User:Kathleenvdh/Media and gender

Gender Expectations in Pop Culture

Gender expectations is a similar term to gender role that contributes to a social role in which stereotypes are centred around social constructs, and individuals who do not meet such criteria's are punished. Western culture's obsession with perfection creates an unhealthy balance and self-destructive tendencies relating to personal and professional ideals. In western society, men are portrayed as a strong, dominant male while women seeks for a mans approval, although this not the case in other cultures. Social expectations develop the minds of youth as it guides them to society's ideals of socialization, social morals and values, as well as gender roles. The expectations of hyperfemininity and hypermasculinity qualities are rather intrusive stereotypes as they do not allow individuals to fully express who they truly are. Statistics show hyper-feminine individuals are more likely to experience a form of violence from their partner partners, while hyper-masculine individuals are more likely to inflict violence towards their partner.

Media

The media is a main source of gender expectations as it stereotypes individuals and groups based on specific genders and sexual preferences; making it impossible to branch out from impossible standards. Media has forced women to reinvent themselves entirely to be perceived as interesting or important while men are compelled to be perceived as dominant and successful. “Typically, men are portrayed as active, adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive and largely uninvolved in human relationships. Just as' consistent with cultural views of gender are depictions of women as sex objects who are usually young, thin beautiful, passive, dependent, and often incompetent and dumb.” Women's expectations in today's media relies heavily on sexual completion, sexual health, but most importantly, earning a man's approval while men must rely on competition, power, and wealth. Since this is the case, Forbes magazine cover's incorporate 90% of men - furthering the theory of the male holding the power and success.

Society has created media to be the educator for young girls in which they should value their youth, sexuality, beauty, over their intelligence and power to lead. Young boys are taught in order to be successful, they must hold dominance and power over building healthy relationships and emotions. A recent study of children's television portray male characters as strong, powerful, and are either a loner or leader. Women however, are portrayed on a different spectrum as they are characterized to be dependant on a man, or in search of a love interest. "These portrayals are of particular concern when it comes to young boys, who may be more influenced by media images than girls," as gender expectations form young minds; notions of heteronormative morals and values pushes for an unchanging future. Media is a powerful messenger and has resorted to shocking messages to stand out such as: violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images therefore, ingraining such actions as acceptable to individuals - especially the youth who are highly influential.

Music Industry

The music industry is overwhelmingly male-dominated in which it (unsurprisingly) has constructed the industry to lean towards the male gaze. Statistics revealed in 2018 that the music industry in the United States was inordinately male producers as they dominated 97.7% of the industry, and women 2.3%. Due to this fact, men influence most female artist's work, although over the last decade, inspiring women in the business have spoken out about their personal experience and the detrimental effects in and surrounding the industry.

The music industry has proven to have one of the most corrupt and powerful tendencies towards gender expectations. It is observed the demand of entertainment between genders in which male artists, such as Ed Sheeran, are able to dress casually as well as sing in a single spotlight and break world records whereas, women are expected to put together a performance. An obvious stereotype perceived on female songwriters who sing about heartbreak are automatically categorized as desperate and annoying however, if a man were to do such thing, he would be praised for being courageous and passionate in his songs. An artist that discusses such predicaments of gender expectations is Taylor Swift as she discusses the mental and physical toll of being in the spotlight in her documentary Miss Americana. Her and many other women in this industry battle with the media scrutiny and toxic media culture in their daily lives as they must be perceived as perfect and beautiful at all times.

Another female pop star who has spoken out about her personal struggles in the industry is Lady Gaga. In Gaga's documentary film Five Foot Two, she discusses the power struggle between the artist (mainly female) and the producer. The singer explains the manipulation producers act upon women as they exclaim the artist can and will be nothing in the business without them. Gaga states the categorization process the industry forces on women creates expectations every female artist is forced to illustrate to the world. “The methodology that I used to get out of that category was when they wanted me to be sexy or they wanted me to be pop I always put some absurd spin on it that made me feel like I was still in control," the star exclaims.

Video Games

Gender expectations are highly incorporated into the character's gender in video games whereas female characters are greatly under-represented and androgynous characters are even less so. The portrayal of genders forces the atmosphere of a heteronormative culture in such games, further educating young children inaccurate social norms. In pornography, the point of view typically displays the straight man's desire, where ironically, similar attributes fall into video games by highlighting the portrayal of women and other men just as they do in the porn industry. The most popular video games reflect a territorial and aggressive state in which men tend to gravitate towards more than women.

Female Expectations

The emblem of Princess Peach, a crown with three jewels.

In most video games, women are dressed desirable and act in "feminine" ways to support the ideology of the male gaze in video games. Female characters are mainly portrayed as the woman in waiting thus, creating the damsel in distress paradox. "Female role models in video games are rare, and if they are present, they are often heavily sexualized. Objectification theory suggests that exposure to sexualized media characters increases self-objectification and decreases body satisfaction in female users". Damsel in distress characters are considered to be a subject/object dichotomy. The subject is the protagonist, in this case, the main character as the story is centred around them (usually him) and is put in the action of the game. "The damsel trope typically makes men the subject of narratives while relegating women to the role of the object. This is a form of objectification because as objects Damsel'd women are being acted upon, most often becoming or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved."

Princess Peach is the modern day version of a damsel in distress as she plays a helpless character constantly needing to be saved by a powerful male figure. The princess appears in fourteen of the core Super Mario Bros video game series and is kidnapped in thirteen of them. Regardless of the princess being insufficient to be considered as a main character for the core gaming series, she is however a main character in Super Mario spinoffs - this may be due to the fact these spinoffs do not relate to the Super Mario Bros core series.

Male Expectations

It is expected that male characters appear in video games more than women however, the gender gap is outrageously large where the male population is 85.23/14.77% rather than reflecting actual population ratio: 50.9/49.1%. Hyper-masculinity is often portrayed in video games; alluding to the patriarchal power dynamic between men and women as men are expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold. It is extremely unusual for a video game to sexualize a man due to the male gaze theory. This theory is tied to video games as men are not overly sexualized in most media platforms; this is in view of the fact of the average straight man's avoidance of any gay resemblance. This form of behaviour in video games creates a representation for young boys and men on what is expected from them in personal relationships.