REPRESENTATION OF GENDER IN THE PAST


Gunter and Elamer(Women and Men on TV)
- In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, only 20per cent of characters were female.

-In the mid-1970s, Miles (1975) found that there were nearly equal proportions of men and women in situation comedies.

-Only 15 Per cent of the leading characters were women, a decade later a 1987 study found female characters to be the most common in comedy programmes (43per cent), but outnumbered two to one in dramas, and in action-adventures shows women had almost doubled their showing to a still low 29 per cent of characters(Davis,1990)

-Gunter study in 1970s consistently found that marriage, parenthood and domesticity were shown on television to be more important for women than men.

-1970s found men to be the dominant characters and the decision makers on TV.

-Men were more likely to be assertive (or aggressive), whilst women were more likely to be passive. Men were seen as: Adventurous, active, and victorious. Women were shown as being: Weak, ineffectaul, victimised, supportive, laughable or 'merely token females' (Gunter, 1995)

-Television proclaims that women don't count for much. They are underreprsented in television fictional life- they are 'symbolically annihilated'.

-Tuchman asserts that those women who were shown to be working were portrayed at 'incompetents and inferiors' as victims or having 'trival' interests, emotional and practical problems or women with little value in the TV world.

-In the mid 1980s television was increasing taking women seriously in programmmes such as (documentaries,discussion programmes and dramas on feamle topics such as infertilityt, cervical/breast cancer, rape ect. (dyer, 1987)

- Eleswhere, TV remained stubborn, with game shows not bothering to change their 'degrading and trivilalsing views of women', sports programmes remaining 'the preserveof men', and news programmes accused of tokenism or 'window dressing' by including some women in key positions whilst retaining a male-dominated cluture (Dyer,1987)