Women in the Media

Women in the Media

Woman have had a bad history concerning sexism when it comes to media in American society. Expected to fill a specific gender role as the cook, maid, or child bearing sex machine. Today's society, however, has evolved to to discourage these once prominent ideals. In the early 20th century, women were the target of sexism which was considered a social norm. Regardless of how blatantly insulting the scenario was, woman were simply expected to tolerate the house-wife stereotype. 

Advertisements, especially during the 1950s, commonly depicted woman as the powerless house-wife, fully controlled and influenced by their bread-winning husband. Feminine products were marketed to impress the man, and cleaning and cooking supplies were advertised to promote the benefits of woman's place in the kitchen. Such vintage ads that included the slogans, "Don't worry darling, you didn't burn the beer!" and "Christmas morning; She'll be happier with a Hoover!" not only created the stigma that we now know, but left absolutely no room for interpretation.

Unfortunately, advertisements were not the only area in the media where women experienced sexism. Especially during the 1950s and 60s, Hollywood put a massive emphasis on the sexualization and gender roles of woman. In a time that was considered the Golden Age of film, things were looking pretty bleak for the woman on screen. It was, however, the social norm for them to be treated this way and no one gave a second thought when they heard Ward Cleaver give his son Wally the talk of how a woman's place is in the kitchen. Woman were also cast exclusively as secondary characters and only given short and simple lines of dialogue in their scripts.

Fortunately for women, things began to look up as society entered the late 20th century. Gender roles became less and less of a way to market them and instead, media began to give women more of an identity. They began to take on roles that emphasized their power and intelligence. Female characters such as Ripley in Alien and The Bride in Kill Bill portrayed women as strong, dangerous, capable and for lack of better words, badass, while films such as Erin Brokovich and Legally Blonde introduced the notion that female characters can be intelligent and perceptive. Strong female leads were becoming more and more common and women were now given qualities that were once very foreign to their characters.

Things were ultimately looking up for women. They were well on their way in receiving some much needed recognition and strong female leads were becoming more and more frequent. Unfortunately, there was another form of media that rose out of the 80s and with it, brought a massive resurgence of weak female characters with it. I am of course referring to video games.

The early years of video games were very similar in comparison to films in the sense that men were once again the dominant presence. Female leads were extremely rare if not completely non-existent. Games also returned women to their former status as defenseless and weak individuals  in constant need of saving. I mean the entire premise of the Mario Bros franchise is that a princess is repeatedly kidnapped by the same guy and as the dominant male character, you must rescue her from his grasp; and this happens a total of EIGHT TIMES. Female characters were also put back into the same over sexualized position that they once were, highlighting characters such as Lara Croft and her overly busty polygon chest.

Fortunately for video games, it only took a few years before they began to realize just how important female characters are to their fan bases. Many games began to incorporate strong female side characters and even full roles as early as the late 90s. One very notable character being Samus Aren, or better known as Metroid. In this game released in 1991, players were given control over a fully armored space mercenary who was tasked with annihilating a band of alien space pirates who have seized control of your ship. Sounds like the work for a strong, capable male character, right? Well this was until the ending credit scene where it was revealed that Samus was, in fact, a very blonde haired woman. This took gamers by surprise since every notable video game character before this had been a man. so for one of the most overall badass characters to turn out to be a woman was a complete surprise. After the initial shock, however, fans only began to embrace the idea that a great video game character shouldn't be limited to what's between their legs.

Since the debut of Samus Aren, female protagonists have become increasingly popular. Some of the most well praised and best selling games almost always feature a stand-out female lead. One of my personal fovourites being Ellie from the game The Last of Us. A young girl who struggles to survive during an apocalypse that has destroyed civilization.


Through the history of media, women have gone through an incredible amount of discrimination. Society, however, is clearly moving away from their old ideals and beliefs and women are now getting the recognition that they deserve.