Why is it so important to look at how women are represented in the media?

The media creates expectations of women and how they should act, but more importantly how they should look.This has created a dominate ideology of women, many people believe women are valued on how they look regarding what clothes they wear, how they do their make up and what dress size they are. This objectifies women, and therefore they get the wrong ideas of what they should aspire for in later life.

 

Media texts such as, mens magazines Playboy and the music video Blurred Lines supports Laura Mulvey theory of the Male Gaze (1975) that the media is made by the men for men. This causes problems with women, not only how they look at other women but how they look at themselves, which has the knock on effect of body image and eating disorders. Men are also affected as they build a perception of women which leads to how they treat them, Dyer ( ) said how we are seen is how we are represented and from this, is how we are treated, for example if a young teenager only reads Playboy magazines then he will have his own idea of what women should look like and how they should act.