Female Representations in Film/Television.

Fact: Men are still represented as TV drama characters up to 3 times more frequently than women, and tend to be the predominant focus of news stories.

Representations of women across all media tend to highlight the following: beauty, size/physique, sexuality, emotional dealings and relationships.

Women are often represented as being part of a context (family, friends, colleagues) and working/thinking as part of a team. In drama, they tend to take the role of helper or object, passive rather than active. Often their passivity extends to victimhood. The representations of women that do make it onto page and screen do tend to be stereotypical, in terms of conforming to societal expectations, and characters who do not fit into the mould tend to be seen as dangerous and deviant. And they get their comeuppance, particularly in the movies.

Housekeeping and raising a family were considered ideal female roles during the 1950s, although that standard was less rigid than in previous decades. With marriage and birthrates booming, women were becoming wives and mothers at unprecedented levels. But more women were entering the work-place as well. During World War II women by the millions took factory jobs to make up for the domestic manpower shortage. After the war the number of working women dropped, but by 1950 it was climbing again, at the rate of a million a year. By 1956, 35 percent of all adult women were members of the labor force, and nearly a quarter of all married women were working.

Discussions of women's representation in the media tend to revolve around the focus on physical beauty to the near-exclusion of other values, the lack of powerful female role models, and the extremely artificial nature of such portrayals, which bear little relation to the reality experience by women across the planet.

rep·re·sen·ta·tion

noun
1. The act of representing or the state of being represented.
2. Something that represents, as:
a. An image or likeness of something.
b. An account or statement, as of facts, allegations, or arguments.
c. An expostulation; a protest.
d. A presentation or production, as of a play.