BULLETIN NO. 10

The Images of Women in the Mass Media (I)

by Sara Lovera (Centro de Comunicación de la Mujer -CIMAC)

When we study the mass media we are obliged to think about the real life of women and men and how these are reflected -or not- in the mass media.

For a long time the feminist critique was concerned with analyzing the feminine content and images projected in the media, rejecting them, saying, we are not like that and we don't want to be like that. We learned that the media reinforce the traditional feminine stereotype; we know that the media industry sees women as a sexual consumer object, especially in advertising. Their contents not only project an image of who we are, they also show what is expected of us.

Sexist images still permeate large segments of the mass media: abnegated wives and mothers, macho women, attractive women, masculine executive women, frustrated women, isolated women separated from their context, silent, humble obedient women who are not protagonists, faithful, loving women, servers,

helpers. In part this does reflect reality, because the cultural changes of how we are formed and told to act in the society and in daily life are very slow. Today however we can talk about a gap between the image and reality - important changes have taken place over the last few years in society and in the lives of men and women all over the globe. These changes have led to new inter-relationships and women as a gender have begun to assume new roles, but this is not reflected in the media, and frequently these new images are silenced and repressed by the mass media.

It is time to recognize that women are different to what we used to be, even though large populations still maintain pre-existing cultural models. Millions of women have a new imaginary, and many of us reject the attributes traditionally considered feminine or maternal. This new image is of course as yet unclear, but it is generally ignored or rejected by the mass media. This rejection is fundamental to detain or obstruct change, because millions of women lack objective mirrors and attractive images. In our society every construction marking a sexual/gender difference invariably portrays femininity as subordinated to masculinity. This image prevails in the media too.

Obstacles and Opportunities

Today, the mass media, the fourth generation of computers, technological revolution, cyber space and fiber optics, all offer us great challenges and make us consider new action strategies about how to intervene.

At the end of this millennium some things are certain: the dominating mass media - from newspapers to the Internet - function as an instrument that propagates the dominating development model: that of those who hold power. The media are a tool that works to maintain the status quo and the existing structure, and they are controlled by the decision makers at the top; a tool to increase differences and convert peoples and their women into consumers of goods and ideologies.

This age of fast communications, of increasing access to information, able to show us in seconds a war or a massive act of solidarity, has not made us more just, committed or creative. In this thing called "global village" we are a lot more selfish, ego centered, brutal and patriarchal than most villagers ever were, sociologist Kamla Bhasin asserts in her analysis of the media for the population in the south of the world (speaking at the meeting on Women Empowering Communication in Bangkok, 1994).

One first obstacle and challenge for the end of the century is that of the globalization of the media, directly linked to the globalization of the economy, of cultural and symbolic goods, and of ideology. In the media, globalization has opened air space for agencies like CNN, the BBC and many others, that can now transmit one single message across the five continents via parabolic antennas and cable systems. And at the same time, a lot more Coca Cola has entered our homes, ten years later our consumption has grown exponentially.

While the contents of publicity shown on television screens not only reaffirmed stereotypes but also generated new global outlooks, feminist women were concerned with how to improve the image of women in the media and how to really change the condition and position of women, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic life, avoid ecological disasters and so on.

Many of us asked whether free trade and globalization of the economy would resolve our problems. We question whether these tendencies are improving the condition or position of women, if these tendencies are dominating the media or not, and what it all means for our future.

We cannot criticize the media without considering that the market has become an all powerful god, that the human being has become a thing. We have to ask ourselves if the media are an instrument to reestablish a culture of peace and human rights, where inequities and sexism do not exist.

In the feminist analysis, profit is the most important item in the logic of globalization, both in the economy and in the media. Globalization is accompanied by centralization and monopolization, control of technological developments and the creation of worldwide cultural products, it involves the traffic of everything that can be sold in the name of profit: weapons, pornography, junk food and violence, and it destroys natural resources.

Globalization also implies an increase in the messages of violence and militarization because the world capitals are trying to control profits in the region where most of the poor live, and they can achieve this by controlling consumption and consciences, and of course with the promotion of a consumer culture based on having in order to be.

Thus, globalization also implies that the patriarchy is strengthened, as its values permeate the society, including us women as a gender.