Sexual Stereotypes in the Media

02.07.11 Tonight's class seemed liked a women bashing women session.  Several girls seem to be very harsh and critical of the women in the Vanity Fair article to the point of criticizing the color of the dress one of them was wearing. I think they were basing there opinions on stereotypes they have of women dressed a certain way.  It reminded me of the movie Legally Blonde and how throughout the movie Elle Woods was kind of bullied at Harvard Law School by the "intellectual" students.  They didn't want to study with her or try to be her friend all because of a stereotype they had. They thought that because she was a blonde girl dressed in designer clothes driving a Porche and liked the color pink, that she was stupid and was just going to law  school just to go to law school. I think as women we should try to be more supportive of the women working in the field that we are pursuing. If we keep attacking each other like this then others are going to think it's ok to do so as well and it will defy any progress we have made thus far.  After all it seemed like the article was trying to portray the two in a negative light to some extent. 

Stereotypes in the Media

01/31/11 Tonights discussion was very interesting.  I liked how Dr. Everbach pointed out that the front page of the sports section was about women's basketball and that the Super Bowl had its own section.  This then ignited an even bigger conversation in which a male student kind of implied that a female sports reporter cannot do as good of a job as a man commentating... Really?  As an avid female sports fan I can say that I know quite bit about sports and sometimes I come across guys who don't know half of what I know.  I used to work in a bar and one guy I worked with would always get asked all the questions as to what games are on and who is playing by our customers ( probably because he is a guy and they probably thought I had no clue) and I must say he never knew and always came over and asked me.  Many times he had this look of surprise when I would tell him who was playing and that I had already set the TV to automatically change when the game started.  He even said to me once "How do you know this and I don't?" and he even asked my husband the same thing...My husband laughed and said "She knows her stuff, she likes sports."   Though when I came home and discussed the students opinion about not wanting to hear a female voice commentating during a game with my husband he agreed.  He admitted that there is one woman that does commentate on the early college football games and that he purposely does not watch it because he does not want to hear a woman's voice when he is watching the game.  Of course I said "Are you serious? What if it were me up there? You wouldn't watch it because it's a woman talking?" He tried to explain that the sound of a woman's voice is a distraction and when men watch sports they related that voice to that of their wife or girlfriend and they focus more on that than the actual game so they can't relax and enjoy the game.  I was not convinced by this excuse. It may be a "personal preference" but I think guys are just intimidated by women's knowledge of sports especially if they keep up with the men around them. 

Week 1 Jan 24, 2011

First class of the semester and I can already see this is going to be a very intersting class with a lot of different opinions and heavy discussions. After watching "Race and Local TV News" (on VHS)  and the YOUTUBE video of  the "Dodson attempted rape" news story there were a lot of things I realized. In the YOUTUBE video for example I thought about how I lost focus on the story at hand and focused on the character that was put in front of me because of his strong personality. Although I had seen this video numerous times before I always found myself waiting to see Antoine again so that I could laugh. And now thinking about it the reason I watch news is not to get a good laugh at someone else's expense, it is to stay informed about what is going on in the world. Should the news be bringing such stories to the air that loose focus of the real story?  In my opinion no, this story could have been done differently. This storied portrayed a stereotype of the African Americans that live in the projects and didn't focus enough on trying to help find the suspect that was accused of breaking into a home and attempting to rape a young black woman.  I have seen other stories that have been done about a rape victim or attempted rape victim and in those cases they were white and the seriousness of the story and the focus to find the perpetrator was more profound.  At times even when the reporter was talking with the victim they would blurr out their face to protect their identity. A sketch often followed (of the scary minority suspect) to warn people of what they looked like to try to get the word out.  Minorities are portrayed like the suspects in most news stories, but at the same time they are not the only ones that are committing crimes.  It is ultimately the decision of the producers of the news stations that decide what they want to allow the viewer to know about.