Outline

I.                    Introduction: A brief overview and background of my topic, finished with my thesis.

A.      Women are working, men are staying home, married couples don’t want children, and couples who aren’t married are having children.

i.                     These shifts in social norms have brought many changes to how people have to view gender roles, but the media has yet to get the memo.

B.      Within the realms of this paper, I wish to define media as: The main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet) regarded collectively (Oxford English Dictionary).

C.      Thesis: With the portrayal and techniques employed by the media, the effects are to be taken into serious consideration. 

II.                  Gender Roles: The media portrays gender roles in the old fashioned way.

A.      Women are sexualized while men are portrayed as Men not boys.

i.                     “In Grand Thief Auto (GTA)…women were typically depicted as prostitutes and men as violent thugs” (Dill 853).

ii.                   “Consistent with hypermasculine male ideals, advertising text sometimes depicted danger as thrilling and violence as manly” (Dill 853)

B.      Women are presented as homemakers while men the bread winners.

i.                     “These women are seen as stepping into the income breach without deviating from their domestic roles…” (Negra 124)

ii.                   “…but it goes out of it’s way to caricature women as incapable of understanding the depth of male dedication to a cause” (Negra 128)

III.                Technique: The media uses a number of subliminal techniques to enforce their gender roles on their unknowing viewers.

A.      Visual ques are one method of reinforcement.

i.                     “More commonly, visual portrayals in the media focus on a female athlete’s beauty and sexuality” (Jones 201).

ii.                   “finally, male athletes receive more camera angles and more close-ups than female athletes, indicating more excitement” (Jones 201).

B.      Verbal ques are another.

i.                     “As a result female athletes are often described as mother’s and wife’s and male athletes are more likely to be described using masculine descriptors” (Jones 202).

ii.                   “Both male and female athletes who do not participate in gender-appropriate sports or do not portray a gender-appropriate image are arguably more likely to face such stereotypical media coverage” (jones 202).

IV.                Effects: These Portrayals and methods of reinforcement often do more harm than good.

A.      Current portrayals control people’s view of people.

i.                     “…this pattern results in men appearing smarter and in women appearing objectified” (Knight 13).

B.      Portrayal such as this has negative effects to one’s own image.

i.                     “Media also exert a strong influence on male body image, as stereotyping of hypermasculinity are connected with the drive for muscularity, motivating boys and young men to engage in unhealthy practices…” (Dill 825).

ii.                   Research has also shown that exposure to media images of ideal beauty causes college men to find the average-looking ‘real’ women less attractive” (Dill 825).

V.                  Conclusion: Allowing the media to portray genders as they want will do no one any good.