It has to start with the WOMEN
Jasmine Williams
California State University East Bay
COMM 4500
Gender Identity and Representation in Media
June 3, 2014
Summary: Women are misrepresented in media. The real problems effecting women like:
domestic violence, sexual objectification, and being deemed as over sexualized, are not
addressed in media. Instead they are masked by those who control the industry. They only
allow us to see what they think a woman should be, instead of letting a woman show who she
is. In this paper the ideas of woman empowerment, and equality for representation of women
in media will be addressed. The big questioned posed will be: why are women not represented
in media as strong, confident, or as human beings?
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Back ground
Today in the 21st century, no one makes their own decisions. We are all controlled by a
higher force. That force is known as technology, and the main agent of this force is the people
who control its production and they make up media culture. Media culture as defined by
Dines and Humez (2011), “provides materials for individuals and communities to create
identities and meanings […]” (p.13). This new technologically based culture which provides
us with new identities and meanings also creates a new way to study these creations. Dines
and Humez found that (2011), “For Cultural studies, media culture provides the materials for
constructing views of the world, behavior, and even identities” (p.8). Cultural study supplies
media researchers with the tools they need to learn about media culture. It gives a new way of
studying these communities creation of identities and meanings, helping people understand
and relate to them. The importance of cultural studies addressed by Dines and Humez (2011),
is that it “[…] allows us to examine and critically scrutinize the whole range of culture
without prior prejudices toward one or another sort of cultural text, institution, or practice”(
p.8).
In this paper, this theory of cultural study will address four areas of research done on
various cultures affected and influenced by media culture. Dines and Humez (2011) found
that “[…] a critical cultural study attacks sexism, racism, or bias against specific social groups
(i.e. gays, intellectuals, seniors, etc.) and criticizes text that promote any kind of domination
or oppression” (p.15). The four areas of research that will be addressed are: invisibility of
domestic violence in tribal communities, the glamorization of sexual objectification in media,
Video Vixens: Defining every Black Woman, and Concepts of power, discrimination,
privilege, and representation in media. All of these topics relate back to the idea of cultural
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study and why we use it to diagnose media cultures. These four areas of research are very
important because they address topics of dominance and oppression which is critical in
cultural studies as mentioned my Dines and Humez. That’s why the first section of this paper
will address the research done on the Quinault Tribal Natation, The United States Department
of Justice (2013) found that “American Indians are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual
assault crimes compared to all other races, and one in three Indian women reports having been
raped during her lifetime” (Tribal Communities, para. 3). Addressed in the second section of
the paper is what Harper and Tiggerman (2008) found in their research “Fredrickson and
Roberts (1997) suggest that one of the most common means of perpetuating sexual
objectification is through the visual media, and that viewing images of the sexualized female
body or images in which sexual objectification is depicted may increase self-objectification in
women ( p.650). Thirdly, addressed will be what Glenn found in a study done by Stevens(
2011) “African American females, […] are not only figuring out their identity, but they also
must deal with living in and being socialized in a society that is driven by patriarchal, white
views about their devalued societal status” (p.1). Lastly, discussed will be four concepts that
all relate back to media culture: power, discrimination, privilege, and representation in media.
All four sections will relate to what Dines and Humez discuss as media culture (2011)
“Learning how to read, criticize, and resist sociocultural manipulation can help one empower
oneself in relation to dominant forms of media and culture” (p. 7). There is a reoccurring
theme of women in each section of research and the dominant form of media and culture that
they must resist is the patriarchal driven culture in which we live. The last thing Dines and
Humez contribute to my research is that (2011) “[…] cultural studies is also interested in how
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subcultural groups and individuals resist dominant forms of culture and identity, creating their
own style and identities” (p.8).
So what are these new identities? Women are oppressed in a society so prone on
covering up their issues and stuffing them in to a category of objects to be abused, sexually
objectified, and socially devalued. When will women be represented in media as strong,
confident, and as human beings?
Findings
To better understand the effect of media culture on women, research was done on four
different communities that all involve the oppression of women that is being silenced. The
next four sections will talk about why women are not represented in media as strong confident
or human beings. There were two different types of research methods used the main one
being ethnographic research method which is defined by Dines and Humez (2011) as
“cultural studies [that] indicated some of the various ways that audiences use and appropriate
texts, often to empower themselves”( p.13). The second one is coding which is described by
Dines and Humez (2011) as semiotics “Semiotics analyzes how linguistic and nonlinguistic
cultural “sings” from systems of meanings, as when giving someone a rose is interpreted as a
sign of love or getting an A on a college paper is a sign of mastery of the rules of the specific
assignments” (p.12). Both research methods were used throughout the observations of these
four cultural communities. Each of them involved the understanding and interpretation of
what it meant to be a part of each specific culture. The first culture that will be discussed is
the Quinault tribal culture.
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Invisibility of domestic violence in tribal communities
When beginning this research it was important to get an understanding of who the tribe
was and what they stood for. So the first step was finding out what the tribes social media
presence was like. Like mentioned, in the 21st century we are all controlled by the media and
it is where we leave our footprint on the world. Using the ethnographic research method
mentioned above making sure to understand first the cultural language of the people as it
related to the way they used social media to empower themselves and their message. What
was found is that The Quinault tribe were not heavily involved in social media, they have a
twitter but it is not very active, starting the research they only had 171 followers and ending
the research they now have 177. Their twitter had not been updated since 2012 and there were
only two tweets. However what they did have is a website http://quinaultindiannation.com/,
on this website the tribe was able to voice what their culture was all about. They showed
things like who they are and what they stood for, they have headers on their website where
you can learn more about: QIN strategic plan, things to do, departments, enterprises, fish and
bear guides, contacting them, and links to other things related to the tribe. Nothing involving
domestic violence awareness was mention when as noted by The United States Department
of Justice( 2011) “American Indians are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault
crimes compared to all other races, and one in three Indian women reports having been raped
during her lifetime” (Tribal Communities, para. 3). When looking for additional research to
see if there was other involvement in domestic violence awareness/ issues of women, there
was nothing to be found. In team research this was found this to be true as well, the problem
was not addressed. What was found is that these tribes were receiving government money to
help bring awareness of domestic violence through the American Recovery and Reinvestment
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act of 2009. The National Association of Social Workers (2009) found that of the 225 million
dollars that was given to the Office of Violence Against Women “$2.8 million [went to]
the Tribal Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Coalitions to end violence against American
Indian and Alaska Native women” (The department of Justice’s office of Violence Against
Women, para. 5). So why was this not depicted in the media? Where was this positive
representation of women as strong, confident human beings, instead of nonexistent objects to
be abused?
The glamorization of sexual objectification in media
When looking into the positive representation of women in media, research showed that, not
only were women’s issues being silenced they were also being demeaned. Images of Sexual
objectification showed women as objects and sex toys. The research method used, was
coding/semiotics, the framework used in order to establish the linguistic coding of sexualized
images was from Dr. Caroline Heldman’s TedTalk. TedXYouth@SanDiego (2013) posted a
video that where Heldman talked about what characteristics an image has to have to be deemed
as a sexual objectified image “1. Does the image show only parts of a sexualized person body,
2.Does the image present a sexualized person as a stand-in for an object, 3.Does the image
show a sexualized person as interchangeable, 4.Does the image affirm the idea of violating
bodily integrity of a sexualized person that can’t consent, 5.Does the image suggest that the
sexual availability is the defining characteristic of the person, 6. Does the image show the
sexualized person as a commodity something that can be bought and sold 7.Does the image
treat a sexualized person’s body as a canvas”( The Sexy Lie)? Dr. Heldman’s framework was
clear-cut, but there was some discrepancy when applying her framework to sexualized images.
When coding an image found on the internet of a video game character who was dressed in
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tight clothes and who had an unhuman like body shape making
the most extenuated feature her breast the coding framework
worked. However when looking at an image with my team of
little girls who were dressed to come across as grown women,
there was a problem. The framework didn’t specify what was
meant by consent in the 4th question of determining what a sexualized image is. A lot of
researchers said that the images could be coded as number 4 but a lot of said that consent had
nothing to do with the fact the girl was under-aged. However when further researched the
images were coded as number: 5.Does the image suggest that the sexual availability is the
defining characteristic of the person. For the most part coding was a valuable research method
in determining what a sexualized image is, but when applied we saw that there needs to be
some more clarification. The images where not positive representations of women in media and
they showed women as objects to be sexually objectified.
Video Vixens: Defining every Black Woman
Sexual objectification can also be tied into this next area of research. The method used
in the research of the representation of African- American women in media is ethnographic.
For so long African- American women have been represented in media Bartlett (2011) found
as “[…]The Mammy, the Matriarch, the Jezebel, the Sapphire, and the Welfare Queen”(p.6)
When doing research the one representation that still heavily remains in today’s society is the
Jezebel. Bartlett (2011) found that “The juxtaposing narratives of the respectable Black lady
and the hyper-sexualize Jezebel have been and continue to be a part of U.S. Black sexual
politics and concerns for Black women” (p.2). It is this image of black women that is making
it so hard for people to see these women in a different light. Glenn( 2011) quoted in her
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research Stephens and Phillips (2003) who found “[…] that there are more diverse
representations of African American females than in previous generations, but in reality these
representations are just stereotypes that have changed very little in the past century.
Throughout this time African American women have been shown as being exotic, wild,
sexually promiscuous, and amoral”(p.1). The best example of this in our modern society, is
the video vixen. The over sexualized image of those women who dance in music videos has
created a dominant representation of black women in today’s society. Bartlett (2011) quoted
Michelle Obama in Essence Magazine “as saying, “For me [our image] is a reminder of what
is already the reality. The women in videos and the stereotypes are just not the truth of who
we are as a community….But sometimes…those stereotypes define us” (p.1). The reality of
this community is that even though like mentioned by the first lady these images do not
represent African American women as a whole they still make it hard to not be cast into the
stereotypical image. Glenn (2011) made the point that “By being bombarded with repetitive
stereotypical representations of African American women, a normalization emerges that
makes these stereotypes an acceptable way to view African American women as a
population”(p.2). These become what Bartlett (2011) quotes from Patricia Collins as
controlling images “In her work concerning “controlling images, ” Patricia Hill Collins
examines the contemporary portrayals of the Jezebel as a continuation and reaffirmation of
Black women’s oppression. She says, “Because efforts to control Black women’s sexuality lie
at the heart of Black women’s oppression, historical jezebels and contemporary ‘hoochies’
represent a deviant Black female sexuality”(p.5) When researching the misrepresentation of
African American women in society this idea of controlling images became a reoccurring
concept. These images of the video vixen control the representation of African Americans
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individually, and as a whole community. Bartlett (2011) found “The portrayal of Black
women in hip hop videos, […] makes it all the more difficult for other versions of Black
female personhood and sexuality to develop outside of the hypersexual and sexually available
image that has pervaded societal politics and popular culture” (p.1). So, why can’t women be
represented as strong, confident, and as human beings? For this culture of women it is the
controlling images that work together to define and stereotype them preventing them from
having an accurate and positive representation in media.
Concepts of power, discrimination, representation, and privilege in media
These controlling images do not just suddenly appear they are planted by the people
who have control over media outlets. While doing research there were four different concepts
discovered that work together to show how media is controlled. These four concepts are:
Power, discrimination, representation, and privilege. The research started with defining each
of the concepts so that the examples in media made sense. Lunenburg (2012) defined power
“Power is a person’s ability to influence others’ behavior because of the position that person
holds within the organization” (p.1). Research showed that a good example of this in media is
how the china government controls the production of their media. They represent what is
described in Lunenburg’s definition of power. Being that they are the government they hold
the highest position in the biggest organization and everything they choose to release to their
citizens has total influence over them. Next was, discrimination. Pager and Shepard (2008)
found “discrimination refers to unequal treatment of persons or groups on the basis of their
race or ethnicity” (p.182). In the media there were a lot of examples of discrimination. The
one we would look into further is the discrimination of women in sports. Men are heavily
represented when it comes to sports in media but in the research done this is not true of
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women. They are not looked at as athletes but more as objects that are trying their best to do
what men do. When researching, there was the issue of having too many good examples in
media so for one of the concepts we have two examples from the media. Jhally (1997)
quotes Stuart Hall saying “This idea that media practices, among other things, represent
topics, represent types of people, represent events, represent situations; what we're talking
about is the is fact that in the notion of representations is the idea of giving meaning. So the
representation is the way in which meaning is somehow given to the things which are
depicted though the images or whatever it is, is on screens or the words on a page
which stand for what we are talking about” (p.3). What Stuart Hall is saying directly relates to
our two example of representation in media which are, the lack of Asian women in media, and
Scarface: representation of the Italian community. Both examples connect directing back to
Hall’s definition. The lack of Asian women in led roles in media is giving meaning to many
things. The team of researchers wanted to focus on this specifically because in the research
done about how many Asian women we could name in media as prominent characters we
couldn’t name one besides Lucy Loo in Charlie’s Angels which came out in 2000. Research
showed that Scarface is a movie that is showed images of Italian- American people and it is
leaving an imprint on viewers that this is what these people are like as a whole. They are
depicted in the film as being true to Italian culture and for those who do not really know
anyone of Italian ethnicity they are left to infer that this is how they are. For the last and final
concept, one example that the team of researchers all immediately agreed on, because there
were some problems when trying to find other examples. Swigonski (1996) found “Privilege
refers to the unearned advantages enjoyed by a particular group simply because of
membership in that group. Privileges accrue to those who (consciously or not) oppress others
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and are generally invisible to those who enjoy them. In seeing reality from the standpoint of
other groups, one acquires the vantage point necessary to see privilege and its effects” (p.1).
The example we found directly correlated with the definition is The Kardashians. This family
of fortunate privilege were a perfect example. The family we found out did not do anything to
come up on their riches besides the fact the father who died represented OJ Simpson in a
famous case. The family now capitalizes of their fame by becoming more famous and taping
themselves while doing it. They are employed as famous people being famous. As mentioned
we did struggle however with finding another example, because what we kept stumbling
across was whether or not privilege related to money. We posed the question: does privilege
equate to money? We talked about many other topics but we could not agree that any of them
were better than the Kardashians. The discrepancy in our research posed a new question and
kept us digging a little deeper we did find that another group of people that collect on
unearned advantages are the models on America’s Next Top Model. They have the privilege
of being tall, skinny, and beautiful. They have the American Dream of perfect beauty. When
looking in to the show a little deeper we found that not only are the models beautiful but they
capitalize off of their jobs from participating in the show while others that do not have the
privilege to look like models are unprivileged. These concepts are only the beginning of our
research, but what we want to work in is how women in media are affected by these concepts.
Like we discovered in our research of the tribes, sexually objectified images, and the
misrepresentations of black women in media.
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Conclusion
Women in media are misrepresented, they are not shown in media as strong, confident,
or as human beings. They are instead shown as invisible people like we found in our research
of the Native American people. I found it amazing that the Quinault tribe, had a woman
president and still did not discuss the heavy topic of domestic violence in their community. I
was also surprised that although they were receiving funds they did not use them towards
prevention or awareness. Women are shown as sexualized beings. They are represented in
media as sexualized person’s whose sexuality is a defining characteristic of their personality
like our framework described. They are also misrepresented as a whole based on their
generalized representation in media. The video vixen has become the definition of black
women in media. They are projected as over sexualized women, as a community and
individually they are not thought of as anything different. Women have to fight for positive
representation in media, and having the power to control their images, the confidence to stand
up to discriminating text, being strong enough to represent the positive image of women, and
being privileged enough to stand up for what they believe in and having an audience of
viewers listen, then and only then will women being represented positively in media. It has to
start with the women.
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References
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