Blog 19

Geena Davis is founder of the organization See Jane which works to dramatically increase the percentages of female characters and reduce gender stereotyping in media made for children. In the video she is speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform and she reflects on the influence that media depiction has on everyday policies and practices. A positive example of media influence on the public came about after her movie “A League of Their Own” was released. She mentioned how young girls would run up to her and proclaim that they were inspired to play sports after seeing the movie.

She notes that the percentage of female characters in children’s media was low in the past and has not changed much in the present. For example, Whinny the Poo has nine characters and only one is female; she can’t exist in the story on her own because her name is Kanga and her male counterpart is Roo. In the popular cartoon Junior Bear, the only female in the story, Granny, needed to leave the scene so the story could take place.

Apart from the low percentage of female visibility in the media, what is portrayed is a highly stereotyped sexualized portrayal of women. Some of these characters include the rail thin Judy Jetson and Miss Piggy who is fully equipped with muppet-cleavage. In the original airing of The Smurfs cartoon, there were a total of 100 smurfs and zero female smurfs until they added smurfett. She was originally created by an evil wizard to destroy the smurfs but papa smurf performed some magic and transformed her. The only thing that changed was her appearance and it wasn’t until she was better looking that the other smurfs began to accept her.

In light of all this, Davis conducted the largest analysis of G-rated movies in history to determine the percentage of female characters. From the top 100 movies released from 1990-2005, she found that 3 out of 4 characters in these movies are male and of characters shown in groups, only 17% were female. Though her research and a public education campaign, she wants to work with the film industry to increase the percentage of female characters and decrease the portrayal of highly sexualized characters.

These findings all affect the way girls and boys and men and women perceive either gender. Girls may become self-conscious of their bodies and boys may see girls as less than worthy. Not only do these media portrayals affect boys and girls, they also affect men and women in their work environments. The following addresses how the influence of media depiction effects everyday policies and practices of interactions with coworkers and supervisors that reinforce stereotypes about women’s alleged inability to deal with physical violence.

Most men believe that their unique qualification for being a corrections officer is their ability to deal with violence; implying that women are not qualified to deal with violence. (Pg.174) For example, a when a fight breaks out in the cafeteria, male officers prevent the female officer from going in and breaking up the fight. By not allowing the female inmate to walk into a dangerous situation, these men are exemplifying the male identity of protector but they also reinforce stereotypes about women’s alleged inability to deal with physical violence. If a woman is able to prove her ability to deal with physical violence it threatens male corrections officers’ dignity and ego. Their dignity and ego can be not only threatened, but squashed it if she is able to deal with violence better than he can.

Women officers claim their gendered identities at work by adopting a “modified” strategy for approaching their job. For some it means embracing chivalrous acts of men and relying on them for protection in order to work in safe job environments. Other women adopt a “modified” strategy of disregarding gender stereotypes by insisting on proving themselves as equal, even if it places them in an unsafe environment. They can claim their identities in this way by using logic that if all inmates are getting paid equally, they should all have the opportunity to go the same jobs.