less muscular counterparts to interact with others both romantically and sexually and were also more likely to be physically aggressive. Just as we saw for female characters, male characters that meet an increasingly narrow definition of physical attractiveness are more often presented as objects of desire in media compared with those who fail to measure up against such standards.

Domestic Roles

Another realm in which gender roles can be communicated via media is within the household, through domestic roles and responsibilities. From sitcoms that feature families and depict mothers and fathers in particular ways to advertisements for cleaning products and other household goods, the media can be a source of information regarding the division of labor and duties within and around the home. Such depictions can suggest to audience members that males or females are somehow “naturally” better at particular tasks and roles, or “naturally” worse.

Televised female characters’ marital status is more likely to be readily identified compared with male characters (Signorielli & Kahlenberg, 2001 ), thereby suggesting to the audience the relative importance of marriage to and for women. Female characters in telenovelas and serial dramas on Spanish-language television were responsible for more childcare than were male characters and they also had lower status occupations outside the home (Glascock & Ruggiero, 2004 ). An analysis of 124 programs on the broadcast networks aired during the 2005 to 2006 television season found female characters are more often depicted in roles and scenarios having to do with interpersonal relationships—including those familial, between friends, and with romantic partners—than males (Lauzen, Dozier, & Horan, 2008 ). Although there have been greater depictions of women working outside the home (as we will see in the following section of this chapter), the relative tendency to associate female characters with domestic spaces and tasks and with relationships (children, romantic partners, and friends) more so than male characters persists.

Within televised families, studies have also found some pointed differences in how mothers and fathers are represented. The general trend has been toward emancipation for women and mothers over time, with recent roles reflecting more independence and fewer domestic duties (Reep & Dambrot, 1994 ). However, on close scrutiny stereotypes and narrow depictions remain within media depictions of motherhood. Both Keller ( 1994 ) and Douglas and Michaels ( 2004 ) found within the content of women's magazines that the traditional roles of motherhood (including being in charge of care and upkeep of the home as well as of childcare) persist in articles and ads across the decades examined. Also within content in women's magazines, Smith ( 2001 ) found an increasing tendency to feature negative articles about working mothers and daycare between 1987 and 1997, thereby indirectly reinforcing the importance of women's roles within rather than outside the home. Johnston and Swanson ( 2003 ) studied 1998 and 1999 issues of women's and parenting magazines and found employed mothers were present in just 12% of all mother-related text units (i.e., an article, ad, letter, column) compared with 88% for at-home mothers. Mothers of color were underrepresented, with 89% of working mothers and 95% of at-home mothers being white. The working mothers were more likely than the at-home mothers to be presented as happy, busy, and proud, whereas the at-home mothers were more likely to be shown as confused and overwhelmed. Within depictions of motherhood, therefore, contradictions prevail, which seem to simultaneously deliver the message that work and family do not mix and that a maternal role for women is paramount, especially for white women.

In a rare quantitative study investigating masculine roles within the home, Scharrer ( 2001a ) studied 136 episodes of 29 domestic sitcoms airing from the 1950s through the 1990s. She found the father figure increasingly portrayed in a foolish manner, serving as the butt of 60% of all jokes involving the father in the 1990s sitcoms compared to approximately 30% in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Indeed, if joke telling can be considered a manifestation of power between the sexes, women increasingly showed that they had the upper hand. Fathers told jokes at the expense of mothers an average of two to three times per episode in the more recent sitcoms, whereas mothers told jokes at the expense of fathers three to five times. Although in some ways these data suggest progress for the depiction of gender because women have an increasing amount of power, the bumbling role of the sitcom father can suggest to audiences that women are somehow “naturally” more adept at childcare.

Callister and Robinson ( 2010 ) looked at expressions of physical affection among characters populating children's programs in the United States, and found some evidence of gender equality, yet additional data pointing toward gender biases. There were no differences, for instance, in whether male or female characters initiated affection (including hugging and kissing and other forms of affectionate touching) more often. Yet, males received more affection than females and sons were on the receiving end of affection from parents more than daughters, especially from mothers. In this study, therefore, we see that masculinity in this genre can include expressions of warmth and fondness, but interestingly, children's television characters appear to perceive males as more appropriate recipients of such expressions compared with females.

Perhaps in no other television genre do gender stereotypes regarding the domestic sphere pervade than in advertising on television (Browne, 1998 ; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000 ; Scharrer, Kim, Lin, & Liu, 2006 ). Not only are household responsibilities distributed stereotypically, with women, for instance, doing the majority of the cleaning and cooking and men the majority of the outdoor chores and household repairs in commercials (Kaufman, 1999 ; Scharrer et al., 2006 ), but in the few instances in which males do take on chores that run counter to gender expectations, their efforts are often presented as humorously inept. Kaufman ( 1999 ) coded more than 900 characters appearing in more than 1,000 commercials broadcast on the major networks and found that 72% of the time cooking was done by female characters, and females did more cleaning, shopping, and other indoor chores than males. Scharrer et al. ( 2006 ) coded 477 characters in prime time television commercials and found 64% of all domestic chores were performed by women, whereas only 3% of all stereotypically masculine domestic chores (like taking out the trash) were carried out by women. Tellingly, 50% of all chores taken on by men were met with a humorous response compared with just 9% of all chores done by women. When the father figure burns the dinner because the wife who usually cooks is working late, for instance, the subtle message is that one should not transgress traditional gender boundaries.

Women were found to be portrayed as homemakers and mothers and otherwise appearing in the domestic sphere in a recent sample of Spanish television commercials (Royo-Vela, Aldas-Manzano, Kuster, & Vila, 2008 ) and in the United Kingdom (Lewin-Jones & Mitra, 2009 ). A relatively recent study of television commercials in Australia by Milmer and Higgs ( 2004 ) shows that compared with past analyses, there is more evidence of stereotypical gender roles rather than less. Thus, the assignment of women to a domestic space, increasingly out-of-step with the realities of many women in the actual population, is the tendency in other cultural contexts outside the United States, as well.

In commercials within children's television programming, just 12% of commercials featuring boy characters only had an in-home setting compared with 39% of those featuring only girls (Larson, 2001 ). The girls-only commercials were overwhelmingly more likely than the boys-only to show cooperative interactions with others, whereas the boys-only were more likely to feature competition with others. This study joins prior research in determining that within the advertisements that appear during children's programming on television, girls are much more likely to be shown in a domestic setting and boys in an outdoor setting (Bretl & Cantor, 1988 ; Smith, 1994 ). Furthermore, girls in commercials during children's television have also been found to be significantly more nurturing, dependent, and deferential, whereas boys have been determined to be more aggressive and active (Barner, 1999 ). Thus, the placement of girls in roles within the home can coincide with their engagement in quieter, more calming pursuits (playing with baby dolls or kitchen sets, for instance), whereas the placement of boys outdoors can translate into more active and physically demanding activities (like running with trucks, planes, or other toy vehicles).

Occupational Roles

Another key area in which gender roles can be analyzed and understood is within the world of work. What jobs and occupations are held by male and female media characters, respectively? A number of content analysis studies identify the occupational status of media characters (whether they are depicted working outside the home or not), the jobs at which they are employed, and the relative prestige of those jobs. Within these analyses, once again we see some evidence of improving gender equality over time as well as additional indication of lingering limits and stereotypes.

Importantly, male characters are more likely to be explicitly presented as having a job outside the home than female characters on television. Signorielli and Kahlenberg ( 2001 ) found approximately 60% of female characters were identified as having an occupation compared with an estimated three-fourths of male characters. That disparity lingers in the most recent analysis of prime time television programs, as well (Signorielli, 2013 ). Just as women are associated with a home setting more than men, men are connected to the working world more than women on television.

Additional analyses have determined the sorts of occupations that are taken on by male and female characters on television, defining “traditionally male” occupations such as doctors, lawyers, and politicians and “traditionally female” occupations such as teachers and those in the service sector, as well as “gender neutral” occupations. Here we see some progress as well as remaining obstacles standing in the way of wider roles. In terms of progress, women are just as likely as men on television to be found in white collar or professional occupations (Signorielli & Kahlenberg, 2001 ; Signorielli, 2013 ). Furthermore, only about 20% of female characters are currently in “traditionally female” occupations, with an estimated one-third crossing traditional gender boundaries by occupying “traditionally male” jobs (Signorielli, 2013 ). Limiting circumstances persist for male characters, however, in that an estimated one-half has “traditionally male” jobs and careers, and just 5% are depicted in “traditionally female” occupational roles (Signorielli, 2013 ). Thus, the roles of male characters are more restricted within the professional realm than those of female characters in the contemporary television scene.

Important differences arise for gender and race when examining television programs that mostly feature characters from a single racial or ethnic group compared with those that feature characters that span multiple racial and ethnic groups. Signorielli ( 2009b ) found only 40% of black women in mostly minority programs were depicted working outside the home. Of those black women in mostly minority programs who did hold out-of-the-home occupations, they tended to be classified in non-professional jobs. Likewise, white women in programs with all or mostly white casts were also less likely to have high-prestige occupations. No such pattern was found for the occupations of male characters in the study. Their occupational status and prestige was not related to the overall racial and ethnic composition of the cast.

A limited number of studies examine the messages audiences receive through magazines regarding occupations. Massoni ( 2004 ) compared data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study career aspirations of teens of color and white teens and depictions of occupations in the highly popular Seventeen magazine in the same year. The analysis yielded more than 1,000 references to jobs and occupations in the editorial copy of the magazines to which gender could be ascribed. Men were depicted as having an occupation three times more often than women were in the magazine, and men held about three-fourths of the white collar, highly skilled occupations. Women held the majority of white collar, low-skilled occupations, but that was mostly explained by the predominance of females employed as models highlighted in the magazine. A total of 40 discrete jobs were depicted, and of those, 24 were male-dominated, 10 female-dominated, and 6 gender-neutral. Somewhat similarly, Peirce ( 1997 ) generated a random selection of fiction stories published in five women's magazines from 1990 to 1995 and found men were more likely to be shown as having an occupation and occupations were gender stereotyped, with common roles for men including doctors, lawyers, and business people, and common roles for women including secretaries, nurses, and housekeepers.

Finally, a subset of the existing content analyses depicting occupational activities examines the use of computers and information communication technologies (ICTs) by gender. Studies have found males outnumber females in magazine ads for computers, and differences exist in how males and females interact with computers as well, with males more often portrayed in executive or managerial roles and women as sales clerks and clerical employees (Ware & Stuck, 1985 ; Marshall & Bannon, 1988 ). Knupfer ( 1998 ) studied gender in banner ads appearing on the Web and found females were presented as lower in technological skills and in more subordinate roles compared with men. White and Kinnick ( 2000 ) examined 351 commercials during prime time television and determined that although female characters were shown as computer users nearly as often as male characters, their occupations were lower in status (e.g., secretaries or telemarketers) compared with males (who were, for instance, business professionals). Raphael, Bachen, Lynn, Baldwin-Philippi, and McKee ( 2006 ) studied 35 Web sites that expressed a mission to increase the involvement of girls and women in ICTs and found these sites show just the opposite trend, with girls and women depicted in elite and high-powered professional occupations.

Effects Research

One of the primary reasons why content analysis research is conducted is as a necessary first step to understanding media effects (Neuendorf, 2002 ). To determine whether and how and under what circumstances individuals are influenced by media, it is crucial to know what messages prevail in media texts. There is not always a direct correspondence between media content and media effects, however. The media effects research tradition has made great strides in recent years in showing that individuals are not always affected by media in uniform ways, but rather that individual differences and situational variables shape media effects. Therefore, the same media content can have differential effects on audiences. At the same time, content analysis research can identify the themes and patterns in media messages that ultimately may be called on by individuals—again, perhaps in differing ways—as they make sense of social norms and their relative position within those norms.

Like most media effects topic areas, the potential influence of media representations of gender is often studied through the use of surveys and experiments. The former lends external validity and generalizability but often falls short of asserting causal claims (unless, of course, it is conducted longitudinally). The latter is often rather artificial but allows for declarations of cause-and-effect relationships among variables. Studies using survey methodology are effective at measuring long-term, cumulative associations between media use patterns and gender-role related variables. Studies using experimental methodology capture the short-term, direct impact of media exposure. Both techniques have been used extensively to determine the ways in which media can shape conceptions about gender roles, attitudes toward those roles, and corresponding behavior.

The organization of this latter section of the chapter parallels the organization of the first section, with the subtopics identified in the content analysis research informing the review of effects research. Therefore, the surveys and experiments conducted to understand the impact of media depictions of physical appearance, roles within the home, and roles at work are synthesized and summarized here. However, one exception to this parallel structure surfaces. The content analysis section of the chapter provides evidence for the systematic underrepresentation of women in many media forms. This is a topic that has not been taken up directly in effects research to date, and therefore there is no corresponding subsection in the latter part of the chapter exploring the ramifications of underrepresentation. What are the consequences of an inequitable representation by gender on television, in video games, and in other media forms—where males consistently outnumber females—for audience members? Collins ( 2011 ) identifies this question as a critical gap in the media and gender literature. She suggests that the closest parallel in the existing research is the very small number of studies that show audiences of color gain increases in self-esteem when they see fellow people of color in the media (e.g., McDermott & Greenberg, 1984 ). Perhaps women in the audience, too, would experience a boost in self-esteem if they saw more women in primary roles in the media. Yet, clearly this phenomenon is not well understood and this chapter author joins Collins in calling for future research attention devoted to this important question.

Influence on Overall Gender-Role Attitudes

Before a more specialized review of the subtopics considered in this chapter (physical appearance, domestic roles, and occupational roles) is conducted, it is also necessary to consider the evidence for the influence of the media on attitudes and views about gender, in general. In other words, before discussing the evidence for effects of gendered portrayals of physical appearance, domestic roles, and professional roles, we first turn to the studies that explore the role of media in fostering overall conceptions of gender norms. For this task, meta-analysis is a useful approach. With the technique of meta-analysis, a number of studies on a shared topic are examined in the aggregate to arrive on overall conclusions that span the individual studies that comprise the analysis. Thus, meta-analysis identifies the overall size and strength of statistical relationships across numerous studies on a shared topic that encompass multiple methodologies and samples of various size and characteristics.

A small number of meta-analyses exist on the topic of media's effect on gender-related attitudes and behavior. Herrett-Skjellum and Allen ( 1996 ) integrated 30 existing studies and found an average effect size of .10 between television use and gender role stereotypes. The relationship held across age of subjects, and among the strongest associations was that between television exposure and views of occupational roles (a topic taken up in more detail in the following). An average effect size of .10 was also found by Morgan and Shanahan ( 1997 ), whose meta-analysis consisted of 14 studies of overall television use and gender roles that used cultivation analysis as a theoretical frame. Most recently, Oppliger ( 2007 ) conducted a meta-analysis of 31 studies and found a statistical relationship between television exposure and gender-role outcomes among experimental studies of r = .24 and among surveys of r = .12. Across each of the meta-analyses that exist on the topic; therefore, the effect size is small to moderate but in a consistently positive direction, suggesting television contributes modestly yet significantly to relatively more stereotypical and traditional gender-related outlooks.

Individual studies have also shown links between television exposure and overall conceptions of gender. For instance, Signorielli ( 1989 ) used the General Social Survey (GSS) from 1975 to 1986 to examine the association between amount of television viewing and gender-stereotypical attitudes. Although overall, views became less gender-stereotyped over time, a statistical association between television viewing and holding more traditional views of the role of women in society held across the time period examined. Jennings, Geis, & Brown ( 1980 ) used experimental methodology to expose college-aged women to either a gender-stereotyped commercial or a counter-stereotypical commercial and found the assertiveness of those in the counter-stereotypical group outscored those in the gender-stereotypical group in both a conformity and a public speaking task that took place after exposure. Garst and Bodenhausen ( 1997 ) exposed male college students to magazine advertisements that varied according to how androgynous or traditionally masculine they were. Those in the traditionally masculine condition, and in particular those who had scored as more “nontraditional” before exposure, displayed more traditional views of gender when reporting gender-related attitudes later, in a task that was ostensibly unrelated to their exposure. Hurtz and Durkin ( 2004 ) asked 72 adult residents of an Australian city to listen to radio ads that varied in terms of gender stereotyping (e.g., promoting soccer among males or sewing machines among females) presented alongside music programming. Those exposed to the set of stereotypical radio commercials processed gender-related trait words more efficiently following exposure compared to those exposed to neutral commercials. From this brief review, therefore, we see that radio, magazine advertising, television commercials, and television programming each has the potential to exert an influence on the overall view of gender held by individuals and the behaviors that emerge from those views.

Other studies have examined these processes among particular subgroups of the population or particular genres of television programming. For example, Ward, Hansbrough, and Walker ( 2005 ) found that black high school students who viewed both more music videos and more sports had more gender-typed attitudes than those who watched less of those program types. In their study, viewing of other genres including situation comedies, dramas, and movies, was not related to gender-related attitudes. Rivadeneyra and Ward ( 2005 ) surveyed a sample of Latino high school students, measuring gender-related attitudes through such items as “the husband should make all the important decisions in the marriage” and “a wife should do whatever her husband wants” (p. 462). They found girls who watched more television, especially talk shows and situation comedies, were more likely to endorse gender-role stereotypes than girls who watched less. For both the males and the females in the sample, exposure to Spanish-language programs was also associated with traditional gender-role attitudes. Importantly, television use was more strongly correlated with these attitudes when participants had higher levels of perceived realism and viewer involvement.

A number of studies also examine television's contribution to gender role attitudes outside the United States. In one such study, Saito ( 2007 ) surveyed 417 adult Tokyo residents and determined that amount of television viewing was significantly associated with more stereotypical responses to the Scale of Egalitarian Sex Role Attitudes (Suzuki, 1991 ) and remained marginally significant ( β = –.094, p = .07) when controlling for age, education, occupational status, and political orientation in hierarchical regression analysis. Follow-up analyses revealed stronger or weaker results depending on subgroup. For instance, politically conservative respondents who were heavy television viewers had less stereotyped responses to the scale than heavier viewing liberal respondents. These analyses support the notion of mainstreaming, a concept within cultivation theory that shows the ability of television to reduce differences in individuals’ viewpoints that would typically be found based on demographics (Morgan, Shanahan, & Signorielli, 2009 ). Thus, in some individuals and under some circumstances, television use can associate with less rather than more stereotypical attitudes regarding gender.

In fact, additional analyses have supported the ability of television to contribute to gender role attitudes that run counter to gender stereotypes in other cultural contexts. In Kuwait, Abdulrahim, Al-Kandari, and Hasanen ( 2009 ) found that amount of viewing of American television programming was associated with more open, nontraditional views of gender, measured using items including, “Women should have the same rights as men in every way” and “Men and women should get equal pay when they are in the same jobs” (p. 64). Exposure to US television remained a significant predictor of less gender-stereotypical views even when accounting for demographic variables and perceptions of television's ability to provide transcultural knowledge. The direction of television's correlation can change, therefore, depending on its message in comparison with other cultural and social forces.

The research record is quite clear that there are negative repercussions of the media's depiction of the thin ideal, particularly for women. Groesz, Levine, and Murnen ( 2002 ) performed a meta-analysis on 25 experiments examining the effect of thinness-depicting media on women's body image. They found an overall effects size of –.31, showing lower body satisfaction among women who saw media depictions of the thin ideal compared with those in control groups (most of whom saw more realistic images of women). The effects were stronger when research participants were less than 19 years old. A meta-analysis conducted by Grabe, Ward, and Hyde ( 2008 ) consisting of 77 studies found effects sizes of women's media exposure with their dissatisfaction with their bodies of –.28, with their internalization of a thin ideal of –.39, and with their eating behavior and beliefs (which included restricting one's eating, bingeing and purging, and excessively exercising) of –.30. Holstrom ( 2004 ) meta-analyzed 34 studies for which an effects size could be determined between exposure to media and judgments about one's own physical appearance, particularly regarding body size and shape. When weighting effects sizes by number of participants in each study, Holstrom arrived on smaller but still significant results: a mean effects size of .08 for the experimental studies and .07 for correlational. We can confidently conclude from these meta-analyses that media exert a small to moderate sized effect on body image–related outcomes.

Some of the existing research uses survey methodology to examine the relationship between overall amount of television exposure and feeling dissatisfied with the appearance of one's body. For example, Harrison and Cantor ( 1997 ) and Tiggemann ( 2003 ) have each found overall amount of television exposure predicts body dissatisfaction. Zhang and Lien ( 2010 ) determined from a sample of 301 Taiwanese adolescent girls that among those with low self-esteem and heavier body weight, television viewing associated with body dissatisfaction. Other surveys have examined exposure to particular genres or types of television programming (such as programs that are particularly “thinness depicting”) rather than (or sometimes in addition to) overall amount of television viewing, and have found associations with body image disturbances (Harrison, 2003 ; Bissell & Zhou, 2004 ; Stice, Schupak-Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994 ; Park, 2005 ; Tiggemann, 2003 , 2005 ). Similar results have been found to stem from exposure to fashion and beauty-centered magazines, as well (Harrison, 2000a ).

An important new trend in the literature is to examine these relationships between media and body image as they develop over time. For example, Moriarty and Harrison ( 2008 ) conducted a longitudinal study of 315 second, third, and fourth graders, gathering data at two points in time 1 year apart and measuring disordered eating, a phenomenon that includes having a negative body image, binge eating, restricting one's diet, abusing laxatives, pills, and other substances in an attempt to control weight, and over-exercising. They found television exposure significantly predicted eating disorder symptomology among both the white and the black girls in the sample, but not among boys of either race, after controlling for a number of variables, including disordered eating at baseline.

Indeed, one particularly disturbing subtopic within the literature examines the age at which media-influenced body image disturbances begin. Harrison and Hefner ( 2006 ) studied a sample of prepubescent girls over time, some as young as 6 years old, and found television viewing predicted later disordered eating as well as a thinner view of the ideal adult body type. Dohnt and Tiggemann ( 2006 ) surveyed girls age 5 through 8 and found significant associations between viewing “appearance-focused television” and the girls’ satisfaction with their own appearance. Boys are not immune from such influence. Harrison ( 2000b ) studied boys and girls age 6 to 8 and found that television exposure predicted disordered eating for both.

Another recent direction in research on this topic is to examine the impact of playing video games that feature sexualized portrayals of female characters that emphasize their body and their beauty on individuals’ attitudes toward sexual harassment and sexual aggression. Yao, Mahood, and Linz ( 2010 ), for example, randomly assigned 74 male college students to play either a sexually explicit game with objectified female characters ( Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude ) or one of two control games. Posttest measures included a lexical task to measure the priming of sex-related thoughts and a scale measuring likelihood to sexually harass. Yao et al. found those in the sexually objectifying condition responded faster to both sexual words and to sexually objectifying descriptions of women, thereby indicating priming had occurred, and scored higher on the likelihood to sexually harass scale than those in the control conditions. Dill, Brown, and Collins ( 2008 ) also found a link between playing video games featuring appearance-related gender stereotypes and greater tolerance for sexual harassment (but not rape myth acceptance) in a prior experiment (see Chapter 12 for other effects of sexually explicit media).

For males, there is evidence that boys are driven not necessarily toward thinness but rather toward muscularity as a body ideal (Cohane & Pope, 2001 ; Moriarty & Harrison, 2008 ). Barlett, Vowels, and Saucier ( 2008 ) have used meta-analysis to summarize and synthesize the existing studies on the topic of media and the body image disturbances of males. They examined 25 studies comprising 93 different effects sizes between media exposure and males’ body satisfaction (how one thinks about one's body), body esteem (how one feels about one's body) and self-esteem. Within the correlational studies, the overall effects size was –.19 and within the experimental studies, the overall effects size was –.22, thereby determining that, like females, males are negatively affected by media depictions of thinness and muscularity among male media characters.

The vast majority of studies examining media influence on body image–related variables examine the role of television and magazines and the advertisements contained within (Holstrom, 2004 ; Grabe et al., 2008 ). Yet, recently the phenomenon has been extended into video games, as well, with Barlett and Harris ( 2008 ) finding that playing a game that featured either an exceptionally thin or an exceptionally muscular character for 15 minutes led to decreases in self-esteem among male and female research participants. Furthermore, two recent studies have examined the consequences of viewing television programs that focus explicitly on appearance-related makeovers. Nabi ( 2009 ) studied exposure to reality-based programs specifically about cosmetic surgery makeovers, such as The Swan, Extreme Makeover , and I Want a Famous Face . Exposure to the cosmetic surgery makeover programs was positively linked to self-reported likelihood to engage in “appearance-enhancing procedures” if cost were no object, including those procedures minimally as well as more invasive. Somewhat similarly, Kubic and Chory ( 2007 ) found amount of viewing of makeover programs to be negatively related to self-esteem and positively related to dissatisfaction with one's body and a drive toward “perfectionism.”

Although the occasional study fails to find a significant link between negative body image and either overall amount of television exposure (e.g., Botta, 1999 ; Tiggemann, 2005 ) or viewing of specific genres (e.g., Botta, 1999 ; Stice, Spangler, & Agras, 2001 ), the majority of the evidence suggests conclusively that media exert a small- to moderate-sized influence on body image. For individuals young and old, for males as well as females, and for individuals who vary by race, the profound emphasis in the media on beauty, thinness, and physical attractiveness does have negative consequences for the ways in which they perceive themselves and others. Such consequences can span the range from momentary lapses in self-esteem to longer lasting and more troubling forms of eating disorder symptomology.

Domestic and Relational Roles

Television and other media forms have also been examined for their potential contribution to gender roles regarding responsibilities in and around the home. One of the primary questions under this heading is whether the consistently gender-stereotyped information audiences receive from advertising and other media sources regarding housework responsibilities (as we have seen in the first section of this chapter) sways perceptions among individuals in the audience regarding whether males or females should do particular chores. Although the existing research is rather dated, the available evidence suggests television use is related to children and adolescents holding traditional attitudes about who should be or is suited for particular roles and responsibilities, such as females cooking and cleaning and males fixing things and taking out the trash (Morgan, 1987 ; Signorielli & Lears, 1992 ). In an interesting split between attitudes and behavior, the role of television does not seem to extend to the issue of who actually does these domestic tasks. Rather, the distribution of housework and chore behavior (although often shown to be quite gendered) is not typically related to amount of television use. For example, in Morgan's ( 1987 ) longitudinal data from 287 adolescents, television viewing predicted changes in adolescents’ views of whether males or females should perform certain chores toward those more traditional in nature. Yet, television viewing was not related to the adolescents’ own household chore responsibilities. In a sample of fourth and fifth graders, Signorielli and Lears ( 1992 ) also found significant associations between television use and gender-typed attitudes toward housework but no such link between viewing and actually doing particular chores in and around the house.

Another research question regarding domestic roles is whether media can play a part in forming individuals’ perceptions of what mothers or fathers should be like, as well as how men and women form and behave within romantic relationships in general. One study on the topic took place in the Netherlands and featured the survey responses of 166 female adolescents and young women age 15 to 22 (Ex, Janssens, & Korzilius, 2002 ). Ex et al. found the amount of exposure to sitcoms and soap operas that feature more conventional gender-role depictions, but not the overall amount of television viewing, was associated with the young women anticipating a more traditional approach to their own future roles within motherhood, one in which family and children were emphasized over work. From this study, it seems specific television genres can shape the notions that girls and young women hold regarding potential roles for themselves as mothers.

Additional analyses have studied perceptions of dating and intimate relationships, and have generally supported the hypothesis that specific forms of television viewing can promote gender-related stereotypes. In a sample of 259 undergraduate students, Ward ( 2002 ) found amount of exposure to prime time comedies, prime time dramas, soap operas, and music videos were each associated with support for such stereotypical conceptions, including women being viewed as sex objects and men being seen as driven by sex as well as being unlikely to maintain a monogamous relationship. Ferris, Smith, Greenberg, and Smith ( 2007 ) found male heavy viewers of reality-based television dating programs endorsed the same sorts of stereotypes that surfaced in the Ward ( 2002 ) study (women as sex objects, men as sex driven) compared with their lighter viewer counterparts. Bryant ( 2008 ) determined that greater exposure to rap videos was related to black adolescents endorsing adversarial attitudes about romantic relationships, including economic equality and roles taken up within relationships. The more the young people watched rap videos, the more accepting they were of the ways in which both males and females were depicted in the videos. In an experiment conducted by Ward, Hansbrough, and Walker ( 2005 ), it was determined that black high school students who saw clips of music videos with stereotypical portrayals of men and women expressed more traditional views about sexual relationships and gender than those assigned to a different experimental condition.

We can safely conclude, therefore, that exposure to particularly gender-stereotyped content on television—whether it is found in music videos or soap operas, reality-based programs or prime time sitcoms or dramas—can contribute to audience members’ stereotypical views of gender in sexual and romantic relationships. The effects research in this topic area has also shown that amount of television viewed by children and adolescents can shape their views of whether males or females should be responsible for particular household chores, although such exposure has not been shown to extend to the domestic responsibilities actually enacted by children and adolescents. There appears to be few if any recent scholarly inquiries into the possible effects of media depictions of household tasks and roles, however, and therefore the ways in which media might or might not influence the contemporary audience in this regard remain largely unknown.

Television has been found to affect perceptions of the careers that are deemed open to and suitable for males and females, as well as those that are deemed less so. These effects have the ability to limit one's view of career aspirations if they uphold gender stereotypical norms. On the other hand, the research evidence is also quite clear that when television and other media forms portray a counter-stereotypical set of occupations, exposure can translate into a more encompassing view of “acceptable” occupations.

Research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s points to television's ability to foster traditional notions of gender and occupation. Beuf ( 1974 ) found amount of television viewing to predict stereotypical views of careers among 3- to 6-year-old children. A longitudinal study of sixth to eighth graders conducted by Morgan ( 1982 ) found among girls that television viewing predicted stereotypical responses over time to an index that included such measures as “women are happiest at home raising children” and “men are born with more ambition than women,” even after controlling for a number of additional variables. Jeffries-Fox and Jeffries-Fox ( 1981 ) surveyed 200 seventh to ninth graders and found that television exposure made a small but significant contribution to their conceptions of gender roles regarding occupations and work-related capacities. In early research conducted on the topic, therefore, television was associated with support for traditional occupational assignments, such as men as doctors and women as nurses, men as lawyers and women as secretaries, and so on.

Other studies examined audience members’ perceptions of the ways in which television depicts gender and occupations. Within a sample of more than 1,200 Israeli adults, Zemach and Cohen ( 1986 ) found heavy television viewing to be associated with a smaller gap between perceptions of the ways in which television depicts gender and occupations and actual population statistics regarding gender and occupations. In other words, those who watched more television perceived the “real world” to more closely approximate the television world in terms of whether and how men and women were employed. Wroblewski and Huston ( 1987 ) found fifth and sixth grade girls who were frequent viewers of television programs with traditional gender depictions and infrequent viewers of programs with counter-stereotypical gender depictions expressed stronger aspirations toward more traditionally feminine occupations such as those featured on the screen. Both boys and girls in the study had negative attitudes about male characters participating in traditionally female-associated occupations on television.

Among the first studies to consider whether reverse stereotypical depictions can have a liberating effect on conceptions of gender roles was the experiment conducted by Atkins and Miller ( 1975 ). In their study, young research participants in the treatment group watched commercials that featured female characters in traditionally male-dominated careers. Following exposure, treatment group members were more likely than control group members to endorse male-dominated occupations as being acceptable for women, too. In an analysis of the prominent “Freestyle” television series featuring counter-stereotypical occupations (e.g., females as car mechanics and males as nurses), Johnston and Ettema ( 1982 ) found exposure to be associated with less stereotypical views of gender, especially with accompanied by an in-school curriculum. Geis, Brown, Walstedt, & Porter ( 1984 ) exposed research participants to either gender-stereotypical commercials or counter-stereotypical commercials and then asked them to write about what they imagined their lives would be like in 10 years. The women in the stereotypical commercial condition brought up aspects of domesticity more so than professional achievements compared with both the men and the women who were in the counter-stereotypical condition. In a much more recent study, Nathanson, Wilson, McGee, and Sebastian ( 2002 ) also determined that parental mediation can shape children's responses to stereotypes on television, with those in a mediation condition less likely to have favorable views of stereotyped characters and, among the younger children in the sample, more likely to score lower on a scale measuring stereotypical attitudes.

It is clear that children perceive television's depiction of occupations as stereotypical rather early on in childhood (Wroblewski & Huston, 1987 ; Wright et al., 1995 ). In fact, in Wright and colleagues’ ( 1995 ) study of second and fifth graders, the children were more likely to aspire to a career seen on television if that career was not seen as gender stereotypical. Nonetheless, despite the skepticism that awareness of gender stereotyping would suggest, there is at least tentative evidence of television's effects in the existing research. The topic does not appear to have been taken up in more recent research, yet the (admittedly aging) research record does suggest that depending on the nature of the depiction—whether it upholds or runs counter to gender stereotypes—television use can contribute to views of gender and occupations. More recent explorations of what audiences may be learning from television and other media depictions of work are curiously absent in the literature.

Conclusions

The body of evidence accrued through content analysis regarding gender representations in media has pointed decidedly to progress in the opening up of gender roles on television, particularly those for women, both within and outside the home. Yet, a careful review of the content patterns suggests there still exists room for improvement, with some gendered depictions proving more stubborn to overturn, including within roles for men, within the close association of marital status to women and occupational status to men, and perhaps most egregiously, within the strict assignment of individuals to specific housework, parenting, and domestic care practices, particularly in advertising. Furthermore, all of these depictions and others occur within a scenario in which women continue to be underrepresented in media compared with men and their presence in the actual population. Such lack of visibility has the potential to send a message that women are undervalued in society.

Content analysis research also establishes conclusively that the men and women who populate media increasingly bear little resemblance to the men and women in the audience. Female characters in media are thin yet curvaceous. Many are clothed, photographed, or filmed in such a manner as to draw particular attention to their bodies. Male characters are lean and muscular. Both male and female characters who meet these increasingly strict definitions of beauty are more likely than their less fortunate (and less visible) counterparts to receive positive comments about how they look and to be presented in romantic as well as sexual contexts.

The effects research has shown that these media depictions of gender do, indeed, matter in that audiences young and old are absorbing these messages about gender and using them to shape their attitudes, intentions, and behavior. First, we have seen through both meta-analysis and through individual studies that myriad media forms—from overall amount of television to exposure to particular program types or genres, from video games to magazines, and increasingly ubiquitous ads—contribute to overall attitudes held by individuals regarding gender roles. The direction of this relationship is typically positive: Increased exposure relates to increased stereotypical or traditional views. However, we have also seen evidence that when television is among the more liberal or progressive messages an individual receives from the culture, the direction of the relationship can change. Television use can associate in these contexts with more open and wider views of gender roles.

The implications of the underrepresentation of women in terms of effects on the audience are unknown at this time. Yet, the implications of the other content patterns identified in this chapter have been explored in media effects research, some more thoroughly and some more recently than others. It is clear, for instance, that the profound emphasis on physical beauty and thin and lean bodies has negative consequences for media audiences. Media impact on body image disturbances begins as a disturbingly young age and has the potential to impact across gender and race. We can also confidently conclude that individuals are responding to the ways in which romantic and sexual relationships, often occurring within domestic settings, are portrayed in the media according to gender. The views of young audience members regarding how and why men and women form romantic relationships take shape, at least in part, from the media messages they receive, which include males being loathe to make commitments and women being viewed as objects of sexual attention. Early research established that television could also shape young people's views of housework and division of labor by gender, although this topic is in need of updating in future research. Finally, once again, early research showed the ability of television to contribute to conceptions about jobs, careers, and related skills and roles within. The conclusion from that body of research, that the television influence can either promote or refute stereotypes, should also be revisited in future research and should be extended into other popular media forms.

Future Directions

The body of knowledge on media and gender, as we have seen, is extensive and robust. Yet, key unanswered questions remain. First, it is essential to update the effects research in this area, as much of the existing research record on a number of subtopics relies on studies conducted in the 1970s or 1980s. The effects research has not kept pace with the content analysis research, and future researchers should use the most recent content findings to guide explorations of the ways in which audiences are receiving and responding to those depictions. Do modern media audience members draw from media in forming their notions of gender roles related to domestic and professional realms? With real-world statistics showing more equity in housework and child care roles within the home and more participation of women in the out-of-home workforce, how do media portrayals potentially resonate with or challenge individuals’ day-to-day experiences?

Second, it is also quite evident from this review that men's roles and the depiction of masculinity have received much less attention than women's roles and the depiction of femininity, in both content analysis and effects research (Scharrer, 2012 ). One exception not yet discussed in this chapter is the existing research linking masculinity with aggression and violence in media portrayals. The longitudinal analyses of prime time television content conducted by Gerbner and, most recently, by Signorielli, for instance, establish conclusively that males are both the most frequent perpetrators and the most frequent victims of violence (Signorielli & Gerbner, 1995 ; Signorielli, 2003 ). Scharrer ( 2001b , 2012 ) has expanded these analyses to examine not just physical aggression but other indicators of “hypermasculinity”—including having a calloused attitude toward sex, a sensation-seeking tendency, and a tight control over emotions—in police and detective shows on television over time. The consequences of hypermasculinity for the aggressive responses of viewers to violent television has also been explored (Scharrer, 2001c , 2005 ). Yet, with this exception aside, the relative failure to explore masculinity and media from a quantitative, media effects perspective is a considerable gap in the literature that should be addressed in future research. Increasingly, scholars from sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and other fields are recognizing that the study of masculinity is important as a means of examining social and cultural norms, dominance and power in society, and implications for everyday interactions between and within people of varying genders. With some content analysis evidence that men's roles, too, are often restricted and constrained in media depictions (once again, as we have begun to see in this chapter), it is likely that media could contribute to conceptualizations of male roles. How do views of masculinity form in our media-saturated culture? New research in this area would make an important contribution to the body of knowledge regarding gender and media.

Another area that needs greater attention in future research is the issue of gender and the online media environment. A meta-analysis of 132 articles pertaining to gender and the Internet published between 1995 and 2003 in 28 publications found just two content analysis studies of gender roles in Internet content (Royal, 2005 ). The vast majority of articles in Royal's analysis were about women's access to Internet technology and women's uses of the Internet, thereby demonstrating the need not just for additional content analyses in this area, but also more effects research. Of course, the challenge of Internet research is the vast and ever-changing landscape that is represented in the millions of pages and sites. Nonetheless, with audiences young and old spending more time using social media (e.g., Facebook) and visiting other web sites, future research must overcome these obstacles. What are the ways that Internet use might contribute to gender-related perceptions, norms, and other outcomes among individuals young and old? This, too, is largely unanswered in the existing research, most of which focuses on television. Although television continues to dominate other media forms in how most individuals devote their time to media, exploring the Internet and other media forms more fully is necessary, nonetheless.

Finally, as the field of media psychology continues to embrace and attempt to capture the complexity of individuals’ responses to media, future research in this area should reserve a central role for the study of individual differences. How does one's own degree of gender conformity, lived experiences with distribution of labor within the family or within the home, and professional status and roles shape one's response to media representations of gender? Close attention to these questions in future research in this area would make important contributions to the ever-important topic of media and gender.

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Tackling the Underrepresentation of Women in Media

• Aneeta Rattan,
• Siri Chilazi,
• Oriane Georgeac,
• Iris Bohnet

Inside the BBC’s 50:50 project.

Around the world, women are far less likely than men to be seen in the media. This gender-imbalanced picture of society can reinforce and perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes. For over two years, journalists and producers across the BBC have been tackling the gender representation issue by rethinking whom they put in front of the camera, with the goal of achieving 50:50 gender representation every month. 500 BBC shows and teams have joined the so-called 50:50 Project. In April 2019, 74% of the English-language programs that had been involved in 50:50 for a year or more reached 50%+ female contributors on their shows. How did an initiative that started in the news room (not the board room), by a white British man (not a D&I expert), come to thrive in an organization that has ongoing, public challenges related to gender equity (e.g., their gender pay gap)? Three key lessons are relevant for any manager or leader aiming to shake up the status quo and improve diversity, equality and inclusion in their organization. First, start with yourself. Second, follow the data. Third, believe in others’ ability to change.

Around the world , women are far less likely than men to be seen in the media. As subjects of stories, women only appear in a quarter of television, radio, and print news. In a 2015 report, women made up a mere 19% of experts featured in news stories and 37% of reporters telling stories globally. As behavioral scientists studying women’s underrepresentation in the workplace, we know that this gender-imbalanced picture of society can reinforce and perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes . It is clear that the media must change how it reflects the world – but who can change media itself?

• AR Aneeta Rattan , Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. Her research, teaching, and consulting focus on mindsets and diversity — addressing stereotyping, prejudice, and inequity in the workplace. She works to identify messages that improve and equalize the stigmatized groups’ belonging at work, and to illustrate how mindsets can improve people’s responses to and experiences with overt and subtle biases at work.
• Siri Chilazi is a research fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she studies gender equality in the workplace. Her work focuses on de-biasing organizational processes and structures through behavioral design. She is the co-author, with Iris Bohnet, of a forthcoming book on the topic.
• OG Oriane Georgeac , Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale School of Management. Her research focuses on organizations’ diversity rhetoric, and perceptions of social progress. She specifically investigates the paradoxical consequences of instrumentality in organizations’ justifications for  why  they care about diversity. She also studies the psychological mechanisms that shape people’s perceptions of social progress. Follow her on Twitter at @oriane_georgeac.
• Iris Bohnet is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, co-director of the Women and Public Policy Program and the Academic Dean at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of the award-winning book What Works: Gender Equality by Design .

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Gender Representation in the Media

Gender is a social construct and the media plays a big role in influencing perceptions of gender roles and shaping the behaviors that stem from these gender roles. Due to the increased sensitization of the role of the media in defining gender roles and portrayal, there has been a gradual change in media representation of gender and gender issues. This essay will assess how media representation of gender has changed, particularly in the US and the UK. Media representation of gender fits into the wider theoretical debate on gender issues, and helps to explain whether gender is a social or biological construct. Media representation of gender has changed for the better on three key aspects. The underrepresentation of women in media is improving, the normalization of violence against women in the media is being eradicated and the stereotypical depiction of men and women’s relationships is being done away with. This essay will assess how these three elements of media representation of gender are changing with focus on the US and the UK.

Underrepresentation of women in mainstream media has been a running theme since the conception of video and digital media. The underrepresentation of women in media affects societal portrayal of culture. Women being underrepresented in the media has often led to women issues being overlooked. The media is a powerful tool that influences means through which societal issues are addressed. As of 1989, there were three times as many white men as there were women in primetime television (Wood, 1994). Women of color and other minority women were represented to an even lesser amount. Furthermore, the number of men in newscasts doubled that of women (Rasky, 1989). This was the situation in the US in the late 1980s. Sink and Mastro (2016) conducted a survey that shows women are much more represented in the media than in the 1980s. While men are still more represented, the situation has improved with more women featuring on primetime television and being part of newscasts. In British television, the situation is the same, with women being more represented in recent years as compared to the past (OFCOM, 2018).

Another aspect of media representation that has been changing is the normalization of violence against women by the media. Through constant portrayal of women on the one hand as being passive, and men on the other as being aggressive, the media normalizes violence against women. Constant screening of sexually violent content and shows on television leads to increased tolerance and approval of such violence against women. Both men and women viewing such content accept it as normal in their relationships. Another aspect of the normalization of violence against women stems from the way the media reports incidences of gender-based violence. In previous times, the mainstream media was aloof to incidences of gender-based violence. The fact that such incidences were ignored often contributed to a spike in rates of violence. In the US, this happened before the 1970s when many incidences of gender based violence were not reported by the media. However, since the late 70s and 80s, there was a shift towards mainstream media reporting about gender-based violence cases with greater frequency (Lee, 2007). Since then, sensitization on the benefits of reporting on gender-based violence cases has helped media houses to report more on it. In the UK, the media is also guilty of presenting violence by men as ‘normal’ while violence by women is presented as ‘irrational’ (Naylor, 2001). However, the trend has also changed in recent years with media corporations being made aware of the negative effects of biased reporting. The normalization of violence against women by the media is therefore one aspect that has been changing over the years.

The third aspect of media presentation of the gender which has changed is the stereotypical presentation of the relationship between men and women. Such stereotypical presentations include the perception shared by the media that women are more dependent on men. Men themselves are depicted as being independent. Wood (1994) takes the example of the award winning Disney show called ‘The Little Mermaid’. It is one of a number of shows that depicted women as being dependent on men. Another show she highlights is The Smurfs. While the male smurfs had real names, the female lacked one, and was simply known as smurfette. To the audience, this conveys the message that the female character is not important and that she is inferior to the male smurfs. Another way in which the media made stereotypical representations of the relationship between men and women is by casting women as caregivers and men as breadwinners. Most television shows and programmes often ignored the professional lives of women and instead only focused on their roles at home. While some of the characters had titles such as Professor, Doctor or Lawyer, little was shown of their career lives. The effect of these stereotypical presentations of the role of women in society is that it fostered the notion that women should only be relevant around the home and not in a professional setting. However, sensitization has helped to change this trend with the media being made aware of their role in achieving gender equality (IMS, 2020). Media representation of men as being able and responsible also has negative effects on men. Teenage boys and bachelors for example are pressured into fitting in with societal perceptions (Taniguchi, 2021).

Media representation of gender and gender issues is constantly changing. While there is still some work to be done to ensure gender equality is achieved, there is progress being made. The gender representations in the media fits the social interactionism theory of gender. It defines why gender is a social construct. Studying the way the media operates is crucial in improving social life because the media is a key tool in the operation of society. As Back (2015) puts it, such study is valuable because it makes sociologists attend to the routine and temporal aspects of social life.

Bibliography

Back, L., 2015. Why Everyday Life Matters: Class, Community and Making Life Livable.  Sociology , 49(5), pp.820-836.

IMS, 2020.  The crucial role of media in achieving gender equality | IMS . [online] IMS. Available at: <https://www.mediasupport.org/the-crucial-role-of-media-in-achieving-gender-equality/> [Accessed 1 February 2022].

Lee, C., 2007. Framing abuse: media influence and public understanding of sexual violence against children by J. Kitzinger, Pluto Press.  Child Abuse Review , 16(3), pp.202-203.

Naylor, B., 2001. Reporting Violence in the British Print Media: Gendered Stories.  The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice , 40(2), pp.180-194.

OFCOM, 2018.  Representation and portrayal on BBC television: Thematic review . [ebook] OFCOM. Available at: <https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/124078/report-bbc-representation-portrayal.pdf> [Accessed 1 February 2022].

Rasky, S., 1989.  Study Reports Sex Bias in News Organizations . [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/11/arts/study-reports-sex-bias-in-news-organizations.html> [Accessed 1 February 2022].

Sink, A. and Mastro, D., 2016. Depictions of Gender on Primetime Television: A Quantitative Content Analysis.  Mass Communication and Society , 20(1), pp.3-22.

Taniguchi, H., 2021. Book Review: Everyday Masculinities in 21st-Century China: The Making of Able-Responsible Men, by Magdalena Wong.  Gender & Society , 35(3), pp.501-503.

Wood, J., 1994. Gendered Media: The Influence of Media on Views of Gender. In: J. Wood, ed.,  Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture . Wadsworth Publishing, pp.231-244.

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Shattering the glass screen

There are many reasons to care about gender issues in the media and entertainment industry—not the least of which is the importance of moving beyond traditional stereotypes and having diverse storytellers share their unique perspectives in film, television, and other forms of print and broadcast media. Women are among the largest consumers of film and television, so they represent a key demographic for this industry and the advertisers that support it. 1 See Ingrid Lunden, “Nielsen: Women watch more TV than men, but connected games consoles are changing that,” TechCrunch, October 5, 2012, techcrunch.com; and Theatrical market statistics 2016 , Motion Picture Association of America, motionpictures.org.

According to our recent research, women are well represented in media and entertainment companies. 2 For the purposes of this report, we’ve defined the media and entertainment industry as companies that engage in news, film, marketing, ticket sales, event management, and sports. This report is based on employee data from companies that opted in to the Women in the Workplace survey. But even with corporate America’s increased focus on ensuring gender parity, women in this industry experience a more hostile workplace than men and face a glass ceiling that prevents them from reaching top leadership roles.

Using data from the 2019 Women in the Workplace  study, one of the largest and most comprehensive data sets of women in corporate America, McKinsey created a one-year snapshot of how women are progressing in media and entertainment and how their workplace experiences differ from those of men. We supplemented that information with collected data from 15 companies, as well as workplace-experience-survey responses of 1,700 employees 3 Note that the Women in the Workplace study focused on the experiences and representation of salaried employees in corporate America and does not differentiate between editorial, creative, and business staff. It also does not include the hourly and “gig” employees that comprise many of the creative functions in the media and entertainment industry. —both male and female—from the media and entertainment industry in 2019. 4 For the past five years, McKinsey, in collaboration with LeanIn.Org, has published Women in the Workplace , one of the largest comprehensive studies of the state of women in corporate America. Since 2015, the project has surveyed more than a quarter of a million employees at almost 600 companies. Companies voluntarily chose to participate in the study.

We observed some positive trends. At early tenures, for instance, women in media and entertainment are at equal representation as men, which provides a stable foundation for the future. What’s more, at early tenures, promotion rates for women exceed those for men, and the share of women hired from outside the company is equal to or surpasses the share of men. The women in our research also reported high satisfaction with their career choices, as well as a strong desire to be promoted and otherwise advance in their organizations. HR respondents in this industry tended to say their companies were committed to achieving greater parity: 93 percent of them stated that gender diversity was a priority for their organizations.

Women in news organizations

News organizations are a distinct and important part of the media and entertainment industry. They not only deliver daily information and reporting to the general public but they also help shape public opinion. We analyzed the talent-pipeline results from eight news organizations and found that despite some important progress for women in news, there remain significant challenges—particularly for women of color and for women at higher levels in the organization, who are leaving their companies at much higher rates than men. Here is a small snapshot of our findings:

Representation. At the manager level, women in news organizations represent 44 percent of employees, compared with 38 percent in corporate America overall; and at the senior-manager level, women comprise 43 percent of employees, compared with 34 percent in corporate America overall (Exhibit 1). Women of color represent 14 percent of entry-level employees at news organizations, compared with 17 percent in media and entertainment, and 18 percent in corporate America overall. This disparity is exacerbated throughout the pipeline. At the vice-president level, for instance, women of color represent only 4 percent of employees at news organizations, compared with 6 percent of employees in media and entertainment and 7 percent of employees in corporate America overall.

Attrition. At almost every level, women in news organizations leave their companies at higher rates than men. At the vice-president level, for example, women’s attrition rates are almost triple those of men (Exhibit 2).

Organizational attention to diversity and inclusion. Only 14 percent of the news organizations surveyed set gender-based numeric targets for representation of all employees, as compared with 35 percent of companies in corporate America overall. What’s more, news organizations reported offering less training and fewer classes aimed at reducing bias and increasing diversity and inclusion than did companies in corporate America overall. Some provided unconscious-bias training (29 percent versus 52 percent for companies in all industries), or sessions on managing or working with diverse teams (29 percent versus 37 percent for all industries).

But, as with women in all other industries, there are major challenges facing women in media and entertainment. When examining the three main drivers of women’s advancement in corporate America—promotion, attrition, and external hiring—we found that women in entry-level positions in this industry are leaving their companies at higher rates than their male counterparts. Yes, promotions at early tenures drive strong representation at the managerial level, but that progress slows to a crawl the closer you get to the top. We observed that external hiring skews male for C-suite positions, which contributes to a corporate environment in which women are well represented at early-tenure positions but remain a minority at more senior levels. Only 27 percent of C-suite positions in media and entertainment are held by women. We found similar patterns when we took a closer look at one segment of media and entertainment in particular: the news media (see sidebar, “Women in news organizations”).

While women are well represented early in the career pipeline in media and entertainment, they are a minority at the highest levels, with women accounting for only 27 percent of C-suite positions.

Furthermore, we observed that women’s day-to-day workplace experiences in media and entertainment are worse than men’s. Almost half of all respondents said they believe women in their fields are judged by different standards than men, which they say makes it difficult to achieve parity in senior management in their workplaces.

In this article, we review the findings from our research and consider steps executives in media and entertainment can take to encourage greater equity.

There are more women overall …

There are a significant number of women in the media and entertainment industry compared with our overall benchmark for women’s representation in corporate America. Women make up 49 percent of the total workforce in media and entertainment, although most of these women are concentrated in entry-level positions (Exhibit 1). 5 Media and entertainment companies categorized their employees into six levels based on standard definitions, taking reporting structure and salaries into account. This was calibrated across news and entertainment mediums.

Our research shows that women at entry-level positions are moving up the corporate ladder in media and entertainment faster than men. They are being promoted to the manager level twice as often as men—6 percent for women compared with 3 percent for men (Exhibit 2). This promotion rate contributes to a much higher percentage of women managers in the industry than in corporate America as a whole (49 percent in media and entertainment, versus 38 percent for all industries). It also represents a better promotion rate than in the wider workforce where that first promotion to manager is the most significant barrier to women’s advancement, commonly referred to as the “broken rung.”

Our research suggests that women in this industry are more satisfied with their career choices than are women in corporate America overall. Women in media and entertainment report career-satisfaction rates that are slightly higher than men’s—77 percent of women versus 75 percent of men (Exhibit 3). Additionally, 82 percent of women in our research reported a desire to be promoted to the next level, as compared with 71 percent of women across all industries. Indeed, 35 percent of women in media and entertainment said they had asked for a promotion during the past year, compared with 27 percent of men in the industry. These statistics suggest that the low representation of women in senior roles cannot be attributed to a lack of desire for advancement.

… but there is a dearth of women in senior leadership

Women are “getting a foot in the door” in media and entertainment, and they are enthusiastic about seeking advancement—but that’s where positive trends begin to fade. For an entry-level woman looking up, every rung on the career ladder will have fewer women in it. A woman graduating with a degree in mass communications or journalism, for instance, will walk across a stage where six out of every ten students are women. 6 See Ana Borruto, “Studies examine gender enrollment in communications,” Ithacan , April 1, 2015, theithacan.org; and Lee B. Becker, Oana Stefanita, and Tudor Vlad, Predictors of faculty diversification in journalism and mass communication education , Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference, San Francisco, CA, August 2015, grady.uga.edu. If she’s hired into the industry, her entry-level class will consist of five women in every ten hires. Further up the corporate ladder, at the transition from senior manager to vice president, one woman from this group, on average, will drop out of the pipeline. By the time these mass-communication or journalism professionals are poised to reach the C-suite, they will account for fewer than three of every ten executives—a point commonly referred to as the glass ceiling. 7 Sandrine Devillard, Vivian Hunt, and Lareina Yee, “ Still looking for room at the top: Ten years of research on women in the workplace ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 2018. For both men and women, there have been limited promotions from the senior-vice-president level into the C-suite; the promotion rate is less than 1 percent.

This lack of internal advancement for women is compounded by another observable trend: more men than women are hired from outside the company into the C-suite. Our numbers showed that of external hires in the C-suite, 79 percent were men and 21 percent women. To accelerate women’s representation in the C-suite, media and entertainment companies will need to increase women’s access to internal and external pathways to the top, potentially challenging existing corporate structures. It can be done: in the past five years, many other companies and industries have added women to the senior-most levels of management, and now close to 45 percent of companies have three or more women in the C-suite compared with fewer than 30 percent of companies in 2015.

Women are clearly aware that the deck is stacked against them. Twenty-seven percent of women surveyed in the media and entertainment industry say that gender has played a role in their missing out on a raise, promotion, or a chance to get ahead, as opposed to only 7 percent of men. What’s more, 35 percent of women reported that they expect their gender to make it harder to get a raise or promotion in the future as opposed to 15 percent of men (Exhibit 4).

This inequity grows deeper when we look at the intersection of race and gender. According to our data, women of color are poorly represented across all levels of leadership in media and entertainment. For example, white women represent 33 percent of entry-level roles in media and entertainment, while women of color represent 17 percent. And while women hold 22 percent of C-suite roles in media and entertainment, women of color hold only 4 percent of those positions (Exhibit 5).

Note that men of color also have a difficult path to positions of leadership in media and entertainment. They represent only one out of every six employees at the entry level, and only one out of every 12 employees in the C-suite.

Women are held to a different standard

Almost half of the women in our research said they believe that women in the industry are judged by different standards than men. More important, they consider these gender-biased appraisals to be one of the biggest challenges to getting equal numbers of women and men in management at their organizations.

The numbers suggest that women are more aware of the biases facing other women than men are, with 34 percent of women reporting that they had heard or seen biased behavior toward women in the past year—a number that is 2.7 times higher than their male counterparts (Exhibit 6). This awareness gap can make it difficult for companies to mobilize and address issues with women’s workplace experiences. If men, who still make up four of every five C-suite executives, don’t perceive that bias toward women is happening, they won’t feel compelled to allocate resources toward fixing the problem.

Our research also suggests that women in this industry experience more microaggressions than women in other industries. Microaggressions are brief, often unintended, actions that can slight or marginalize a coworker—for instance, being interrupted while talking or having others explain things to you that you already know. Microaggressions can undermine women’s confidence, inhibit their sense of belonging, and limit their opportunities for advancement. As compared with women in an all-industry benchmark, women in media and entertainment were more likely to report experiencing microaggressions in nine out of the ten categories we asked about (Exhibit 7). What’s more, women of color reported experiencing microaggressions at higher rates than their white peers.

In the wake of such obstacles, 49 percent of women in the media and entertainment industry reported that their companies provided clear and safe ways to voice grievances and concerns, compared with 57 percent in all industries. The good news is that women are demanding even more: almost a third of the women surveyed in media and entertainment reported becoming more outspoken in the past two years about how women are treated at work.

Taking action

As the numbers suggest, there are many obstacles for women in media and entertainment. But the two biggest challenges are the lack of women’s representation in senior positions and the culture of biased behavior that negatively affects women’s day-to-day experiences in the workplace. There are tangible ways that companies can tackle both and help to level the playing field in the media and entertainment industry.

To help women advance to senior positions

Appoint more women to board positions. Adding more women to the board can help ensure greater gender parity as companies evaluate candidates for senior-leadership positions. Board diversity can help to draw in and motivate more talented employees from a broader set of backgrounds. A good way to get started is for boards to make a visible commitment to diversity  and set new principles for decision making—by including women on every candidate slate, for instance. They can also expand their criteria for who gets on the board—by considering candidates with the right expertise, for example, and not just those with prior experience.

Establish senior-sponsorship programs. Sponsorship is crucial to career advancement for both men and women, but research shows they often have networks of different sizes and compositions. For instance, women’s networks tend to be mostly female, while men’s networks are mostly male. 8 “ Women in the Workplace 2016 .” This can become a disadvantage over time because of the lack of senior women available to provide sponsorship to the next generation of women. To bridge this gap, companies can create formal sponsorship programs that connect executives to high-potential women with the goal of building relationships, providing advice, and most important, creating opportunities.

Companies can create formal sponsorship programs that connect executives to high-potential women with the goal of building relationships, providing advice, and most important, creating opportunities.

Create and commit to a culture of accountability. Ensuring that people at the top of the organization are accountable for diversity and inclusion can help shed light on the lack of women in leadership positions. As it stands now, 53 percent of human-resources (HR) respondents from media and entertainment companies said that the head of HR was held accountable for progress (or lack thereof) on diversity metrics or targets, versus only 27 percent reporting that the CEO was held accountable. Compare that with the all-industry benchmark, where 62 percent of HR representatives said the head of HR was accountable and 53 percent said the CEO was held accountable. If companies are truly committed to diversity and gender parity, our research shows that the issue needs to be a top priority for senior leadership. 9 Jess Huang, Alexis Krivkovich, Irina Starikova, Lareina Yee, and Delia Zanoschi, “ Women in the Workplace 2019 .” The BBC’s 50:50 Project provides a good example: Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, set a target of having at least 50 percent women contributing to the creation of BBC content by 2019. In April 2018, only 27 percent of production teams associated with the 50:50 Project reported having at least 50 percent female contributors; by April 2019, that number had increased to 74 percent of production teams. 10 “The BBC announces results of 50:50 Project which reveals big increase in female representation,” May 15, 2019, bbc.co.uk.

Ensure fair evaluations. Establishing formal hiring and evaluation criteria for senior leaders, as well as rank-and-file managers, can help break down entrenched systems that have led to unequal representation at senior levels. One way to formalize these processes is to mandate that companies build diverse candidate slates when hiring; that is, the list of candidates should include at least two qualified women or minority candidates for the hiring managers’ consideration. Another way to ensure that evaluations are fair is to track the outcomes of hiring and promotions to determine whether certain candidates or certain genders, races, or ethnic groups are being favored. The data will reveal whether hiring managers are following company policies, or if new policies need to be created to ensure fair outcomes.

To help address culture issues

Establish a systematic training program to combat biases. Cognitive biases can creep into performance evaluation and hiring processes, at all levels. To help mitigate these biases, companies should offer unconscious-bias training  at important decision-making junctures—for instance, in the case of hiring or promotion decisions. Such training should be available to all, but especially for evaluators. Companies might even consider adding a bias observer to the process to flag any unconscious actions or views that may present themselves during performance evaluations or promotion discussions. When employees feel they have an equal opportunity for advancement and think the system is fair, they are likely to be happier with their career, plan to stay at their company longer, and are more likely to recommend it as a great place to work.

Biased behaviors can be deeply held, so one-off trainings or all-hands meetings may not be enough to change behaviors. True change will require a well-orchestrated campaign of diversity training, frequent communication, leadership modeling and support, and repetition. Such a programmatic approach to culture change should include systematic reminders and nudges about the characteristics of inclusive environments, as well as training and workshops that are aimed at changing behaviors. In an industry in which whom you know can be just as important as what you know, HR should deploy a programmatic approach to ensure that inclusivity is top of mind in the workplace day to day.

Listen to a woman’s perspective. A good way to understand how to create more inclusivity in organizations is to learn from the women who have risen to leadership roles despite the obstacles in their way. For instance, when we asked 150 attendees at a women-only leadership program about their day-to-day work experiences, the systematic shortfalls became clear. Companies must expand the definition of leadership  to encompass a range of styles and traits. They need to telegraph to employees at all levels that leaders need solid nurturing, collaboration, and listening skills, for example, as much as they need a strong and directive tone. Companies must also encourage dissent, so employees won’t be afraid to speak up about inequities and raise awareness about the challenges they face. And they must create space for reflection about gender and leadership issues—for instance, seeking feedback on this topic not just once a year, but on a rolling basis. By making progress in each of these areas, companies can create more inclusive workplaces, improve retention rates among female leaders, and help women fulfill their career goals.

Enlist men as allies. Our research revealed a significant awareness gap between men and women in media and entertainment with regard to noticing biased behaviors in the workplace. A good first step toward closing this gap would be to provide training for employees at all levels on how to work within diverse teams—how to vary communication styles, for example, or how to recognize and limit microaggressions. Several global organizations, including UN Women, provide corporate-action kits to help with just this goal and to promote workplace equality. 11 “Take action,” HeForShe, heforshe.org.

Given the nature of the media and the entertainment industry’s ability to influence culture at large through its production of film, video, and news publications, it is important for this industry to pay close attention to inclusion principles. As this report suggests, progress has been made, but there is more work to be done.

Lucas Beard is a consultant in McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office, Jonathan Dunn is a partner in the the Southern California and New York offices, Jess Huang is a partner in the Silicon Valley office, and Alexis Krivkovich is a senior partner in the San Francisco office.

The authors wish to thank Press Forward for its help convening news-industry participation in the 2019 Women in the Workplace survey.

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Representation of gender in media Report (Assessment)

Introduction, media representation, gender and media representation, representation of role models, media stereotyping, women and men representation in media, reference list.

It is amazing to note that some people spend more time feeding on media content than doing an assignment, exercising or even sleeping. While this may be a leisure activity for some people, the impact of media cannot be underestimated today (Bennett 2005, p. 12). This assessment essay focuses on the issue of gender representation in media, with regard to image, roles and stereotypes.

What is media representation? According to media theorists, representation refers to any model in any medium that defines a real aspect, say, people, events, objects, places and cultural identities among countless abstract concepts. Such representation may be written, spoken or expressed in moving pictures.

In defining media representation, the end products are also considered through the construction of one’s identity. For instance, an issue like “gaze” may consider how women look at images of women, men at women or even women at men (Bennett 2005, p. 12).

An important point to note is that all texts are always constructed irrespective of how realistic they may appear. They do not represent mere recordings or reproduction of pre-existing circumstances that are real (Briggs & Cobley 2002, p. 10).

Additionally, representations may become familiar and natural when they are used constantly. As a result, such denotations may become acceptable by the general public because of their recurring nature. Although it is never taken with a lot of emphasis, there is always need to interpret representations in order to appreciate the intended meaning.

Due to this assumption, most people end up making modality judgments towards various representations through the media. Above all, representation is unavoidable; it always exits even when we have no idea about its existence. As a result, its impact in human life is inevitable.

Gender is arguably the basic element of identification commonly used to categorize human beings as men or women. Nevertheless, the concept of gender is also sensitive and of immense significance in discussing media representation (Laughey 2009, p. 10).

Based on this element, each group identifies its members through similarities that are either inherent or borrowed from the surrounding in order to find a suitable and definitive description. In other words, human beings tend to obey the acceptable definition of man or woman by identifying themselves with certain elements.

In the understanding of media representation, it is worth noting that there are several objects, which are usually represented even though they may not necessarily be human (Dines & Humez 2010, p. 3). This representation usually aims at giving that item feminine or masculine characteristics.

From a simple understanding, masculinity is associated with hard, tough and sweaty issues while feminine objects appear fragrant, fragile and soft. Common objects represented with either a masculine or feminine-touch include but not limited to, smart phones, running shoes, bottled beer, an airline and a sports car.

As mentioned above, media plays a significant role in shaping our lives and understanding of what it means to be a man or woman. No one can deny that role models do have impact on millions of people consuming media content (Andrews & Jackson 2001, p. 20).

Role models are supposed to influence the society positively. Is this how they are represented? Whether in a commercial advert or any representation, prominent people are usually used to define men and women in a different way. It is however important to ask how these role models represent variation of men and women.

In other words, representation of men and women through the media may not necessarily reflect the identity of an entire generation or society (Bennett 2005, p. 5). In fact, some theorists argue that gender representation is undoubtedly based on stereotypes among various people.

At this point, it is imperative to affirm that stereotypic representation of men and women using role models usually exerts negative effects on the society. For example, people tend to identify themselves with particular personalities by emulating their lifestyle in terms of dress code, dietary or even the way of talking (Bucy 2002, p. 20).

Does media represent the true image of men and women? Stereotyping is not a new term in the media industry especially with regard to how men and women are represented. In fact, stereotyping in media cannot be avoided and it is a common phenomenon in news, advertising and entertainment industries (Carrington 2010, p. 138).

What is not known to many people is the fact that media stereotypes act as hints or codes, which help viewers, listeners or readers to figure out an individual or group of people, with regard to social class, occupation or ethnicity among other aspect of identity.

Notably, media stereotypes have a wide range of negative effects. For example, the manner in which men and women are represented may reduce their inherent differences into classes of people defined by simple traits (Giddings & Lister 2011, p. 10).

Similarly, stereotypes affect the manner in which people perceive life. They change perceptions into realities, such that people may begin to actualize the image represented by the media. In some cases, media stereotypes are used to erroneously justify some positions, say, for leaders in power.

This can be misleading to the public, as they may adopt a misguided meaning of leadership and power (Carrington 2010, p. 138). It has to be mentioned that groups of people who are prone to being stereotyped usually have minimum or no influence in determining their representation. Based, on this argument, media stereotypes have a significant impact on the society.

Under normal circumstance, one would expect the media to represent men and women positively. Is this the case? No! From TV shows to fashion magazines on the streets, women have always been represented negatively. Think of advertising agents and women. Almost every advert, whether for cars or food, carries the image of a woman (Cashmore 2006, p. 98).

Popular female personalities appear to have peculiar features like extreme thinness, bleached skins and always becoming younger in spite of their advanced age. It is very common to find media adverts or articles influencing women to adopt certain beauty standards perceived to be more appealing and acceptable than their natural outlook even though some of the conditions may be unattainable (Hills & Kennedy 2009, p. 13).

It is viewed that economics of beauty play a major role. By insisting on an ideal figure, body size and skin color, cosmetic and diet industries enhance continuity of their business as they have a ready market (Livingstone 2002, p. 77).

Importantly, insecure women are more prone to acquiring these products as compared to those who are comfortable with their body images. In order to achieve these extreme and unattainable standards, most women resort to unhealthy eating habits like induced vomiting, skipping meals or even opting for diet aids (Creeber & Martin 2009, p. 5).

Magazines, movies and television emphasize the need for ladies to have a thin body, associating it with wealth, prosperity, love and a happy life. Besides body image, media represents women as sex objects. TV, movies and magazines carry ads which imply that a woman’s body is supposed to be sexually active and attractive.

In terms of professionalism, women are underrepresented. Mainstream media concentrates on having men as main news presenters while women are allowed to report on minor issues like domestic violence and accidents (Cashmore 2006, p.188).

Are men exempted from negative representation? The truth is that men are differently represented in the media. In most cases, men are seen to be in control of others, aggressive, physically appealing and financially stable (Dworkin & Heywood 2003, p. 65).

This representation has far-reaching implications on the society, as boys and men assimilate what that they consume from the media into their daily lives. They therefore tend to be in control of every situation in life and may resort to aggression in cases where they find resistance, emulating how male characters carry themselves in media (Wenner 1998, p. 27).

Male stereotypes in media are grouped into five classes as follows. The joker presents men as people who lack seriousness, while the jock fights in life and finds approval in the eyes of men. On the other hand, the strong silent type portrays a decisive man who is always in control (Rowe 2011, p. 20).

The big shot denotes a professionally, socially and economically stable man, in possession of societal dreams like wealth and power. Lastly, the action hero man is angry and violent. All these representations affect the manner in which the society perceives men, how men define their position in the society and how boys define masculinity (Whannel 2001, p. 1).

As a major marketing tool, advertising ought to communicate the intended message in the most appropriate manner. As a result, men and women can be used in wooing customers in the business world, in a positive way. However, researchers affirm that most ads designed for men are common during sports shows.

Accordingly, women are rarely featured, with stereotypes taking center stage among a few that are considered. In extreme cases, women are represented as gifts given to men who have the capability of choosing the best products on the market (Wenner 1998, p. 27).

With regard to beer commercials, most ads carry slim and white men, who attract women. Additionally, adverts present men as powerful and masculine. They therefore dominate, while women are stereotypically portrayed as slender and on special diet. This approach has negative impact on the society through emulation of certain traits by people who feed on media content.

From this assessment, it is clear that media plays an immense role in shaping human life, through information. Nevertheless, representation of gender in media is a debatable issue that continues to affect the society today.

There is no doubt that some of the vices observed like scanty dressing, poor eating disorders and violence are directly or indirectly propagated by the media through stereotyping; both men and women are victims.

Andrews, D & Jackson, S 2001, Sport Stars: The Cultural Politics of Sporting Celebrity , Routledge, London.

Bennett, A 2005, Culture and Everyday Life, SAGE, London.

Briggs, A & Cobley, P 2002, The Media: An Introduction , Longman, Harlow.

Bucy, E 2002, Living in the Information Age: A New Media Reader , Wadsworth New York.

Carrington, B 2010, Race, Sport and Politics , Sage, London.

Cashmore, E 2006, Celebrity/Culture , Routledge, London.

Creeber, G & Martin, R 2009, Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media , Open University Press, Michigan.

Dines, G & Humez, R 2010, Gender Race and Class in the Media , Routledge, London.

Dworkin, S & Heywood, L 2003, Built to win: The female athlete as cultural icon , University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.

Giddings, S & Lister, M 2011, The New Media and Techno-cultures Reader , Routledge, London.

Hills, L & Kennedy, E 2009, Sport, Media and Society , Berg, Oxford.

Laughey, D 2009, Media Studies: Theories and approaches, Oldcastle Books, Harpenden.

Livingstone, S 2002, Young People and New Media , Sage, London.

Rowe, D 1998, Global Media Sport: Flows, Forms and Futures , Bloomsbury, London.

Wenner, L 1998, Media Sport , Routledge, New York.

Whannel, G 2001, Media Sport Stars: Masculinities and Moralities , Routledge, London.

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Article contents

Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity.

• Travis L. Dixon , Travis L. Dixon Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Kristopher R. Weeks Kristopher R. Weeks Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
•  and  Marisa A. Smith Marisa A. Smith Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.502
• Published online: 23 May 2019

Racial stereotypes flood today’s mass media. Researchers investigate these stereotypes’ prevalence, from news to entertainment. Black and Latino stereotypes draw particular concern, especially because they misrepresent these racial groups. From both psychological and sociological perspectives, these misrepresentations can influence how people view their racial group as well as other groups. Furthermore, a racial group’s lack of representation can also reduce the group’s visibility to the general public. Such is the case for Native Americans and Asian Americans.

Given mass media’s widespread distribution of black and Latino stereotypes, most research on mediated racial portrayals focuses on these two groups. For instance, while black actors and actresses appear often in prime-time televisions shows, black women appear more often in situational comedies than any other genre. Also, when compared to white actors and actresses, television casts blacks in villainous or despicable roles at a higher rate. In advertising, black women often display Eurocentric features, like straight hair. On the other hand, black men are cast as unemployed, athletic, or entertainers. In sports entertainment, journalists emphasize white athletes’ intelligence and black athletes’ athleticism. In music videos, black men appear threatening and sport dark skin tones. These music videos also sexualize black women and tend to emphasize those with light skin tones. News media overrepresent black criminality and exaggerate the notion that blacks belong to the undeserving poor class. Video games tend to portray black characters as either violent outlaws or athletic.

While mass media misrepresent the black population, it tends to both misrepresent and underrepresent the Latino population. When represented in entertainment media, Latinos assume hypersexualized roles and low-occupation jobs. Both news and entertainment media overrepresent Latino criminality. News outlets also overly associate Latino immigration with crime and relate Latino immigration to economic threat. Video games rarely portray Latino characters.

Creators may create stereotypic content or fail to fairly represent racial and ethnic groups for a few reasons. First, the ethnic blame discourse in the United States may influence creators’ conscious and unconscious decision-making processes. This discourse contends that the ethnic and racial minorities are responsible for their own problems. Second, since stereotypes appeal to and are easily processed by large general audiences, the misrepresentation of racial and ethnic groups facilitates revenue generation. This article largely discusses media representations of blacks and Latinos and explains the implications of such portrayals.

• content analysis
• African American portrayals
• Latino portrayals
• ethnic blame discourse
• structural limitations and economic interests
• social identity theory
• Clark’s Stage Model of Representations

Theoretical Importance of Media Stereotypes

Media constructions of culture, race, and ethnicity remain important to study because of their potential impact on both sociological and psychological phenomena. Specifically, researchers have utilized two major theoretical constructs to understand the potential impact of stereotyping: (a) priming and cognitive accessibility (Dixon, 2006 ; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007 ; Shrum, 2009 ), and (b) social identity and social categorization theory (Mastro, 2004 ; Mastro, Behm-Morawitz, & Kopacz, 2008 ; Tajfel & Turner, 2004 ).

Priming and Cognitive Accessibility

Priming and cognitive accessibility suggests that media consumption encourages the creation of mental shortcuts used to make relevant judgments about various social issues. For example, if a news viewer encounters someone cognitively related to a given stereotype, he or she might make a judgment about that person based on repeated exposure to the mediated stereotype. As an illustration, repeated exposure to the Muslim terrorist stereotype may lead news viewers to conclude that all Muslims are terrorists. This individual may also support punitive policies related to this stereotype, such as a Muslim ban on entry to the United States. Therefore, this cognitive linkage influences race and crime judgments (e.g., increased support for criminalizing Muslims and deporting them).

Social Identity Theory and Media Judgments

Other scholars have noted that our own identities are often tied to how people perceive their groups’ relationships to other groups. Social categorization theory argues that the higher the salience of the category to the individual, the greater the in-group favoritism one will demonstrate. Media scholars demonstrated that exposure to a mediated out-group member can increase in-group favoritism (Mastro, 2004 ). For example, researchers found that negative stories about Latino immigrants can contribute to negative out-group emotions that lead to support for harsher immigration laws (Atwell Seate & Mastro, 2016 , 2017 ).

Both the priming/cognitive accessibility approach and the social identity approach demonstrate that cultural stereotypes have significant implications for our psychology, social interactions, and policymaking. It remains extremely important for us to understand the nature and frequency of mediated racial and ethnic stereotypes to further our understanding of how these stereotypes impact viewers. This article seeks to facilitate our understanding.

Stage Model of Representation

In order to provide the reader with an introduction to this topic, this article relies on the published content-analytic literature regarding race and media. Clark’s Stage Model of Representation articulates a key organizing principle for understanding how media may construct various depictions of social groups (Clark, 1973 ; Harris, 2013 ). This model purports that race/ethnic groups move through four stages of representation in the media. In the first stage, invisibility or non-recognition , a particular race or ethnic group rarely appears on the screen at all. In the second stage, ridicule , a racial group will appear more frequently, yet will be depicted in consistently stereotypical ways. In the third stage, regulation , an ethnic group might find themselves depicted primarily in roles upholding the social order, such as judges or police officers. Finally, a particular social group reaches the respect stage in which members of the group occupy diverse and nuanced roles. Given Clark’s model, this article contends that Native Americans and Asian Americans tend to fall into the non-recognition stage (Harris, 2013 ). It follows that few empirical studies have investigated these groups because empirical content analyses have difficulty scientifically assessing phenomena that lack presence (Krippendorff, 2004 ).

Bearing in mind Clark’s stages, Latinos appear to vacillate between non-recognition and ridicule. Meanwhile, blacks move between the ridicule and regulation stages, while whites remain permanently fixed in the respect stage. In other words, in this article, our lack of deep consideration of Native Americans and Asian Americans is rooted in a lack of representation which generates few empirical studies and thus leaves us little to review. The article offers a quick overview of their portrayal and then moves on to describe the social groups that receive more media and empirical attention.

Native American and Asian American Depictions

Although severely underrepresented, there are a few consistent stereotypical portrayals that regularly emerge for these groups. In some ways, both Native American and Asian Americans are often relegated to “historical” and/or fetishized portrayals (Lipsitz, 1998 ). Native American “savage” imagery was commonly depicted in Westerns and has been updated with images of alcoholism, along with depictions of shady Native American casino owners (Strong, 2004 ). Many news images of Native Americans tend to focus on Native festivals, relegating this group to a presentation as “mysterious” spiritual people (Heider, 2000 ). Meanwhile, various school and professional team mascots embody the savage Native American Warrior trope (Strong, 2004 ).

Asian Americans overall have often been associated with being the model minority (Harris, 2009 ; Josey, Hurley, Hefner, & Dixon, 2009 ). They typically represent “successful” non-whites. Specifically, media depictions associate Asian American men with technology and Asian American women with sexual submissiveness (Harris & Barlett, 2009 ; Schug, Alt, Lu, Gosin, & Fay, 2017 ).

Overall, scholars know very little about how either of these groups are regularly portrayed based on empirical research, although novelists and critical scholars have offered useful critiques (Wilson, Gutiérrez, & Chao, 2003 ). Hopefully, future quantitative content analyses will further delineate the nature of Native American and Asian American portrayals. Consider the discussion about entertainment, news, and digital imagery of blacks, Latinos, and whites presented in the next section.

Entertainment Constructions of Race, Culture, and Ethnicity

Entertainment media receives a great deal of consideration, given that Americans spend much of their time using media for entertainment purposes (Harris, 2013 ; Sparks, 2016 ). This section begins with an analysis of black portrayals, then moves on to Latino portrayals to understand the prevalence of stereotyping . When appropriate, black and Latino representations are compared to white ones. Two measures describe a group’s representation: (a) the numerical presence of a particular racial/ethnic group, and (b) the distribution of roles or stereotypes regarding each group. When researchers have often engaged in examinations of race they typically begin by comparing African American portrayals to white portrayals (Entman & Rojecki, 2000 ). As a result, there is a substantial amount of research on black portrayals.

Black Entertainment Television Imagery

Overall, a number of studies have found that blacks receive representation in prime-time television at parity to their actual proportion in the US population with their proportion ranging from 10% to 17% of prime-time characters (Mastro & Greenberg, 2000 ; Signorielli, 2009 ; Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015 ). African Americans currently compose approximately 13% of the US population (US Census Bureau, 2018 ). When considering the type of characters (e.g., major or minor) portrayed by this group, the majority of black (61%) cast members land roles as major characters (Monk-Turner, Heiserman, Johnson, Cotton, & Jackson, 2010 ). Black women also fare well in these representations, accounting for 73% of black appearances on prime-time television (Monk-Turner et al., 2010 ).

However, recent content analyses reveal an instability in black prime-time television representation over the last few decades. Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) found that the prevalence of black characters dropped in 1993 and remain diminished compared to previous decades. Similarly, Signorielli ( 2009 ) found a significant linear decrease in the proportion of black representation from 2001 (17%) to 2008 (12%). Signorielli ( 2009 ) attributes this decrease in black representation to the decrease in situation comedy programming. Indeed, African Americans appear most frequently in situation comedies. Sixty percent of black women featured in prime-time television are cast in situation comedies, and 25% of black male prime-time portrayals occur in situation comedies (Signorielli, 2009 ). However, between 2001 and 2008 , situational comedies decreased, while action and crime programs increased.

The previously discussed analyses describe the frequency of black representation. However, frequent depictions do not equate to favorable representation. Considering role quality (i.e., respectability) and references made to stereotypes, entertainment media offers a mixed bag. On the one hand, some recent analyses found that the majority of blacks are depicted as likable, and as “good characters,” as opposed to “bad character”-like villains (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015 ). In addition, the majority of black characters are depicted as intelligent (Tukachinsky et al., 2015 ). On the other hand, the rate of blacks shown as immoral and despicable (9%) is higher than that of whites (2% and 3%, respectively) (Monk-Turner et al., 2010 ). In addition, black depictions exhibiting high social status and professionalism trended downward. Between 2003 and 2005 , higher status depictions reached their peak at 74.3% but sharply fell in subsequent years to 31.5%, with black women faring worse than black men (Tukachinsky et al., 2015 ). Classic studies of entertainment representations found that blacks tend to be the most negatively represented of any race or ethnic group, often being depicted as lazy and disheveled (Mastro & Greenberg, 2000 ). Overall, black characters tend to be portrayed in less respectful ways compared to whites in content intended for general audiences, although they sometime fare better when the targeted audience is African American (Messineo, 2008 ). For example, crime drama television frequently depicts white women as at risk for murder, but FBI statistics demonstrate that murder victims are more often likely to be black males (Parrott & Parrott, 2015 ).

Black Representations in Magazines and Advertising

African Americans remain well represented in magazines, though they are not as prominent in this medium as in television (Schug et al., 2017 ). Moreover, the trend in the representation of African Americans, particularly women, appears to be improving (Covert & Dixon, 2008 ). Images of black women represent 6% of advertisements in women’s magazines and 4% of advertisements in men’s magazines (Baker, 2005 ). However, both black-oriented and white-oriented magazines appear to advance portrayals of black women with Eurocentric rather than Afrocentric features, referencing whiteness as a beauty standard. Overall, compared to black-oriented magazines, white-oriented magazines feature more black women with fair skin and thin figures. Black-oriented magazines feature more black women with straight hair. Moreover, straight hair textures outnumber other natural styles (i.e., wavy, curly, or braided) in both white- and black-oriented magazines.

Conversely, black men typically assume unemployed, athletic, or entertainment roles in these ads (Bailey, 2006 ). Moreover, mainstream magazines are most likely to depict black men as unemployed. Meanwhile, black-oriented magazines tend to portray African Americans in more managerial roles.

Black Representations in Sports Entertainment

Besides prime-time television, black stereotypes in sports coverage and music receive substantial attention in the literature. The unintelligent or “dumb” yet naturally talented black athlete remains a programming staple (Angelini, Billings, MacArthur, Bissell, & Smith, 2014 ; Rada & Wulfemeyer, 2005 ). For example, Angelini et al. ( 2014 ) found that black athletes receive less success-based comments related to intelligence than white athletes (Angelini et al., 2014 ). The findings echo previous research arguing that black athletes receive fewer positive comments regarding their intelligence than do white athletes (Rada & Wulfemeyer, 2005 ). Fairly similar depictions exist in broadcast commentary (Primm, DuBois, & Regoli, 2007 ). For example, Mercurio and Filak ( 2010 ) content-analyzed descriptions of NFL quarterback prospects featured on the Sports Illustrated website from 1998 to 2007 . The descriptions portray black athletes as possessing physical abilities while lacking intelligence . Conversely, Sports Illustrated described white prospects as intelligent but lacking in athleticism.

Black Representations in Music Videos

Music videos tend to sexualize black women, reinforcing the black jezebe l stereotype (i.e., a sassy African American woman who is sexually promiscuous) (Givens & Monahan, 2005 ). Also, black men appear aggressive and violent in music videos (e.g., like a criminal, thug, or brute ) (Ford, 1997 ). According to rap research, blacks appear in provocative clothes at a higher rate than whites, and black women are the most provocatively dressed in music videos (Turner, 2011 ). Even black female artists are twice as likely to wear provocative clothing than are white female artists (Frisby & Aubrey, 2012 ). Furthermore, Zhang, Dixon, and Conrad ( 2010 ) and Conrad, Zhang, and Dixon ( 2009 ) found that black women appeared in rap videos as sexualized, thin, and light-skinned while black men appeared dark-skinned and threatening .

Latino Entertainment Television Representation

Unlike African Americans, Latinos remain significantly underrepresented in English-language television outlets. For instance, Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) found that of all characters, the number of Latino characters was less than 1% in the 1980s and increased to over 3% in the 2000s. However, these numbers fall significantly below the proportion of people who are Latino within the United States (about 18%) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018 ). Similarly, Signorelli ( 2009 ) also found that the percentage of Latinos in the United States Latino population and the percentage of Latino characters in prime-time programming differed by approximately 10%.

Latinos continue to be underrepresented in a variety of genres and outlets. For instance, Latinos remain consistently underrepresented in gay male blogs. For example, Grimm and Schwarz ( 2017 ) found that white gay models (80.2%) were most prevalent, followed by black gay models (4.5%). However, Latino models were the least prevalent (1.5%). In addition, Hetsroni ( 2009 ) found that the Latino population makes up 14% of patients in real hospitals, yet they only comprise 4% of the patients in hospital dramas. Conversely, whites make up 72% of real patients but comprise 80% of hospital drama patients.

Latino Underrepresentation in Advertising

Latino underrepresentation extends to the advertising realm. For example, Seelig ( 2007 ) determined that there was a significant difference between the Latino proportion of the US population and the Latino proportion of models found in mainstream magazines (1%). Another study that investigated Superbowl commercials conducted by Brooks, Bichard, and Craig ( 2016 ) found that only 1.22% of the characters were Latino.

Prominent Stereotypes of Latinos in Entertainment Media

Although underrepresented, Latinos are also stereotypically represented in entertainment media. For example, Tukachinsky et al. ( 2015 ) discovered that over 24% of Latino characters were hypersexualized in prime-time television. Furthermore, Latinos tended to occupy low-professional-status roles. This trend also occurred more often with Latina females than Latino males.

Spanish-language television also reinforced stereotypes. For instance, Mastro and Ortiz ( 2008 ) studied the portrayals of characters in prime-time Spanish-language television broadcasts by Azteca America, Telefutura, Telemundo, and Univision. They found rich Latina women reinforced the harlot stereotype . They were sexualized , were provocatively dressed, and had slim body types (Mastro & Behm-Morawitz, 2005 ). Similar to the findings for African Americans and rap music, colorism was also part of these depictions, with idealized Latinos having more European features. Men with a dark complexion were depicted as aggressive (e.g., the criminal stereotype) , while men with a fair complexion were portrayed as intelligent and articulate.

Entertainment Imagery Summary

Blacks appear to be well represented in entertainment imagery, often in favorable major roles as professionals. However, their positive portrayals appear to be on the decline as situation comedies become displaced by other genres where blacks are less prominent. Although well represented, black depictions continue to embody many stereotypes. African American males are portrayed as unintelligent or “dumb” athletes whose only assets are their inbred athletic abilities. Black men tend to appear as aggressive criminals or brutes in music videos while black women appear as sexualized jezebels with European features.

Latinos, on the other hand, face substantial obstacles related to their lack of representation. They tend to be grossly underrepresented across a number of entertainment outlets including television, magazines, and advertising. When they are seen, they tend to occupy two primary stereotypes, the harlot stereotype and the criminal stereotype. This appears to be a constant across both Spanish-language and English-language outlets.

News Constructions of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

News remains an important area to consider when it comes to media stereotypes for two reasons. First, news can be considered a powerful purveyor of social truth (Romer, Jamieson, & Aday, 2003 ; Tewksbury & Rittenberg, 2012 ). While entertainment can be considered by lay audiences to have a weak relationship with social reality given its fictional nature, news is rooted in actual events, and therefore seems more real. Stereotypes found in news content may seem believable, increasing these stereotype’s influence on audiences’ perceptions of reality. Second, citizens rely on news to form opinions about policies and politicians (Iyengar, 1987 ; Price & Tewksbury, 1997 ). News reports contain the reservoir of information that citizens utilize to make decisions within our representative democracy (Iyengar, 1991 ). If the news falsely points to racial groups as the cause of social problems, these citizens may advocate for ineffective and misguided policies. The next section explores how the news purveys racial and ethnic stereotypes.

Blacks in the News

A number of early studies suggested that the news often stereotyped blacks as violent criminals , consistently overrepresenting them in these roles by large margins (Dixon, Azocar, & Casas, 2003 ; Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ; Entman, 1992 , 1994 ). At the same time, many of these studies showed blacks underrepresented in more sympathetic roles, such as victims of crime (Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ).

However, recent research suggests that the criminal stereotype has not remained consistently part of the news landscape. For example, Dixon ( 2017b ) found that current depictions of blacks in local news reflect actual percentages of blacks in these various roles, including as criminals. Similarly, Dixon and Williams ( 2015 ) found African Americans underrepresented as both criminals and victims. On the other hand, another recent content analysis that investigated black family depictions in the news, conducted by Dixon ( 2017a ), found that black family members were overrepresented as criminal suspects compared to crime reports.

Furthermore, Mastro, Blecha, and Atwell Seate ( 2011 ) content-analyzed articles pertaining to athletes’ criminal activity published in newspapers and found that mentions of black athletes’ criminal activity outnumber white and Latino athletes. Furthermore, mentions of criminal activity among black athletes outnumber their real-world proportion in professional sports (Mastro et al., 2011 ). In addition, crime articles discussing black athletes provide more explicit details of the crime and mention more negative consequences (e.g., jail or fines) than articles regarding white athletes. News narratives also present less sympathetic coverage for black athletes, more support for the victim, a less respectful tone, and fewer thematic frames (i.e., situating the crime in a larger context) for black athletes compared to white athletes.

Besides criminality , news tends to also depict blacks as part of the underserving poor . For example, van Doorn ( 2015 ) content-analyzed images depicting poverty in news magazines (i.e., Time, Newsweek , and USNWR ). News magazines picture blacks as the majority of persons in poverty (52%), while blacks only account for around 25% of Americans in poverty (van Doorn, 2015 ). Blacks experience similar misrepresentations as welfare recipients . Based on magazine depictions, black people comprise 55% of all welfare recipients. However, in reality, blacks only account for 38% of welfare recipients. Furthermore, the black elderly are depicted as only accounting for 1% of poor elderly persons pictured, while the true percentage is 6%. In addition, during times of economic stability, African American association with poverty increases, but during times of economic upheaval (e.g., the Great Recession) white association with poverty goes up.

Latinos in the News

If there is an overarching issue to consider regarding Latino depictions in news, it would again be their perpetual underrepresentation. Overall, Latinos remain severely underrepresented on television news, especially in sympathetic roles. For example, early studies by Dixon and Linz ( 2000a , 2000b ) found Latinos were underrepresented as perpetrators, victims, and police officers in the news. In one of these studies, Latinos were 54% of the homicide victims in Los Angeles County but were depicted as homicide victims only about 19% of the time on television news. A recent update to this study found that Latinos were accurately represented as perpetrators, but continued to be underrepresented as victims and police officers (Dixon, 2017b ). This invisibility extends to newspapers and magazines (Sorenson, Manz, & Berk, 1998 ). For example, Latinos are underrepresented in Time and Newsweek as part of the obese population, 5% in these magazines versus 18% according to medical statistics (Gollust, Eboh, & Barry, 2012 ).

When we considered the pervasive stereotype that is present with Latinos, it revolved around the issue of immigration and Latino immigrants as criminal or cultural threats . For instance, a meta-analysis (i.e., a type of method that unearths patterns of academic research) by Rendon and Johnson ( 2015 ) on studies that analyzed media coverage of Mexican affairs in the United States revealed a Threat Phase, from 2010 to 2014 . During this phase, reporters investigated the notion that immigrant Mexicans imperil the United States. Furthermore, Chavez, Whiteford, and Hoewe ( 2010 ) found that more than half of analyzed stories concerning Mexican immigration from the New York Times , Washington Post , Wall Street Journal , and USA Today focused on illegal immigration. Furthermore, within these immigration stories, crime was addressed most often (50.6%), followed by economics (e.g., job competition) (30.6%), and legislative deliberations (28.1%). Similarly, Branton and Dunaway ( 2008 ) found that English-language newspapers were almost twice as likely as Spanish-language news to depict immigration in a negative light.

Kim, Carvahlo, Davis, and Mullins ( 2011 ) found that illegal immigration stories produced by the media focus on the negative consequences of crime and job competition. A more recent study conducted by Dixon and Williams ( 2015 ) appears to confirm the media link between immigration, Latinos, and criminal behavior. They found that criminal suspects identified as immigrants in news stories were greatly overrepresented as Latino. In addition, almost all of the illegal or undocumented immigrants appearing in the news were depicted as Latino, which is a great overrepresentation based on official government reports. Dunaway, Goidel, Krizinger, and Wilkinson ( 2011 ) confirm that news coverage encourages an immigration threat narrative, meaning that the majority of immigration stories exhibit a negative tone.

Whites as the “Good Guys”

While black representations as criminal suspects does appear to vary in intensity and Latinos tend to be depicted as either invisible or threatening immigrants, white portrayals remain consistently positive in this domain. Classic studies of both news and reality-based programming show whites overrepresented as officers and victims (Dixon et al., 2003 ; Dixon & Linz, 2000a , 2000b ; Oliver, 1994 ). This includes network and local news programs. More recent studies show that this continues to occur regularly and remains a news programming staple (Dixon, 2017b ). When contrasted with black and Latino representations, this reinforces the notion that whites resolve social problems and people of color create social problems.

Summary of News Constructions of Culture, Race, and Media

Based on this literature review, three significant findings that summarize news’ construction of race and ethnicity emerge. First, African Americans tend to be overly associated with criminality and poverty . However, the intensity of these portrayals depends on context (e.g., a focus on families, athletes, or general economic conditions). Second, Latinos tend to be largely underrepresented, but when they are seen, they tend to be overly associated with problematic illegal immigration , especially immigrants who may pose a threat or be prone to criminality. Third, news depicts whites most favorably, overrepresenting them as victims (e.g., innocent portrayals) and officers (e.g., heroic portrayals).

Digital Media Constructions of Culture, Race, and Media

The vast majority of research detailing the portrayal of people of color in the media relied on the analysis of traditional media sources including television and magazines. However, increasingly, people turn to digital media for both entertainment and news. This section provides an overview of this growing industry that will eventually dominate our media landscape. The discussion first entails video games and Internet news websites. Speculation about the role social media will play with regard to these depictions follows.

Black Depictions in Video Games

An abundance of research focuses on racial representation within video games (Burgess, Dill, Stermer, Burgess, & Brown, 2011 ; Williams, Martins, Consalvo, & Ivory, 2009 ). Similar to traditional entertainment media, African Americans comprise approximately 11% of popular video game characters for major game systems (e.g., Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube) (Williams et al., 2009 ). Conversely, blacks are underrepresented in massive multiplayer online games (MMO) in which players customize their own avatars’ features, including gender and skin tone (Waddell, Ivory, Conde, Long, & McDonnell, 2014 ). In this environment only 3.84% of all unique characters within MMOs are black.

When considering gender differences in portrayals, more problematic depictions exist. For instance, black women are underrepresented in gaming magazines and almost completely absent from video game covers (Burgess et al., 2011 ). Meanwhile, black men are typically portrayed as either athletic and/or violent . Black aggression does not occur in socially sanctioned settings (e.g., war). Instead, many black males appear as outlaws (e.g., street fighters).

Black Depictions in Digital News Sources

There is limited research on news depictions and race within digital media contexts, but this will most likely become the focus of future scholarship over the next few years. This focus will be fueled by the rise of political figures, such as Donald Trump, who utilize media stereotypes to advance their political agendas (Dixon, 2017a ). Much of what we do know stems from research on websites and digital news sources. One earlier study of this phenomena found that African Americans were underrepresented as part of images and headlines used in these web news stories (Josey et al., 2009 ). They were also more strongly associated with poverty than what the actual poverty rates suggest. A more recent analysis of a wide variety of online news sources similarly found that black families were overrepresented as poor and welfare dependent (Dixon, 2017a ). In addition, black fathers were misrepresented as excessively absent from the lives of their children. Finally, African American family members were overrepresented as criminal suspects. These findings complement the traditional news conclusions reached by previous scholars.

Latino Depictions in Video Games

Waddell, Ivory, Conde, Long, and McDonnell ( 2014 ) found that the trend of Latino underrepresentation in media extends to the video game industry. Latino avatars were not observed in the highest grossing MMO games in 2010 (0%). Williams, Martins, Consalvo, and Ivory ( 2009 ) also assessed the racial characteristics of video game characters across 150 games and found that white characters were observed more often (59.32%) than Latino (1.63%) characters. Furthermore, Latino characters were never observed assuming primary roles.

Latino Depictions in Digital News Sources

In terms of digital news sources, the research presents extremely similar findings between Latinos and African Americans. Latinos continue to be largely underrepresented across a variety of roles in web news (Josey et al., 2009 ). They are underrepresented in both headlines and images. They are also likely to be overassociated with poverty (Dixon, 2017a ; Josey et al., 2009 ).

Summary of Digital Constructions of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

In summary, underrepresentation remains the norm for both African Americans and Latinos in digital media. At the same time, digital news overly associates these groups with poverty . Clearly, as traditional media and its audience migrate to new digital platforms, this area will continue to be researchers’ focus well into the future. One digital platform not mentioned is social media. Many users receive, consume, and share entertainment and news content via social media. This includes music and music fandom content (Epps & Dixon, 2017 ). Social media’s specific and unique characteristics may contribute to media stereotype cultivation and prevent positive intergroup contact (Dixon, 2017c ). Much work needs to be undertaken in the future to explore these possibilities.

Conclusions

This article began with a discussion of the possible impact of mediated stereotypes to contextualize our discussion. Social categorization theory, social identity theory, and priming/cognitive accessibility suggest that the prominent black stereotypes of black laziness , criminality , innate athleticism , jezebel, and poverty would be embraced by heavy media consumers. Similarly, even though Latinos remain underrepresented, the reinforcement of Latino stereotypes like poverty , harlot , criminal , and illegal immigrant would result from regular media consumption. While underrepresented, Latinos receive enough mainstream media attention for scholars to conduct quantitative social research. Asian and Native Americans’ underrepresentation in mainstream media, however, indicates these groups’ general absence.

When educators teach these topics in class, they are often asked: Why? Why does media perpetuate these stereotypes? Consider these two prominent answers. First, media creators suffer from mostly unconscious, and sometimes conscious bias, that scholars believe facilitates an ethnic blame discourse (Dixon & Linz, 2000a ; Romer, Jamieson, & de Coteau, 1998 ; Van Dijk, 1993 ).

This discourse tends to occur within groups (e.g., whites conversing with one another) and leads them to blame social problems on ethnic others (e.g., Latinos and blacks). Given that media producers remain overwhelmingly white, this explanation appears plausible. As white people engage in these discussions, their way of thinking manifests in their content. The second explanation revolves around the structural limitations and economic interests of news agencies (Dixon & Linz, 2000a ). This explanation suggests that media agencies air material most appealing to audiences in the simplest form possible to increase ratings. This process heavily relies on stereotypes because stereotypes make processing and attending to media messages easier for audience members. In turn, profits increase. This points to problems related to the relationship between media content creation and the media industry’s profit motives. Skeptics may question these explanations’ plausibility, but overall, mediated stereotypes remain a persistent part of the media environment. Digital media exacerbate the negative effects of mediated stereotype consumption.

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Gendering Post-Soviet Space pp 3–26 Cite as

Evolution of Gender Role Attitudes and Gender Equality in Russia

• Ekaterina Skoglund   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3784-0842 5  
• First Online: 02 February 2021

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2 Citations

Social norms and individual attitudes are proven to shape individual behaviour and impact life-course decisions. The present chapter aims to systematize the fragmented evidence on the evolution of the gender role attitudes, and gender equality indicators since the end of the Soviet era to the present days in order to track whether the views of the Russian men and women have been developing towards more egalitarian, or more traditional, direction. The main focus is on such spheres as family formation and fertility, paid and unpaid work, and leadership and politics. The information on directly reported attitudes is withdrawn from a number of country-representative datasets and from polls collected by the Russian leading sociological and market research agencies. In the family formation and fertility sphere, the majority of the phenomena follow the tendencies characteristic to developed countries. The ambiguity and duality of the views can be observed when women’s economic participation, political empowerment, and even sharing of unpaid household duties are addressed.

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Acknowledgements

Ekaterina Skoglund thanks to all the staff and participants of the research seminars during her visiting research stay at the IER Hitotsubashi University in 2015 when the idea for the Chapter 1 was conceived. The financial and administrative support making this stay possible is also gratefully acknowledged.

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Russian Activists Just Won an Important Battle Over LGBTQ Rights. But the War Is Far From Over

T here aren’t many people like Yulia Tsvetkova in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The Russian city is 5,000 miles and seven time zones east of the capital, Moscow, and for half the year, it is under snow or ice. It’s known more for shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturing than LGBTQ rights and feminist activism — but that hasn’t stopped Tsvetkova forging a reputation in both. “There are practically no activists here, most of them try to leave,” she says, over a phone call. “But there’s still a lot I can do.”

In the past three years, the 27-year-old has headed a youth theatre, where she created plays that explored gender stereotypes, run online groups on feminism and sex education, and published drawings that she says promote LGBTQ and women’s rights on social media. Her activism has made her a target for the authorities. In July, about a week after the Kremlin pushed through constitutional amendments that include defining marriage as a union between a man and woman, Tsvetkova was fined for a second time under the country’s notorious “gay propaganda” law and forced to pay 75,000 Rubles ($1000) over her colorful illustrations of same-sex couples and their young children.

Tsvetkova is now facing charges of “spreading pornography” for a Vagina Monologues page she published on social media last November, which features illustrations of vaginas, aimed at breaking the stigma around women’s bodies. “I laughed, my lawyer laughed, my friends laughed. Anyone can see that this isn’t pornography,” she says. Yet she spent four months under house arrest and prosecutors are relentlessly trying to build a case against her. If she is found guilty, as 99% of those prosecuted in Russia’s criminal courts are, she could be sent to jail for up to six years. Tsvetkova has become a symbol of the resistance against Russia’s enforcement of “traditional values” and despite the Kremlin’s attempt to stigmatize her activism, she has received unprecedented support from celebrities, artists and journalists across Russia and beyond.

The defiance of Tsvetkova and many other LGBTQ activists in Russia may finally be paying off. Two weeks after the constitution was changed, the government proposed a bill to ban same-sex marriage and end the legal recognition of transgender people. Many activists had expected the landmark bill, co-authored by conservative lawmaker Elena Mizulina, to pass in the fall. But on Nov. 16 parliament revoked the bill for revision and it could now be scrapped altogether.

Svetlana Zakharova, a spokesperson at the Russian LGBT Network in St. Peterburg says she can’t say for sure why the law was repealed, but emphasizes that the LGBTQ community and its allies in Russia managed to unite to resist the legislation “more than ever before”. “Our activities, together, helped to dismiss the bill,” she says. Mizulina lost support because of the “tremendous level of public outrage about the bill’s homophobia and transphobia,” Jonny Dzhibladze, a coordinator at Vykhod (“Coming Out”), a St.Petersburg based LGBT rights group, says. “It looks like we can breathe freely for some time,” he says.

But a battle won does not mean the war is over. The climate for LGBTQ people in Russia is still extremely hostile. According to a 2019 report by the Russian LGBT Network, 12% of LGBT people surveyed reported being subject to physical attacks, and 56%, psychological abuse. LGBTQ activists have been arrested, attacked and killed . “If you live your life quietly and you do not make demands from the government, you do not express yourself publicly as an LGBT person, the government is not going to go after you,” says Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. The repeal of the bill is unlikely to change that situation. “It’s not as if everything was fine before the bill, and if it passed, everything would be bad,” says Tsvetkova. But it does seem like “we’re in a moment of transition between accepting what’s around us and challenging it,” she says.

Russia’s culture of intolerance

Over the past 20 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has closely aligned himself with the socially conservative Orthodox Church and has enacted legislation in purported defense of “traditional values” that activists say has promoted a culture of hostility toward the LGBTQ community. Russia is already one of the least LGBTQ friendly places in Europe, ranking higher than only Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey in the 2019 Rainbow Index , by Brussels-based advocacy group Ilga-Europe. In 2012, Moscow city authorities banned pride events for 100 years.

A year later Putin passed the so-called “gay propaganda” law, which bans information deemed to promote homosexuality to minors. The punishments were not severe, but it made it more dangerous for LGBTQ activists to claim their rights and stifled access to support services for LGBTQ youth. Alexander Kondakov, a researcher at the Centre for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg says “It cannot be denied that the discriminatory law and the hateful rhetoric around LGBT rights at the time influenced an increase in violence towards LGBT people”.

Then came this year’s bill. Activists say the legislation represented an escalation, taking aim at the rights of transgender people in particular. It was a “tremendous blow” for the trans community in Russia, says Lokshina. Activists say that ending legal recognition – banning transgender people from changing the sex on their birth certificate – as the bill proposed, would further marginalize an already vulnerable group and open the way for more discrimination.

Alexei Lis, a 36 year-old activist and transgender man from St. Petersburg says that “If the police stop me and ask for my I.D. and see a woman’s photo, I could be harassed and beaten.” Gaining legal recognition is “an important step for transgender people in intergrating in society”, in terms being able to apply for jobs and access medical services without fear of discrimination, says Reinera Veles, an 23 year-old activist and transgender woman from Moscow.

For many LGBTQ people and their allies, the bill was a step too far. Russian LGBTQ activists fought back through campaigns including a social media movement ( #ProtectRussianTransLives ) and a petition that has been signed by almost 23,000 people. Dozens of doctors specializing in gender transition also condemned the move. In an appeal to lawmakers, medical professionals wrote that the bill will “destroy” the process of full gender transition by ending the legal recognition of transgender people. They said that the practice, which has been in place for decades in Russia, is “extremely important” for the “socialization” of transgender people. Banning it would “aggravate” gender dysphoria, they said.

High profile figures also joined the protest, including playwright Valery Pecheikin, opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, and lawmaker and TV presenter Oksana Pushkina. Defying her colleagues in Putin’s United Russia party, Pushkina called it “an absolutely insane law” in an interview with TV Dozhd (“Rain”) , one of the country’s few remaining independent outlets. Referring to Article 19 of Russia’s Constitution, which guarantees equal rights and freedoms to all citizens, she emphasized that “sexual orientation cannot be the basis for restricting civil rights.” Afterwards, several LGBTQ activists wrote open letters to Pushkina explaining how the bills would affect them.

The Russian government has entrapped itself, says Lokshina. “The more the government cracks down, the more vigorous LGBT activism in Russia becomes,” she explains. “One of the greatest developments” that she says she’s seen in her 20 years of human rights work in Russia is the “the mainstreaming” of the LGBTQ rights movement. “Seven or eight years ago LGBT activists were seen as separate from the human rights community. The mainstreaming happened because of the crackdown,” she says.

Justice for Yulia

The widespread criticism over Tsvetkova’s persecution is a case in point. Several high profile figures have publicly defended her over the “pornography” investigation, including TV host and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, actress Renata Litvinova, and veteran broadcaster Vladimir Pozner. They urged the authorities to protect the activist, who says she has received death threats from an anonymous homophobic network called Saw that publishes the names and contacts of LGBTQ people, and calls for violence against them. LGBTQ activist Elena Grigoryeva was murdered in July 2019 after her details appeared on Saw’s website.

Opposition grew. In June, over 500 Russians across the country staged single person pickets in solidarity with Tsvetkova. Police responded aggressively, detaining 40 demonstrators in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The same month, over 50 media outlets organized a “Media Strike for Yulia”, demanding that the “pornography” investigation be dropped. Writers, journalists, actors, influencers, and bloggers published articles, including in Vogue , under the hashtag #forYulia and #FreeJuliaTsvetkova, and some 248,000 people signed an online petition calling on authorities to drop the case against her.

Until recently, very few public figures in Russia were voicing their support for LGBTQ issues, says Zakharova, at the Russian LGBT network. “It shows that society is changing. It’s not as homophobic as our officials and religious leaders think,” she says. While the Russian public is still deeply divided on LGBTQ rights, support for the community appears to be growing. A 2019 poll by the Levada Center, an independent polling agency in Moscow, found that 47% of Russians support equal rights for the LGBTQ community, the highest level in 14 years (43% were not in support). The trend is especially pronounced in 16-18-year-olds , 81% of whom reported a “friendly or calm attitude” toward LGBTQ people and 33% reported having LGBTQ acquaintances, compared to 42% and 8% respectively among the general public . “There’s a lot of hope in young people,” says Zakharova.

While there is little evidence that Putin’s ruling party is becoming less hostile to LGBTQ people, there seems to have been a shift in attitudes among Russia’s democratic opposition figures. In 2009, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny suggested that gay people could “frolic” in a cordoned stadium rather than in public in a Pride Parade. Yet during his bid for Moscow mayor in 2013 and an aborted run for the presidency in 2017, he proposed to allow regional referenda on same-sex marriages. More recently, in June, he accused the government of going “completely crazy” after pro-Kremlin media group Patriot released a homophobic political advert . Sobchak, the TV host, in 2011 doubted the need for same-sex marriages. “I just don’t understand why this phenomenon should be called marriage,” she said. But as a presidential candidate in 2018, she included same-sex civil unions and the lifting of the “gay propaganda” law in her political program .

The repeal of the bill was an important win for Russia’s LGBTQ community, but it’s just one victory. “It’s not the end point,” Tsvetkova says. “Homophobia is a daily reality in Russia”. Battling that requires the daily work of LGBTQ groups across the country, the willingness of the the public to speak out about inequality and efforts of human rights lawyers as they defend LGBTQ rights activists, like Tsvetkova, who currently awaits the start of her trial. But many activists feel that the change that they have long been fighting for is finally in the air.

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V. I. Lenin

The tasks of the working women’s movement in the soviet republic, speech delivered at the fourth moscow city conference of non-party working women, september 23, 1919.

Delivered: 23 September, 1919 First Published: Pravda No. 213, September 25, 1919 ; Published according to the text of the pamphlet, V. I. Lenin, Speech at the Working Women’s Congress, Moscow, 1919, verified with the Pravda text Source: Lenin’s Collected Works , 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, pages 40-46 Translated: George Hanna Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Comrades, it gives me pleasure to greet a conference of working women. I will allow myself to pass over those subjects and questions that, of course, at the moment are the cause of the greatest concern to every working woman and to every politically-conscious individual from among the working people; these are the most urgent questions—that of bread and that of the war situation. I know from the newspaper reports of your meetings that these questions have been dealt with exhaustively by Comrade Trotsky as far as war questions are concerned and by Comrades Yakovleva and Svidersky as far as the bread question is concerned; please, therefore, allow me to pass over those questions.

I should like to say a few words about the general tasks facing the working women’s movement in the Soviet Republic, those that are, in general, connected with the transition to socialism, and those that are of particular urgency at the present time. Comrades, the question of the position of women was raised by Soviet power from the very beginning. It seems to me that any workers’ state in the course of transition to socialism is laced with a double task. The first part of that task is relatively simple and easy. It concerns those old laws that kept women in a position of inequality as compared to men.

Participants in all emancipation movements in Western Europe have long since, not for decades but for centuries, put forward the demand that obsolete laws be annulled and women and men be made equal by law, but none of the democratic European states, none of the most advanced republics have succeeded in putting it into effect, because wherever there is capitalism, wherever there is private property in land and factories, wherever the power of capital is preserved, the men retain their privileges. It was possible to put it into effect in Russia only because the power of the workers has been established here since October 25, 1917. From its very inception Soviet power set out to be the power of the working people, hostile to all forms of exploitation. It set itself the task of doing away with the possibility of the exploitation of the working people by the landowners and capitalists, of doing away with the rule of capital. Soviet power has been trying to make it possible for the working people to organise their lives without private property in land, without privately-owned factories, without that private property that everywhere, throughout the world, even where there is complete political liberty, even in the most democratic republics, keeps the working people in a state of what is actually poverty and wage-slavery, and women in a state of double slavery.

Soviet power, the power of the working people, in the first months of its existence effected a very definite revolution in legislation that concerns women. Nothing whatever is left in the Soviet Republic of those laws that put women in a subordinate position. I am speaking specifically of those laws that took advantage of the weaker position of women and put them in a position of inequality and often, even, in a humiliating position, i.e., the laws on divorce and on children born out of wedlock and on the right of a woman to summon the father of a child for maintenance.

It is particularly in this sphere that bourgeois legislation, even, it must be said, in the most advanced countries, takes advantage of the weaker position of women to humiliate them and give them a status of inequality. It is particularly in this sphere that Soviet power has left nothing whatever of the old, unjust laws that were intolerable for working people. We may now say proudly and without any exaggeration that apart from Soviet Russia there is not a country in the world where women enjoy full equality and where women are not placed in the humiliating position felt particularly in day-to-day family life. This was one of our first and most important tasks.

If you have occasion to come into contact with parties that are hostile to the Bolsheviks, if there should come into your hands newspapers published in Russian in the regions occupied by Koichak or Denikin, or if you happen to talk to people who share the views of those newspapers, you may often hear from them the accusation that Soviet power has violated democracy.

We, the representatives of Soviet power, Bolshevik Communists and supporters of Soviet power are often accused of violating democracy and proof of this is given by citing the fact that Soviet power dispersed the Constituent Assembly. We usually answer this accusation as follows; that democracy and that Constituent Assembly which came into being when private property still existed on earth, when there was no equality between people, when the one who possessed his own capital was the boss and the others worked for him and were his wage-slaves-that was a democracy on which we place no value. Such democracy concealed slavery even in the most advanced countries. We socialists are supporters of democracy only insofar as it eases the position of the working and oppressed people. Throughout the world socialism has set itself the task of combating every kind of exploitation of man by man. That democracy has real value for us winch serves the exploited, the underprivileged. If those who do not work are disfranchised that would be real equality between people. Those who do not work should not eat.

In reply to these accusations we say that the question must be presented in this way—how is democracy implemented in various countries? We see that equality is proclaimed in all democratic republics but in the civil laws and in laws on the rights of women—those that concern their position in the family and divorce—we see inequality and the humiliation of women at every step, and we say that this is a violation of democracy specifically in respect of the oppressed. Soviet power has implemented democracy to a greater degree than any of the other, most advanced countries because it has not left in its laws any trace of the inequality of women. Again I say that no other state and no other legislation has ever done for women a half of what Soviet power did in the first months of its existence.

Laws alone, of course, are not enough, and we are by no means content with mere decrees. In the sphere of legislation, however, we have done everything required of us to put women in a position of equality and we have every right to be proud of it. The position of women in Soviet Russia is now ideal as compared with their position in the most advanced states. We tell ourselves, however, that this is, of course, only the beginning.

Owing to her work in the house, the woman is still in a difficult position. To effect her complete emancipation and make her the equal of the man it is necessary for the national economy to be socialised and for women to participate in common productive labour. Then women will occupy the same position as men.

Here we are not, of course, speaking of making women the equal of men as far as productivity of labour, the quantity of labour, the length of the working day, labour conditions, etc., are concerned; we mean that the woman should not, unlike the man, be oppressed because of her position in the family. You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain factually downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.

In pursuance of the socialist ideal we want to struggle for the full implementation of socialism, and here an extensive field of labour opens up before women. We are now making serious preparations to clear the ground for the building of socialism, but the building of socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been ’emancipated from that petty, stultifying, unproductive work. This is a job that will take us many, many years.

This work cannot show any rapid results and will not produce a scintillating effect.

We are setting up model institutions, dining-rooms and nurseries, that will emancipate women from housework. And the work of organising all these institutions will fall mainly to women. It has to be admitted that in Russia today there are very few institutions that would help woman out of her state of household slavery. There is an insignificant number of them, and the conditions now obtaining in the Soviet Republic—the war and food situation about which comrades have already given you the details—hinder us in this work. Still, it must be said that these institutions that liberate women from their position as household slaves are springing up wherever it is in any way possible.

We say that the emancipation of the workers must be effected by the workers themselves, and in exactly the same way the emancipation of working women is a matter for the working women themselves. The working women must themselves see to it that such institutions are developed, and this activity will bring about a complete change in their position as compared with what it was under the old, capitalist society.

In order to be active in politics under the old, capitalist regime special training was required, so that women played an insignificant part in politics, even in the most advanced and free capitalist countries. Our task is to make politics available to every working woman. Ever since private property in laud and factories has been abolished and the power of the landowners and capitalists overthrown, the tasks of politics have become simple, clear and comprehensible to the working people as a whole, including working women. In capitalist society the woman’s position is marked by such inequality that the extent of her participation in politics is only an insignificant fraction of that of the man. The power of the working people is necessary for a change to be wrought in this situation, for then the main tasks of politics will consist of matters directly affecting the fate of the working people themselves.

Here, too, the participation of working women is essential —not only of party members and politically-conscious women, but also of the non-party women and those who are least politically conscious. Here Soviet power opens up a wide field of activity to working women.

We have had a difficult time in the struggle against the forces hostile to Soviet Russia that have attacked her. It was difficult for us to fight on the battlefield against the forces who went to war against the power of the working people and in the field of food supplies against the profiteers, because of the too small number of people, working people, who came whole-heartedly to our aid with their own labour. Here, too, there is nothing Soviet power can appreciate as much as the help given by masses of non-party working women. They may know that in the old, bourgeois society, perhaps, a comprehensive training was necessary for participation in politics and that this was not available to women. The political activity of the Soviet Republic is mainly the struggle against the landowners and capitalists, the struggle for the elimination of exploitation; political activity, therefore, is made available to the working woman in the Soviet Republic and it will consist in the working woman using her organisational ability to help the working man.

What we need is not only organisational work on a scale involving millions; we need organisational work on the smallest scale and this makes it possible for women to work as well. Women can work under war conditions when it is a question of helping the army or carrying on agitation in the army. Women should take an active part in all this so that the Red Army sees that it is being looked after, that solicitude is being displayed. Women can also work in the sphere of food distribution, on the improvement of public catering and everywhere opening dining-rooms like those that are so numerous in Petrograd.

It is in these fields that the activities of working women acquire the greatest organisational significance. The participation of working women is also essential in the organisation and running of big experimental farms and should not take place only in isolated cases. This i5 something that cannot be carried out without the participation of a large number of working women. Working women will be very useful in this field in supervising the distribution of food and in making food products more easily obtainable. This work can well be done by non-party working women and its accomplishment will do more than anything else to strengthen socialist society.

We have abolished private property in land and almost completely abolished the private ownership of factories; Soviet power is now trying to ensure that all working people, non-party as well as Party members, women as well as men, should take part in this economic development. The work that Soviet power has begun can only make progress when, instead of a few hundreds, millions and millions of women throughout Russia take part in it. We are sure that the cause of socialist development will then become sound. Then the working people will show that they can live and run their country without the aid of the landowners and capitalists. Then socialist construction will be so soundly based in Russia that no external enemies in other countries and none inside Russia will be any danger to the Soviet Republic.

Collected Works Volume 30 Collected Works Table of Contents Lenin Works Archive