The Social Construction of Gender in the Media, Research Paper Example

Abstract

This study intends to examine social construction of gender in the media or, in other words, how it is that gender is represented in media production and publication. Both historical media gender construction and current media gender construction will be examined as well as the power dynamics that drive the social construction of gender by the media. According to Gauntlett (2002): “We lap up this material because the social construction of identity today is the knowing social construction of identity. Your life is your project – there is no escape. The media provides some of the tools, which can be used in this work. Like many toolkits, however, it contains some good utensils and some useless ones; some that might give beauty to the project, and some that might spoil it.” (Gauntlett, 2002) One tool that is found useless by one is just the perfect tool for success for another. (Gauntlett, 2002, paraphrased)

The Social Construction of Gender in the Media

This study intends to examine social construction of gender in the media or, in other words, how it is that gender is represented in media production and publication. Both historical media gender construction and current media gender construction will be examined as well as the power dynamics that drive the social construction of gender by the media. John Berger writes in the work entitled “Ways of Seeing” as follows:

“To be born a woman has to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of woman is developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space.” (Berger,  p.46)

Berger is attempting to explain the manner in which very personal identity of a woman is torn between who she actually ‘is’ as a human being and who she ‘appears’ to be.    The work of David Gauntlett entitled “Media, Gender, and Identity” states that analysis of popular media two or three decades ago “told researchers that mainstream culture was a backwards-looking force, resistant to social change and trying to push people back into traditional categories.” (2002) Gauntlett states that presently “it seems more appropriate to emphasize that, within limits, the mass media is a force for change.” (2002)

Modern media is stated by Gauntlett to have more room for a greater variety of identities to emerge; it is also the case that the construction of identity has become a known requirement. Modern Western societies do not leave individuals in any doubt that they need to make choices of identity and lifestyle – even if their preferred options are rather obvious and conventional ones, or are limited due to lack of financial (or cultural) resources.” (Gauntlett, 2002)

The sociologist Ulrich Beck is stated to have acknowledged that every person in the late modern era desires to “live their own life” yet this is simultaneously “an experimental life.” (2002: 26) Gauntlett states that the world, lacking confidence in its traditions view all authorities and conceptual formation as being subject to questioning and seeking greater perfection and “…whether seemingly radical or conventional, is somewhat risky and needs to be worked upon – nurtured, considered and maintained, or amended. Because ‘inherited recipes for living and role stereotypes fail to function’ (ibid), we have to make our own new patterns of being…” (Beck, 2002: 26 in: Gauntlett, 2002)

This is certainly addressed by the glossy magazines of today that simultaneously promote and undermine the individual’s self-confidence. The media banters boldly about sex, relationships and lifestyles” and this includes the venue of television, today’s hip-hop, advertisements, video, movies and the internet – a veritable smorgasbord of realities and types of ‘being’ one might adapt in their individual construction of self-identity and certainly this is true in the construction of social gender-based identity. (Gauntlett, 2002, paraphrased)

According to Gauntlett (2002): “We lap up this material because the social construction of identity today is the knowing social construction of identity. Your life is your project – there is no escape. The media provides some of the tools, which can be used in this work. Like many toolkits, however, it contains some good utensils and some useless ones; some that might give beauty to the project, and some that might spoil it.” (Gauntlett, 2002) One tool that is found useless by one is just the perfect tool for success for another. (Gauntlett, 2002, paraphrased)

It is the theory of Social Constructivists that gender is constructed by human being through their actions and views the influence of the individual’s position in the social structure as well as character and cognition and resources that are available as being deterministic but fails to include the effects of human agency on social construction. Generational differences also exist and these enter the social discussion as studies have demonstrated that those born in the early to mid twentieth century “…are less tolerant of homosexuality, and less sympathetic to unmarried couples living together, than their younger counterparts, for example (see chapters one and four). Traditional attitudes may be scarce amongst the under-30s, but still thrive in the hearts of some over-65s. We cannot help but notice, of course, that older people are also unlikely to be consumers of magazines such as Cosmopolitan, More or FHM, and are not a key audience for today’s pop music sensations.” (Gauntlett, 2002)

Gauntlett states that he argues throughout his work in writing that mass media has “…become more liberal, and considerably more challenging to traditional standards, since then, and this has been a reflection of changing attitudes, but also involves the media actively disseminating modern values. It therefore remains to be seen whether the post-traditional young women and men of today will grow up to be the narrow-minded traditionalists of the future.” (2002)

Judith Lorber, 2009 writes in the work entitled “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender” that for the individual “gender construction starts with assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. The babies are dressed or adorned in a way that displays the category because parents don’t want to be constantly asked whether their baby is a girl or a boy.  A sex category becomes a gender status through naming, dress, and the use of other gender markers.” (Lorber, 2009,) At the time when the gender of the child becomes obvious others treat those in one gender differently from those in the  other, and the children respond to the different treatment by feeling different and behaving differently.” (Lorber, 2009

Gendered roles are noted by Lorber (2009) to undergo change and states as example that “today fathers are taking care of little children, girls and boys are wearing unisex clothing and getting the same education, women and men are working the same jobs.” (Lorber, 2009) Gendering begins at birth and is ongoing for practical reasons of the social institution since “Human society depends on a predictable division of labor, a designated allocation of scarce goods, assigned responsibility for children and others who cannot care for themselves, common values and their systematic transmission to new members, legitimate leadership, music, art stories, games and other symbolic productions.” (Lorber, 2009)

Gender cannot be equated with biological and physiological differences between human females and males. The building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses.” (Lorber, 2009)There are only two genders according to Lorber, 2009 and that of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ while some societies are reported to have three genders:

• men;
• women; and
• berdaches or jijras or xaniths.” (Lorber, 2009)

Lorber, 2009 reports that Berdaches, jijras and xaniths are “biological males who behave, dress, work and are treated in most respects as social women; they are therefore no men, nor are they female women, they are, in our language, ‘male women’.” (Lorber, 2009)

As well African and American Indian societies that a gender status referred to as manly hearted women – biological females who work, marry and parent as men; their social status is ‘female men’. “(Lorber, 2009) These individuals are not required to dress or behave as men to possess the social responsibilities and prerogatives of husbands and fathers; what makes them men is enough wealth to buy a wife.”(Lorber, 2009)

Lorber, 2009 states that gendered norms and expectations are enforced through informal sanctions and further gender is also intertwined with a society’s other constructed statuses of differential evaluation – race, religion, occupation, class, country of origin…” (Lorber, 2009) The roles of the male and female gender are historically and traditionally needs-based in that a “gathering and hunting society’s survival usually depends on the nuts, grubs and small animals brought in by the women’s foraging trips, but when the men’s hunt is successful, it is the occasion for a celebration.” (Lorber, 2009)

Societies also experience variation in the “…extent of the inequality, the status of woman and its attendant behavior.” (Lorber, 2009) Gender, is stated as a structure to work toward the division in the home and in economic production, legitimates those holding authority and organizes sexuality and emotional life. (Lorber, 2009, paraphrased) Women are stated to have a significant influence on the development of psychological development and emotional attachments, in the process of reproducing gender. Emergent sexuality is shaped by heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and sadomasochistic patterns that are gendered different for girls and boys.” (Lorber, 2009)

The work of Weber (nd) entitled “What Does Media Construct Reality Mean? From an Ontological to an Empirical Understanding of Construction” states that the discussion “about reality construction, has become inflated “and not only throughout the entire arts, social and cultural sciences but also in disciplines such as mathematics, biology, physics or architecture. It appears as if it is a central discovery of postmodern science that more or less ‘everything’ is constructed – space and time as well as xenophobia, sex and gender as much as the reality of mass media.” (Weber, nd) The catchphrase ‘reality construction’ becomes a fascination with many as they realize that thoughts “are meant to be placed” and that reality is “so-called’ reality. The following table lists different agent that generate realities and which are reported as “bound up with the different currents of constructivism.

Figure 1

Weber states that Siegfried J. Schmidt writes that reality construction of actors “are subject-bound but not subjective in the sense of arbitrary, intentional or relativistic and that this is because in the construction of reality individuals are always too late. Everything, which becomes conscious first assumes the unattainable neuronal activity of consciousness; everything which is said “…presumes an already unconsciously acquired mastery of language; how things will be talked about and with what effect. All of this pre-supposes socially regulated and culturally programmed discourses within the social system. In this respect these processes organize the reality construction of themselves and thus create their own ordering of realities.” (Schmidt, 2000, 47)

Constructivism is slated to appear in the form of “an ontological theory offering no alternatives…” (Weber, nd) The example stated is that in tabloid journalism arbitrary construction is use in creating a conscious construction of the world through use of “linguistic techniques and styles of discussion.” (Weber, nd) Feminist theory and standpoint epistemologies are stated to provide contributions that are major to the field of critical media literacy.” (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007) This approach is one that requires the unveiling of both political and social construction of knowledge as well as requiring that principles of equity and social justice related to representation.” (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007)

Representations are stated to “through the inclusion of some groups and exclusion of others” to benefit dominant and positively represented groups and to result in disadvantages to groups that are marginalized and subordinate. (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007, paraphrased) It is related that these biases “become especially pernicious when two factors exist:

• limited and dominant groups do the majority of the representing, as in the case of the multinational corporate mass media; and
• when the messages are naturalized, people seldom question the transparent social construction of the representations. (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007)

Macedo and Steinberg relate that critical media literacy is of the nature that “challenges the power of the media to present messages as non-problematic and transparent. Because messages are created by people who make decisions about what to communicate and how to communicate, all messages are influenced by the subjectivity and biases of those creating the message as well as the social contexts with which the process occurs.” (2007) Media are stated to be other than “neutral disseminators of information” and this is because messages are the creation of people who have made decisions concerning “what to communicate and how to communicate” therefore all messages are influenced by “the subjectivity and biases of those creating the message as well as the social contexts within which the process occurs.” (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007)

Contributing to media literacy is that of ‘Semiotics’ or the “science of signs and how meanings are socially produced from the structural relations in sign systems…” (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007) Media fails to present reality “like transparent windows or simple reflections of the world because media messages inflate, distort, skew and right out misinform and mislead the public. (Macedo and Steinberg, 2007)

The work entitled “Importance of Media to the Construction of Gender” states that the media plays a “crucial role in shaping our lives. Whether we realize it or not the media does influence us, directly or subliminally, either in the everyday decisions and actions we make or in the context of how we interact with others. Ultimately, it is the media that synthesizes accepted ideologies and projects that back to society through movies, television, and advertisements to generation after generation, eventually making these mentalities normal. “ (     ) The work of Jhally (2009) states that sex “…refers to our different biological characteristics as we come out of the womb [but] gender refers to the way those differences are made sense of within culture… by assigning it to one of two categories: male or female.” Each of these categories is stated by Lorber (2009) to be defined with a set of characteristics “that are labeled as masculine and feminine that serve to reinforce the idea that we are immediately and directly shaped by society’s standards. Whether we choose to conform or to be nonconformists, it is the repercussions and reactions of media-influenced society and those around us that ultimately determine our behavior. This social construction of gender starts early and by the time we are able to see these patterns, these ideas will have already been deeply ingrained and practice regularly. After all, the construction of gender starts with looking at male and female instead of looking at those patterns of behavior and identifying the people who would exhibit such traits (Lorber 2009).

Every individual is raised and are taught to behave in a certain manner depending on their upbringing and the personal values inherited from parents, friends and religion as well as the contribution that media makes from constant exposure. It is the claim of Jhally (2009) that “the most negative thing that we can say about these gender displays in ads is that they do not look strange to us” and this holds much truth because when one becomes constantly exposed to something else, we eventually adapt to it and accept it, especially when it can’t be changed.” Advertising is a strong medium for concentrating the social construction of gender into a visual form with men being depicted as strong beings devoid of emotion while women are depicted as emotionally imbalanced creatures. These images and themes are then utilized in the mainstream culture and it is assumed by many that society quite normally copies what the advertisements represent.

Communication theory was popular in the mid-twentieth century and resulted in models that map the operations of human communication as process “in which messages are encoded and transmitted from a sender to a receiver through a particular channel with certain effects.” (Code, 2000) These theories were the creation of media and  marketing professionals who sought to understand the effect of communication messages on audiences.” (Code,  ) Feminist communication theories based on transmission models have assumed that communication processes operate in a linear fashion transmitting to audiences particular messages about gender.” (Code, 2000)

From this view one of the primary functions of the mass media is to make a contribution to the social control of women. The media has received criticism from feminist researchers for how women are portrayed, as they believe that sex-role stereotypes are reinforced by media resulting in inhibiting the advancement of women in society. Transmission models are stated in the work of Code (2000) to “accept that the media can directly and accurately reflect social reality, whereas critical approaches propose that the mass media contributes to the social construction of ‘reality’.” (Code, 2000)

The literature reviewed in this study has demonstrated that social construction of gender has as its bases the principles of conformance to society-based norms and that this includes gendered norms and furthermore that media influences the construction of gender or that conceptual base of gender in society. The needs that each gender-based role in society fills for that society that serves to compel and formulate the standards that are set for types and forms of gender-based role conformance.

It has also been demonstrated in the literature reviewed in this study that when a need exists in society for a role to be filled that neither gender is more or less qualified to fill then gender can be rendered as null so as to allow that needs-based role to be non-gendered and yet one that is filled efficiently such as in the African-American, American Indian, and berdaches or jijras or xaniths as noted in this study and specifically in the work of Lorber, 2009).

The conclusion of this study is that media is very powerful in its effect upon the lives of individuals and on many levels including its power to effect the social construction of gender in society. Stated as recommendation in this study is that of more research in the area of how the media can specifically and intentionally positively influence society and bring about a rapid transformation within the world society in the area of gender inequity and disparity related matters. The role that media plays in the social construction of gender is one of great import, and this is true whether it is in terms of social construction of gender in the sports arena, professional world, home life issues, relationships, clothing choices, household product choices, and even spiritual and religious issues of a gendered nature.

Media has a powerful influence on social construction of gender as evidence by the literature reviewed in this study and as well media powerfully influences the individual woman’s perception of self in terms of her own self-worth and in terms of her levels of self-confidence as she makes an ongoing and continual comparison of herself and the expectations that exist in regards to how she should look, dress, and behave.

There is a constant barrage of input into the daily lives of individuals via the media conglomerates. Included in this information avalanche is precise and methodological calculation, based on empirical research and scientific studies of how the individual invariably, is affected, and whether directly or indirectly by media production and presentation. This information informs the hearer of where they should eat, what car they should drive, which bank should be their bank, and on and on go the instructional and information-filled media presentations.

It is however, the accuracy and transparency of such media production that is in question and specifically as to the intent of the media in terms of its affect upon those who are receiving the media content. The content may well be of a highly positive nature and many times this is evident in the community and serves to emphasize the good in society. Media has the potential to be noble in the effects it brings and philanthropic or produce negligent harm to the individual in the social construction of gender. The ethical principles and standards of media require a closer examination as well as does study of the influence of media on the social construction of gender in society.

References

Campbell, Jason J. (nd) http://www.jason-j-campbell.com/Beyond_Gender%20Essentialism%20and%20the%20Social%20Construction%20of%20Gende

Code, Lorraine (2000) Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories. Routledge World Reference. Taylor & Francis 2000. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?id=Mw6I9-P2u3QC&dq=media+social+construction+of+gender&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Gauntlett, David (2002) Media, Gender and Identities. Retrieved from:http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/extract.htm

Weber, Stefan (nd ) What Does Media Construct Reality Mean? From An Ontological to an Empirical Understanding of Construction. Media and the Construction of Reality. Retrieved from: http://www.mediamanual.at/en/pdf/Weber_etrans.pdf

Lorber, Judith (2009) Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender Retrieved from: http://blogs.davidson.edu/preyer207/Lorber, 2009,%20’Night%20to%20His%20Day’.pdf

Macedo, DP and Steinberg, SR (2007) Media Literacy: A Reader. Peter Lang 2007. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?id=Ndpsb86ldA4C&dq=media+social+construction+of+gender&source=gbs_navlinks_s

The Social Construction of Difference: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality (nd) World Publishers. Retrieved from: http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/raceclassgender/content/cat_020/Part_I.pdf

The Social Construction of Gender (nd) Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?id=LP9bIrZ9xacC&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=social+construction+of+gender+in+the+media&source=bl&ots=QdaKxghjCz&sig=A4cEUZfiAH-XxkfwenRCVFZQhAU&hl=en&ei=qejkTKCLKoW8lQeG47W6Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=social%20construction%20of%20gender%20in%20the%20media&f=false

Lorber, Judith. 2010 “Believing Is Seeing: Biology As Ideology” in Rose Weitz, ed. The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance and Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jhally, S. 2009 Codes of Gender. Media Education Foundation.

Importance of Media to the Construction of Gender (2010) Women’s Studies 10 Essay. 13 May 2010. Retrieved from: http://riraki.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/womens-studies-10-essay-importance-of-media-to-the-construction-of-gender/