Media and Women
Sudhanshu Kumar Singh
S
ince time immemorial the world has witnessed
small as well as large scale violence.
The present times are no exception as in
India, we come across instances of violence in and
out of four walls of home. It is true that no part of the
world is absolutely free from violence, though it tends
to take on different forms and degrees of intensity at
different places. In India, the members of fair sex and
weaker section of society, more often than not, are
victims of cruel violence.
Media can play a highly effective role in minimizing
the scale of violence against women and also intiate
measures to identify the root cause of such behaviors
and must provide solution to the audience so that
these happenings do not recur. But, in most of the
cases, we find that media either remain neutral or do
a superficial analysis of the event and present
immediate solution that does not make an everlasting
impact.
We are aware that the media shape and influence
perceptions of our roles in society and our
relationship with each other. They also imply
acceptable behaviors and values. These values
incorporate certain definitions of manhood and
womanhood, of masculinity and femininity.
These images are replayed to us day in and
day out by the media. The barrage of
messages about passive, weak, subservient,
dependent, comforting, nurturing, beautiful,
erotic women contrasted with forceful, strong,
capable, aggressive, demanding, independent
successful men provide part of the context for
violence against women. In the media
narratives and visuals, it is these images
which are responsible for reinforcing the
ideologies of masculinity and feminity, sending
out the unambiguous message that while man
is naturally aggressive women is the natural
target of that aggression. A great deal of media
imagery is based on the world view in which
women largely depend on men for status-
economic, social and sexual. This kind of imagery
perpetuates the notion of women as a mere
commodity, readily available for sexual and other use.
It is through the portrayal of women as objects that
the media contribute to a kind of psychological
violence fostering a viewpoint in which women are
regarded as commodities, “do with them what you
will”.
Pornography provides the most glaring examples of
representations of women which connect sexuality,
the objectification of and the accentuated power of
voyeur, but the messages it contains about female
passivity and availability can also be found in main
stream media imagery. And the visual codes it usespouting female lips, glistening and parted, eyes fixed
invitingly on the camera, body displayed and
embellished for the pleasure of the onlooker - be seen
on advertisement hoardings in city streets, in
newspapers and magazines, on television and in the
cinema. The presentation of women to themselves
and to men in this way gives birth to a situation of
immense potential tension and conflict in social
setting. It is, therefore, to discuss the issue of media
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