Female Stereotypes In The Media Essay -- Papers

Female Stereotypes In The Media In the media the most common female stereotypes, are the housewife and the blonde bimbo. The Housewife. Chained to the kitchen sink, always cleaning and cooking. An old stereotype. In the advertisement for Shake `n Vac a woman is doing the vacuuming and dancing around shaking Shake `n' Vac on the floor. This is a stereotype for the reason that a man is nowhere to be found. But in advertisements for intelligent matters like finance, it's always a man. At first, when I saw the advertisement for Mc Cain's chips, I thought the woman in it wasn't stereotypical, as she was not cooking the meal, the man was. But after a while I saw that this was just for a joke, as at the end you saw that the man was only able to cook a tray of oven chips and he doesn't even know whether they have a chip pan or not, as the dialogue goes, Man: à ´I spent ages making these chips, slicing the potatoes, frying them in the chip panà  .à ¶ Woman: à ´What chip pan?à ¶ The Mirror's cartoon section has had a cartoon that's been there for years and years called Andy Capp. (See picture A)This cartoon follows the life of a stereotypical northern husband and wife. In the edition I looked at, there's a picture of Andy's wife carrying a bucket and a cloth, walking into the kitchen, blanking the husband whose lying on a couch nearby. He asks à ´What's the matter pet? Is it something I did? à ¶ And she shouts back à ´How? When's the last time you did anything?à ¶ In all of the cartoons, Andy never did any housework, as far as he was concerned that was women's work and he always expected his dinner to be on the table when he came home from ... ... like in the advertisement for shake and vac. The reason why stereotypes exists are usually because when people make up characters (for TV scripts, film scripts, etc.) it's easier to use the image of a woman that someone is familiar with. Most writers are male. As they don't know much about them and they can only write about what they know about, they have to use the images they have of women in their heads. It's the same with other stereotypes, i.e. French people in the media always wear berets and have onions round their necks. When will our views change completely? I think, although new stereotypes are appearing and old ones are evolving, it will take time. But the women will always be portrayed, because they're the child bearers, as being chained to the kitchen sink and planning what to have for dinner.