Race, Gender, & Mass Media
Honestly when I signed up for this class at the end of last year I was kind of looking forward to it. When I heard the name of the class I thought it would be very interesting and give me a new perspective on the world and my place in it. To me, this class will be about how the media portrays the genders and races of the world; how the advertisements we see in our everyday lives affect the way we go about them.
I would like to think that I know a little bit about this subject already. I watch the news and try to stay up to date on current events. I know about the rioting in Ferguson and I think I have basic knowledge of why it’s happening. The media plays a huge part in what the public sees so unless we are actually there we don’t know the whole situation. In this class I hope to learn a lot more about how the media can obstruct the truth in these circumstances. I also hope to learn more about how the media portrays genders.
I know it has a lot to do with gender roles, white men are seen as more dominant. I also know that women are not looked upon as equals even in 2014. The media shows women as dependent on men when in fact that is not true. There are plenty of independent and thriving women in today’s society. Women are not as respected as men and they are often times paid less, offered less benefits, and discriminated simply because “they are women”. I know that in America and a lot of the world we are a society of rape culture.
Women are taught not to dress specific says and to learn to defend themselves while men are not taught anything on the subject. I have seen rape Jokes on social media more than once and can’t begin to understand why someone would think that something so serious is a Joke. It blows my mind that girls can be denied education because they are showing their shoulders. How can that be more important than education and why are boys not punished for looking? I hope to learn a lot more about the gender area of the media because as a woman, it affects me in my everyday life.
Mass media has a huge effect on the perception of race as well. Black males are often made out to be vicious and dangerous, Mexicans are seen as dirty and poor, and no one cares enough to distinguish the different branches of Asian nationality; they are all grouped together as “Chinese” or “Japanese”. When a white person commits a crime, what the news stations air is completely different than what they would air if a person of different race committed the same crime. A huge example of this and one that I already mentioned is the riots in Ferguson.
I hope that in this class I learn why inequality like this is still happening in modern day society. Basically in this class I hope to learn a lot more about the way our society sees gender and race in areas such as the media. Out of all my classes this year this is the only one I really look forward to, and not Just because my friends are in it, but because I’m interested in the content of the class. Hopefully I learn a lot this year about subjects that matter in today’s society.
