In Karen Ross’ Gendered Media: Women,
Men, and Identity Politics, Ross explores the lack of female presence in the
media, particularly the news. Although there are plenty of events regarding
women and influential females out there, the news is, more often than not, “men
writing about what all these other men were doing.” Ross also mentions her
concern over how women are portrayed in the news- generally they are fit into
one of several categories, such as the trophy wife, girlfriend, or victim.
I have to admit that the ways in which
women are presented in the news is questionable at best. When reading this
chapter, a recent event that occurred in Houston kept popping up in my head. A
few weeks ago, a 16 year old girl was walking past a movie theater in Cypress
(a suburb of Houston where I grew up) and was hit in the head with a hatchet,
brutally raped, and left in the parking lot, naked. The subsequent news stories
portrayed the girl and the incident in one of two ways: she was either the
feeble, female victim or a troublemaking girl that was asking for it. Needless
to say, both accounts were tasteless and bothersome. Some of the news stories
made a point to mention that the girl had left her house late at night in an
attempt to run away, as though this made the rape her fault.
This is definitely just one instance of
the many ways in which women are poorly portrayed (if they are being mentioned
at all) in the news. I don’t understand why the poor girl is even being
highlighted- surely that’s the last thing she wants right now? Why don’t they
just focus on finding the guy that did it? Here is just one disturbing article to further prove my point:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/08/cypress-texas-teen-rape-bloody-red-dress_n_2647264.html
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