How the media portrayed women in 2013
Well, it is now December and you know what that means? No. Not Christmas. But all these reflections back on the year 2013. The Representation Project, a movement that seeks to expose gender injustices within the media, has released a three minutes and forty seconds video highlighting some great highlights of women in the media but many more atrocities.
The old adage ‘Sex Sells’ is rather short sighted when all it does is aim to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It is a cliché and unoriginal and says more about your organization or product than you might think. If the advertising gurus think the best way to sell your burger, or deodorant or drink is to sexualize a particular gender then there is a good chance your product is shit.
The music industry may just be the worst offender of all. It is a damn shame that females such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna do absolutely nothing but further drive a wedge between gender equality with their revealing clothes and gyrating whilst Hip Hop or R & B musicians, or whatever they want to be called, drape scantily clad women all over their film clips. But why do they do it? Because their product is shit and sexualizing it somehow masks that.
The amount of politicians and television presenters featured in the clip is alarming. Even if half the short clips were to be cited by the speaker as taken out of context it still shows that mankind has a long way to go.
So, please. Take the time to watch the clip and consider this. How sad is it that there is enough disparity between both genders in the media that videos like this need to exist? Society is rather impressionable by the media. Who needs people growing up thinking that is how you as a woman should behave or this is how women should be treated. Even now, as you are reading this and think that a woman’s place is in the kitchen then ask yourself why Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay are the world’s most successful chefs. Hint. It isn’t because they are sexualized.
More information on the The Representation Project can be found on their website.
