Sex Roles, Women, and the Mass Media

If you looked at that title, rolled your eyes and said, "Oh boy," then pat yourself on the back for being the reason that feminism exists.
No, seriously.
At first I thought Gaye Tuchman was being alarmist in her assertion - no, insistence - that there was a "symbolic annihilation of women by the mass media," especially considering she wrote that article in 1978, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized its truth. Granted, there is so much more diversity in female roles in television shows than there used to be. It's been 31 years since that article was published. However, I've only been watching TV since about 1992 and I've always been appalled by the cookie-cutter type characters women had. Men could be all sorts of things, think all sorts of things, and do all sorts of things; but women were always driven by the same motivations. Surprisingly, commercials and ads haven't changed all that dramatically. There is more representation of women in corporate settings - and not as subordinates - BUT ads and commercials for cleaning products still feature mostly women. Please, someone, show me a commercial that has a masculine father-type man dancing around with Mr. Clean! Come to think of it, I may actually buy a Mr. Clean product instead of cheap generic brand if I see a commercial like that.
The only thing I slightly disagreed with in Tuchman's piece was the bit about women (and men) being influenced by their representations in TV, commercials, and magazines. I'll admit that when children are at an impressionable age there can be damage done that cannot be reversed, however, I maintain that people have a mind of their own - even fairly young people.

David Gauntlett's a funny guy with thinking not unlike my own. His chapter, "Representations of Gender in the Past" captured my thoughts to a T. For five minutes after I read it, my reflection went thusly: "Yes. Wow." I especially liked the point about feminism being capitalist. Go us. We can liberate women from their ages-old ideological fetters and stimulate the economy AT THE SAME TIME!

This clip from YouTube is taken from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 5. The episode is called, "The Outcast." The Enterprise-D crew makes contact with a people who have no gender - they are neutral. Captain Picard agrees to commit his resources to helping them with a problem, and Commander Riker and Soren are thrown together in this mission. In the beginning sequence, Soren has asked Riker about the difference between men and women.