OUGD501 - Edited Essay

The influence of gender equality within mainstream journalism

‘Unless men and women are rigidly rendered apart, this would introduce a small grain of uncertainty within the representation of masculine identity, thereby threatening to undermine it all together…’ (Jackson et al, ibid: 86). This quote suggests that for masculinity to exist it must be kept separate from femininity and must be kept this way in magazines and journalism. This essay is questioning the reasons why gender is portrayed in very separate ways in mainstream magazines and investigating the ways in which men and women are represented in extremely stereotypical forms. It is also going to be exploring influential brands who have taken a gender-neutral scope and accepted gender fluidity as a basis within fashion.

The portrayal of women in magazines can be seen to encourage a ridiculous ideal for young girls to reach and a stereotype which they must aspire to. Angela McRobbie conducted a study in 1964 and 1993 into the British teen magazine Jackie (2007, p. 87). The study concluded that magazines such as this one ‘promote an overarching ideology of teenage femininity’ supporting the point that young girls are constantly faced with an idealism which is unfair for them to be encouraged to reach. This supports the suggestion that these ideals presented within magazines as the only way in which women are supposed to look discourage young women from feeling they can be individual and choose the way they want to look and what they do as hobbies. This point is further supported by the investigation into the magazine Jackie which revolves around two key issues: how to get a boyfriend and how to look good. While these are seen to be the most important things for women to be doing, young men are shown in the magazine aiming to achieve goals. ‘This reinforces conventional ideologies about femininity as focused on the domestic and personal and is mirrored in women’s magazines’ (Ballaster et al. 2007 p. 87). Although this research can be seen to be a little dated, there is still evidence from considering women’s magazines in the present that the information about women taking their careers into their own hands and having financial independence still takes a back seat to the need to succeed in having a functioning romantic relationship. Moving on from the portrayal of how women are stereotyped in magazines to show what they are supposed to be looking to achieve in life, magazines also stereotype the way in which women are supposed to look furthering the ideals for young girls and discouraging them from defining their own gender and who they want to be. A key example of this theory was a study conducted using eighteen photographs of clothing advertisement and fashion editorials from issues of Vogue in 1997. Six or seven of these photographs were shown to different people in the different focus groups in order to find out their perceptions of these photographs and to what extent they felt that they could relate to the models. The photographs were selected to fit the following categories, frontal gaze and eye contact, side gaze: positive, androgyny and gender ambiguity, lesbianism, subordination, licensed withdrawal, sexuality/ pornography, and nudity. The photographs all represented the gender stereotypes that are present in the magazine. In response to the questionnaire one of the participants wrote, ‘even though the fashion editors in the magazines are usually women, I still think it’s not really a woman’s point of view. It’s what a woman thinks a man wants to see or something like that.’ This links back to the point made that women should always be focusing on how to gain the love of a man. Not only are these magazines full of tips on how to achieve this, but the women are posed in a way that is pleasing for men rather than encouraging young women that they can be whoever they want to be. The stereotypes that were presented in these pictures are a prime example of how the two genders are separated and neither do they cater for people of cross gender. These findings suggest that mainstream magazines like Vogue continue to be aimed at a specific gender and inform women of how they should look and act in order to impress the opposite sex. This means that they continue to separate the genders further and don’t allow for the theory that gender is in today’s society much more fluid and people should be able to be, dress and make life decisions without feeling pressure that they should present themselves in a way that traditional stereotypes have been created for the different biological genders.

In the same way in which women’s magazines are extremely stereotypical, men’s magazines are written and presented in the same way instead, focusing on the importance of young men being seen to be very masculine and being in control of all aspects of their lives. Once again men are portrayed in magazines such as Men’s Health as needing to have perfect bodies. This is consistently reinforced by the stereotypical perfect pictures of the men spread across the magazines. In the same way in which women’s magazines portray how they must dress and act in order to be accepted within society, mainstream magazines such as Men’s Health reinforce stereotypes which are aimed at men causing them to experience insecurities in the same way as their female counterparts. This is because it leaves them thinking that they should be sporty and dress in masculine clothing to fit in with current ideals of our society. A research study conducted by Karazsia and Crowther in 2008 asked men to agree or disagree on a scale from 1 - 5 with statements such as ‘I compare myself to sports athletes in magazines’. In the study a number 1 given as an answer was a strongly disagree and a 5 was strongly agree. The results of the study indicated that there is a high internalisation of media ideals present within men of the common college age. This research leads us to believe that the media’s influence on extreme ideals of masculinity is something that young men in the present day are influenced by, as they are far more likely to follow current trends and look up to current icons. The consistent reporting of genders in these stereotypical manners removes the creativity in young people and continues to teach children that they should grow up and follow rules assigned to their biological gender.

Another magazine that has a powerful influence on gender is GQ. GQ is technically a magazine for males but uses images of ‘both’ genders. It however creates a complete separation between the two genders starting with the front cover, seen in Figure 1. All the front covers which show famous males are usually photographed in suits and ties looking strong and successful.  Whereas the front covers of famous women are often images of them completely naked in submissive or sexually suggestive posies. Interestingly, although the covers covey both men and women as sex objects they are portrayed in very different ways. Once again this creates stereotypes which people believe and follow because it is constantly being reinforced in main stream media. Women objectified by appearing exposed and vulnerable validating the belief they are more delicate and need protecting. On the other hand men are objectified as being powerful, successful and wealthy. GQ has demonstrated that not only can journalism influence the gender stereotypes in how they should dress and what their interests should be, but also how they should appear sexually. The covers reinforce gender stereotypes not only because they present women as sexy, but because their demonstration of what sexy can mean for both men and women are so restricted it discourages any kind of individuality.

Although most journalism and brands appear to still follow the gender stereotypes that have been drilled into us within society, there are a few influential brands that have tried to tackle the issue. Within the last year John Lewis reported that they were no longer going to use ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ labels on children’s clothing to show that they understand the complexities of gender and that they support the idea that children shouldn’t have to grow up restricted by gender stereotypes. The campaign got a very varied reaction with some responses being extremely negative. One person wrote about the campaign stating that “You have let us all down John Lewis, if only people stopped pandering to the PC brigade. There are only two sexes, male or female”. Responses such as this show how difficult it will be to remove the stereotypes that have been so heavily ingrained into our society and excepting gender-neutral will never be something that everyone is comfortable with. Although John Lewis took a lot of criticism for this announcement, there was also a very positive reaction to the gender-neutral scope that the company had decided to take. The Independent wrote an article on the announcement and quoted a particular shopper who wrote on the retailers Facebook page, “So pleased to see the news this morning that John Lewis has scrapped gendered clothing and toys. This is such an important move and I hope other retailers follow! Welcome to the 21st century.” Movements like this have encourages unisex fashion to rise in popularity with icons such as Jaden Smith making bold gestures to show support for gender fluidity. Jaden Smith starred in Louis Vuitton’s SS16 womenswear campaign sending a message to fans that fashion has no gender and that it’s ok to dress in whatever way you want. Some high-street brands also followed in the footsteps of John Lewis taking a gender-neutral approach to fashion within their stores. An example of this is H&M adding a non-gender-conforming apparel to its repertoire by launching a unisex line called Denim United as seen in Figure 2. This line consists of a variation of denim pieces from jeans to jackets. All the items in the line are also made from sustainable material such as organic or recycled cotton. H&M spokesperson Marybeth Schmitt stated “It is very natural for us to launch a unisex collection as fashion is constantly evolving and intersecting and today we see there are no boundaries in democratic style. Fashion should always be inclusive.” The word inclusive is one which should be considered more in the fashion industry and within journalism in general. Gender stereotypes have shown to have a negative impact on people’s lives and create ideals that cause issues and conformity throughout the whole of society. If this were to take a more inclusive stance, then these problems could be avoided and it would allow for those who feel they need to hide away due to seeming different to gain more confidence and realize that they don’t need to be ashamed for not conforming to the gender ideals and stereotypes that have been developed overtime in mainstream journalism and the media.

Leading on from this, there was an article in the Guardian about teenage boys wearing skirts to school to protest against a ‘no shorts’ policy (Figure 3). Due to temperatures being as high as 30°C the boys at Isca Academy in Devon asked their teachers if they could swop their long trousers for shorts, but were told no as shorts were not permitted under the school’s uniform policy. When they questioned why girls were allowed bare legs the boys were told that they were free to wear skirts if they wanted too. Therefore, about 30 boys wore skirts in protest of the ruling against shorts. This article shows that the younger generation are becoming more accepting of gender-neutral ideologies and that influential brands such as John Lewis can make an impact on the way that the world of fashion and journalism progress. It should be possible to remove the gender stereotypes and allow for everyone to choose their own interests, sexuality and how they want to dress without the pressure of having to follow rules re-enforced by mainstream journalism.

The growing number of influential acts are helping us move towards a more neutral gender future. Forcing journalists to take note of the way in which gender stereotypes projected are impacting on the media and having a long term effects on peoples attitudes. An article written by Laura Bates explores the reasoning behind the importance of protecting children from ingrained gender stereotypes. The reason why Laura decided to conduct research into the influence of gender stereotypes on children is because she came across an angry tweet from a parent about her daughter’s homework.  The worksheet had some questions to answer about a famous scientist. The reason that the parent was angry was because the questions were: “Who was he? How old were they when they began inventing? Did they have a wife and family?”. The suggestion that this homework makes to young children is that women cannot be scientists. After reading this tweet Laura researched further into the worksheets and homework that is given out to children to see if there were any more gender bias references. Most worksheets included some form of bias “men were pushing vans, lifting weights, climbing trees and shooting arrows,” whereas “women were pushing prams, doing house work.” The influence of these small details incorporated in children’s everyday lives re-enforce traditional stereotypes and could have a long-lasting effect, discouraging individuality.

The research into gender stereotypes has proven that these stereotypes are still well ingrained in mainstream journalism and the media as a whole. It has also suggested that even though certain companies and celebrities have started to look at taking a more gender neutral approach to their branding and marketing it is not going to be easily accepted across society. This is due to many things, not only stereotypes but religious and cultural beliefs as well.  For attitudes to change and for more people to understand and except gender fluidity it needs to be introduced more into mainstream journalism such as magazines and articles. The more we are exposed to it, the more people will be able to accept this as the norm rather than the gender stereotypes that continue to exist.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Bibliography:

Steven Morris, 2017, Teenage boys wear skirts to school to protest against 'no shorts' policy, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/22/teenage-boys-wear-skirts-to-school-protest-no-shorts-uniform-policy

 

Olivia Petter, 2017, John Lewis Gender Neutral Clothing labels faces public backlash, The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/john-lewis-gender-neutral-clothing-labels-response-sex-boys-girls-men-women-a7928006.html

Noah Berlatsky, 2014, GQ covers reveal how women and men are both sexually objectified – but in different ways, https://ravishly.com/2014/12/15/gq-covers-lana-del-rey-john-slattery-sexual-objectification

Erica Gonzales, 2017, H&M are launching a unisex collection, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/news/a21268/hm-unisex-collection/

Gauntlett, David, Media, gender and identity: an introduction, Jackson et al, ibid: 86

Milestone, Katie; Meyer, Anneke, Gender and popular culture. Angela McRobbie, 2007, p. 87

Milestone, Katie; Meyer, Anneke, Gender and popular culture. Ballaster et al. 2007 p. 87

Karazsia and Crowther, 2008, Sex Roles (2010) 63:138–148, DOI 10.1007/s11199-010-9824-0

Laura Bates, 2015, Young people must be protected from ingrained gender stereotypes, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2015/feb/23/sexist-assumptions-young-children-gender-stereotypes