There is wide spread under representation of females within all parts of our society, whether that be academia or everyday life. As well as the under representation of females, there is further questions to be addressed in the way that women are represented and portrayed. The research and literature succeeding, shows the latter of these two. Both of these factors are not a new phenomenon, with the miss representation of women dating back to Ancient Greece (Vogler and Schwartz, 1993) with the example of women being forbidden to take part in the Olympic Games. When researching the representation of females, three key themes kept cropping up in almost every search; the representation of females in the media, the representation of females in sports and the representation of females in children’s books. These themes will be explained critically explained below, in relation to each other. All of these themes to an extent inter link, with similar outcomes. The general consensus is that through the eyes of a western culture, women are negatively represented and miss or under represented.
Much of the research into the representation of women within the media shows very similar results and key words. Studies by the American Psychological Association (APA) a scientific organisation have found considerable amounts of evidence suggesting and documentation of the extensive objectification of women in conventional Western media, including the music industry, television/film, sports media, advertising and commercial products to name a few included (APA, 2007). Other research before 2007, have also used similar words especially focusing on the Western contexts of media. Ward and Harrison, 2005 have suggested the notion that ‘women are sexual objects to be viewed and evaluated by men.’ Therefore, the use of similar words and coming to the similar conclusions that women are objectified, suggests reliability within the research. However, a key weakness of this is that there is little to say that this is the same in all cultures. This is only for Western culture. This therefore may not be able to be generalised to wider cultures, suggesting that the research may in fact be flawed.
In order to combat the issue of cultural validity and the limitations that has to the wider field of research, a meta analysis from 1979 by Ceulemans and Fauconnier, which had UNESCO funding, used cross cultural studies in order to get an understanding of how women were represented in the mass media. Findings summarized by Byerly et al., 2005, showed that the results from different nations within Africa, Latin America, Asia and Western cultures accentuated either the traditional domestic roles of women or treated females within the media as sex objects. Although an older piece of literature, this shows very similar results to that of later years, showing that this may be a timeless societal issue. There has additionally been vast research into the representation of gender and media within racial minorities within North America. Hooks, 1992 suggests that the media creates the response from other racial groups to the based on the relation to constructed images. The comparison of this from the studies above might suggest that the media construct women in the same way in all cultures within all nations. Furthermore, other research within the same topic of Hooks,1992 uses different research methods (Brooks, 2006) for example discourse analysis (Meyers, 2004) and semiotic analysis (Strother, 2004). The use of different research strategies strengthens the similar conclusions. The strength of the conclusions therefore helps to develop the understanding within the field and whether or not those inferences are reliable.
The representation of Women in sports has many categories and themes within it, for example the inclusion/exclusion (representation) of females within sports and the sporting community, the role they play in the sporting community and the way in which sporting athletes are shown in the media. The concluding one is the focusing theme, this due to the interlinking literature with the previous theme.
A key bit of literature is by George, Hartley, and Paris, 2001. They looked at the results of two different studies which looked into the coverage of participation of females in sport. Both of which showed that the British media showed a preferred coverage to male athletes. Harris, 1999 made a statement saying “attitudes toward the institution of sports generates and support sexist ideologies and beliefs about gender.” With that said it was found from these studies that Newspaper coverage athletes who were female had an emphasis on their femininity. Therefore, the media enhance the sexist ideologies. By using two studies to draw their conclusions, George, Hartley and Paris, 2001 have enabled a greater reliability in due to both studies concluding very similar things, with the miss representation of female athletes in the media. Additionally, another piece of literature is by Daniels and Wartena, 2011. This used various different types of methods such as surveys, correlational studies, empirical research and anecdotal evidence, to understand the way that adolescent males think concerning media representations of female athletes. One of these bits of research suggests that the type of coverage as well as gender itself, influences the perceptions that a young male may hold of what an athlete is (Knight and Giuliano, 2001). All of these bits of research were trying to find out if when a female athlete is sexualized, whether or not are perceived as athletes in their own right or as sexual objects. Further research has shown that there is the possibility of these types of gender biased attitudes can disadvantage a women’s position in society (Hartley, 1996). However, the credibility of this assumption must be questioned due to the report not being published as it is an undergraduate’s thesis from Thames Valley University, UK. Therefore, although it provides a thought provoking point it must not be considered in a way that is set in stone due to being unpublished and not peer reviewed.
By comparing these bits of literature, it is evident to see that within sport, with the help of the media, often women are not seen for their athletic abilities but instead for their femininity and their aesthetic looks. With all the different types of research methods the conclusions can be seen to be reliable. Additionally, another strength of much of the research surrounding female athlete representation in the media is that much of the research is conducted by females. This is significant as it is a female understanding an issue that affects their gender. However, this also may have room for researcher bias as it may allow slips of subjective opinions to cloud their initial assumptions of the research before the evidence is gained.
Much of the research concerning, illustrations within children’s picture books over time tends to have similar conclusions and outcomes. The overall outcome of the research is that females tend to be places within traditional gender roles and are portrayed as old maids, housewives and princesses (McDonald, 1989). The female characters are only limited to a certain pre determined number of stereotyped roles, with great persistence of the traditional gender roles (Ellis and Bentler, 1973). There is vast research showing similar results as this but from wider data and sample sets for example the original research by Barnett, 1986. The relevance of comparing a smaller sample from a section research to another with a larger sample, allows the conclusions from the two to be compared. When there are similarities, as such in this case, they can be generalized together, and stronger assumptions can be made about the research. For McDonald, 1989 the previous large sample enhances the reliability of the research.
Other research into the representation of females in children’s literature looks into the potential after effects of stereotyped gender roles on children. Based upon the research by Crabbs and Bielawski, 1991, Poarch and Monk-Turner, 2001 looked into the gender roles in childrens ‘easy-to-read’ literature. Their primary finding was that if females were not shown in a leisure activity, they would most likely be seen with a household artifact. This has differences to the originals study in 1991, in that female characters were using the household artifacts in 1991 instead of just being seen with them. Therefore showing that the research results has developed and improved the childrens literature industry. Within their study, Poarcha and Monk-Turner, showed findings from other studies suggesting the after effects on children from reading stereotyped books, with often the literature being effectively transmitted to children (Peterson & Lach, 1990). Furthermore, there are additional suggestions that books with widely gendered stereotypes, deprives girls of a variety of alternative and strong role models as well as the prevention of a young girls potential from being realized (Fox 1993). These ideas are then compared to the real life world, suggesting that the roles played by the female characters reflect and thus communicate the traditional roles (Creany, 1995). All of the above suggestions from the different types of research helps to support one another, showing that even though with time there has been changes to the way that females are represented in childrens literature, there is also still significance miss representation of women in these types of books still to this day, and that this can be detrimental to the views that young girls have of themselves and the aspirations they may have had. Further research by Brugeilles et al., 2002 shows that there are some gaps in present and past research. This is that there needs to be research into adolescent short novels in order to get a whole picture of representation of women in childrens literature, and to show whether or not there are any effects of the mass gender stereotyping in the aspirations of young girls.