Representations Of Gender Today

`During the 1990's and into the new century, gender roles on television became increasingly equal and non stereotyped.

Key studies:

1992-1993 season by Elasmar, Hasegawa and Brain.
1995- 1996 season by Lauzen and dozier.

Elasmer et al report the numbers of TV women who are employed and who care for children, but we can't really interpret these figures without knowing the parallel figures for male characters in these positions, which they failed to record.

1995-1996 study showed that men took 63% of the speaking roles, with women taking the other 37% of those speaking roles.

1992-1993 study found that a startling 18% of the major character were females, with two-thirds of those stars in domestic comedies.

1995-96 study, which examined a greater range and number of popular programmes showed that 43% of major characters were females.

1992-1993 study found that only 3% of women were represented as housewives as their main occupation, a massive decrease from the 1970's. An additional of 8% of women were shown as 'homemakers'.

Overall, the 1992-1993 study by Elasmer, Hasegawa and brain found that "the woman on prime time TV in the early 1990 as was young, single, independent, and free from family and work place pressure."

Gender in contemporary movies:

Maggie Humm's Feminism and film: "Film... often and anxiously envisions women stereotypically as good mother and bad hysterical careerists. in the past and today, every Hollywood women is some eles's other."

Michael Thomson: "By all means be feisty, but never forget to be feminine".

A study by psychologists, Muncer, Campbell, Jervis and Lewis (2001), talks about whether "girls power" leads to "girl violence".

This study was in respond to the growing concern of the Media term "Ladettes", these are women who are assertive with an aggressive attitude which are usually associated with "Lads".

There are a number of different smash hit films, where the male action hero works along side a more or less equally powerful female action heroes. A few examples of this have been mentioned belowed.

• Charlie's Angels (2000):

'Barrymore, Diaz and Liu represent redhead, blond and brunette respectively ( as David Poland has pointed out, T[its], A[ss] and [H]air.

This movie reinforces the idea of marxism, as charlie is seen as the leader and has workers below him.