Gender Stereotyping Essay

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“The construction of gender stereotyping of both males and females in the media is based on outdated and unfounded beliefs and therefore has had and continues to have a detrimental impact on society.” (Yes!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUyfD1F7k1I Women are subjected to many stereotypes in today’s society. Movies and television shows suggest that all women are airheads, whose sole purpose in life is to please men and rear children. Magazines and other advertisements push photographs of very slender, over groomed and “sexy women” into our minds. Men’s magazines write articles on how to seduce a girl into sleeping with them. Haven’t we as a society moved past the sexist ideals of the past? Judging from the way media portrays women, it seems as if things are only getting worse! (Next slide) One of the most common ways television depicts teenage girls as ditzy, body obsessed, ‘pretty’ princesses with a credit card. The girl’s interests are usually limited to make-up, hair, boys and shopping. Movies such as ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Clueless’ and television shows such as ‘Big Bang Theory’, ‘Home & Away’ and ‘Sex In The City” encourage the idea that teenage girls and women are ditzy, stupid and superficial. The movie Clueless (1995), for example, stared Cher (Alicia Silverstone), a rich teenager from Beverly Hills. She was blonde and beautiful, and enjoyed the "typical" teenage girl activities. Cher and her friends spent all their time shopping, doing makeovers and chasing after guys. One scene of the movie showed Cher sending flowers to herself and dressing "in her cutest outfits" in an attempt to impress a crush. Cher was ditzy, superficial, and, to make things worse, she was a lousy driver. This was a very popular movie, and a television series was later based on it. Many girls watched this movie and emulated Cher, not realizing that they were buying in to this

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