When we started talking to and hearing from people across the country (and the globe) who had heard about the Girls, Women + Media Project, we kept hearing the same things over and over again about their frustrations with popular media.
These were things that we also noticed ourselves. For sure, not all women and girls have the same observations and feelings, so we can’t say "this is how ALL girls or women feel." And giving credit where its due, we also get emails and comments from men—some are really cool dads who care about their daughters (and their sons, too), others just concerned, conscientious men who care about women, about men and women getting along, and about quality and equality in our culture. (…yay!)
But if you’re reading this and thinking you’ve got complaints or suggestions for the media that are unique to you, chances are, there are a whole lot of other people thinking the same thing. So we took a look at the comments we get and hear all the time, divided them into some sort of fancy sounding categories, and did a little research. Here are a few things we found.
Unrealistic, unhealthy portrayals of female sexuality, sexual health, and gratuitous female sexuality and nudity
S-e-x. It’s everywhere in the media. The average young TV viewer will see about 14,000 references to sex each year. Does it matter? According to teens, yes! Teens themselves say that TV, as well as movies and other media, are some of their leading sources of information about sex and sexuality. But do these images give people realistic, healthy, equality-minded views of sex? And is overloading teens with portrayals of sex a responsible thing to do at all? Studies show that:
• Of the roughly 14,0000 references to sex a teen would see on TV each year, only a small fraction (165) will include any reference to abstinence or delay of sex, birth control, risk of pregnancy, or sexually transmitted disease. Obviously girls bear the risk of pregnancy that boys don’t, but girls are also more likely to contract STDs than boys. (American Academy of Pediatarics, Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, 2001)
• Some studies show that repeated exposure to media with sexual content may influence teens to have sex earlier. But here’s the scary part: those same studies show that the younger a girl is when she has sex, the more likely she did it under pressure, or even force. (AAP; see above)
What other messages do girls (and boys) get about sexuality from the media?
A lot of it comes from the music industry, especially through music videos.
• MTV, the favorite TV of girls 11-19, regularly includes girls and women in the traditional role of sex object, as seen in features on the network (think Spring Break) and many music videos. Girls and women who are serious musicians (excluding singers) are rarely featured. Programs and videos show boys/men as sex objects much less frequently. (MTV Programming; and Media Use in America, 2000, Mediascope.)
• A study shows that when men are shown in the background of a video, they are most often fully clothed. But when women are in the background, approximately half the time they are dressed in ways that expose or focus on their breasts and rear ends (ChildrenNow, Boys to Men: Media Messages About Masculinity, 1999).
(A probably related statistic: A study from the mid-1990’s shows that 90% of the top 100 music videos shown on MTV were directed by men. Sut Jhally, Dreamworlds 2, Media Education Foundation, 1995.))
• A study of video games found that the few female characters in those games are often highly sexualized—wearing tight revealing clothing and having unrealistically large breasts and distorted small waists. (Girls and Gaming, Children Now; 2000.)
• Video games and other media sometimes use prostitutes as characters that are targets for the male hero. In a game from the Duke Nukem series, prostitutes are forced to strip and are then killed. In the number one selling video game for 2001, Grand Auto Theft III, the player can clobber a prostitute with a baseball bat with a new game technique that allows the player to feel he or she is really doing this. In other popular media, prostitutes and strippers are often included to add scenes of female breasts and rear-ends on camera.These offer viewers images of women and female sexuality associated with exchanging sex for money, and sex with violence.
• In advertising, women’s bodies are used sexually to sell products more often than men’s. A 1997 advertising study showed that white women in roughly 62% of ads were "scantily clad", in bikinis, underwear, etc, while the same was true for 53% of black women. For men, the figure was only 25%. Women were also represented in stances of powerlessness more often, and black women were likely to be featured in animal prints, in predatory poses. (Racial and Gender Biases in Magazine Advertising, S. Plous and D. Neptune, 1997, Psychology of Womens Quarterly)
Non realistic and unhealthy body image
• The women seen most often in the media are fashion models, pop stars (singers) and actresses. (We don’t like the word "supermodel", ‘cause they really don’t do anything that super.) Many women seen often in the media, especially models and increasingly actresses, are seriously underweight, and many diet and smoke to keep their natural weight off. ( A girl or woman who diets and is underweight can be undernourished, sometimes even losing her menstrual period. Prolonged loss of periods can lead to fertility problems---while constant or extreme dieting also carries health risks and can actually lead to longterm weight gain.) (Body Wars, by Margo Maine, 2000)
• In a 1992 study of female students at Stanford University, 70% of women reported feeling worse about themselves and their bodies after looking at magazines. (A British study also had a similar finding.) Roughly 50% of teen girls in the U.S. read teen or adult fashion magazines. (Body Wars)
• In movies, body doubles are often used to substitute for "imperfect" female movie stars (such as America’s favorite actress Julia Roberts, in one of America’s favorite movies, Pretty Woman.) Eighty-five percent of these body doubles have breast implants. (Jean Kilbourne, Can't Buy My Love, 2001.) Scientific evidence suggests many women with breast implants have some adverse affects; pain, permanently deformed skin if implant is removed, loss of sensation in breast, interference with early detection of a tumor, and potential link with serious auto-immune disorders. (Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, Washington, D.C.)
• Studies show that all plastic surgeries among teens increased by almost 50% from 1996-1998 mostly for girls (newswecanuse.org; 1/9/01); at the same time there have been more advertisements for breast implants and other surgeries, and more models, actresses, and singers as "advertisements" for the surgeries (think Cher, Pamela Anderson, Demi Moore, Mariah Carey, and as some have suggested, Britney.)
Health, Hate and Sterotypes . . .
Female characters, women in the industry, news, sports . . .
