The Feminist Review

What we see on TV becomes normalized. This is troubling when TV is full of violence, sex, violent sex, alcohol (most common beverage seen on TV), etc. Men are seen on TV more than women, and sexualized women are seen more than sexualized men.

The Geena Davis Institute on Media held a conference recently that discussed the potrayal of women on TV and in movies. They found all sorts of frustrating things:

• the ratio of men:women on screen is 1:3 (apparently up from 1:5 twenty years ago)
• females are over 5 times more likely than males to be shown in sexually revealing clothing (about 4 times more likely in TV and movies aimed at children)
• in animated material for children, females are far more likely to have unrealistic (and hypersexualized) body shapes - 22.7% vs. 1.2%

Lynn Ziegler has a great article about the conference on truthout.org, On-Screen Sex Ratios Add Up to One Big Minus.

Reuters also offers an overview of statistical findings from the conference.

It’s a good thing Geena Davis is the figure head for this work - doesn’t she look great?!

Filed under: articles, conferences on April 8th, 2008 by Anna Lisa