Have you ever thought about why women were depicted in media as those who wash clothes, do the dishes, clean the house, cook food, or were shown in any traditional female occupations? They were also objectified as material for sex because of their physical attractiveness and sex appeal, showing them wearing revealing clothes for cigarette and alcohol advertisements. How about men who were depicted as those who hold positions of authority, a hard worker or those who receive the attention of a woman? These were examples of gender depictions that we can observe every day in media, particularly on television commercials.
Gender depictions, as one of the principal topics of this paper, are embedded in any context, particularly in media. From the definition of media, it includes what we hear on radio, what we read or see in books, in magazines, in newspapers, on billboards, on the Internet and what we view on movies and television commercials (Adams 5). We could observe gender depictions in all forms of media. In fact, when talking about gender, media is the most persistent. A study entitled “Gendered Media: The influence of Media on Gender” stated that:
Of the many influences on how we view men and women, media are the pervasive and one of the most powerful. Woven throughout our daily lives, media insinuate their messages into our consciousness at every turn. All forms of media communicate images of the sexes. (Wood 31)
As stated above, gender depictions could be observe in