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In our modern society, where technology and popular culture are major influences, the media sets our social norms on how we view and react to both gender roles. It does not matter where a person looks, they can see some form media – such as an advertisement, television show, or just the music we listen too. The inability to escape from the media makes it easy for a person to become saturated with homogenous messages of gender stereotypes, which eventually become the common beliefs throughout the entire society. When it comes to gender roles, the media sends out a message that a male or female should look and act a specific way if you are anything less of that then you do not fit in the social category of normal. These messages create many gender stereotypes, such as an individual’s opinion on their personal appearance, their role in society, or even specific characteristics that they think they should have to be their gender. If the media was not just controlled by a few large corporations, but by many smaller companies it would give society the freedom of choice to choose media with a message they believe instead of just saturating them with dominant, homogenous messages. The media plays a major role in establishing a certain physical appearance which is ideal for a gender type, and in both cases it is a perfectly fit, well groomed appearance that is made to be what everyone should have and if not, working to get. By doing this they set standards of perfection that few can obtain, and it is because of this they are able to ensure a profitable market forever, the main goal for all types of media. By looking at one source of media such as magazine advertisements it is very easy to see similarities between different ads, such as the type of people that are in the ads, or even the way the photographer emphasizes certain body parts depending on the sex of the person in the advertisement. Males that appear in advertisements are generally tall, dark, and handsome, with a muscular body, which creates an image that every male should look like this or they are not masculine. This can give other males who may not have these physical characteristics a sense that they are less a of a man, because they don’t have huge muscles for example, they are left to think that they are not as masculine as the males they see all the time in advertisements. The same can be seen with an even greater emphasis on body perfection for females in all forms of media. When looking at an advertisement that features a female it can seen that the photographer made sure that the entire body is shown, where as in an advertisement for males there would more emphasis on the face. On average the male face is emphasized 43% more in advertisements than female faces (Cartarphen and Zavoina, 1999, p.114). The female body is generally portrayed as being thin, having good body curvature, good complexion, and having a thick luscious head of hair. This message can be seen throughout the entire spectrum of media, from blockbuster movies to children’s television programs. For example 70% of girls and 40% of boys (www.childrennow.org) said that they want to look like the characters that they see on television, which shows that the media is affecting both genders and that females are subjected to even greater pressure to fall into these social norms. A lot of the time the message being sent out is so subtle that it goes unnoticed at the time, but when you look at the big picture it adds to the perfection message and gives femininity a set of guild lines made by the media. For all the females they do not fall between the guild lines boundaries are considered to less feminine then another female who possesses the qualities that are said to be ideal.
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