Journal Article Paper

JOURNAL ARTICLE PAPER

Amanda Zechar

December 11, 2013

Professor Alomari

HUMN240-H1WW

JOURNAL ARTICLE PAPER

            In today’s society women and men are still not treated equally and there are many bad perceptions of women. Magazines represent women in ways that are not true in this day in age. Not all women are as skinny as the women in magazines and women are not as slutty and are more independent than women on the show Sex and the City. Even though the perception of women and men’s rights have changed drastically over the past couple decade’s things are still wrong.

            In the Book Review Gender & Popular Culture by Katie Milestone and Anneke Meyer, Heather McIntosh covers many topics that these ladies included in their book. These ladies covered many time periods from post war, the late 1970s, and the current time period. According to McIntosh, “They begin with the concept of a “cultural producer,” and then examine the gendering of this concept through advertising and the U.S. show Mad Men, rock and roll and its producers, and the cinematic auteur” (McIntosh, 2013, p. 219). It is perceived that most cultural producers are men and they produce products with masculine concepts.

            Another key concept in this article is that music, advertising, film, technology, and things associated with the workplace are primarily targeted and favor men over women. Also, men and women represent themselves in completely different ways and are the complete opposite and this makes them get seen differently. Women focus more on their body, sexuality, their job, and their home life. McIntosh also states that, “They link these chapters using three major themes of sexuality, the body, and work and home, though the chapter on women’s representations also addresses the complicated intersections of sexuality, morality, and violence” (McIntosh, 2013, p. 219). Finally, the last key point in this article is the way people are able to walk around cities and how it is different in each city. There are many different factors that come into play when someone is walking including their gender and the “assumptions” about that gender.

            This article illustrates how women and men are different and how they are treated and portrayed in society. One way men and women are different is how they are portrayed in magazines and in the media. The overall point of this article was to show that men and women are not equal even though the media claims they are. Women are represented by their body in magazines and the authors try to link the representation of women and serious acts of violence including rape. Milestone and Meyer believe that there are myths included in the coverage of rapes on television and in the media.

            On top of this, society makes it seem as though men are the only producers in society and they go into how workplace expectations favor men over women. According to McIntosh, “The underlying concept comes back to hegemonic masculinity, wherein most cultural producers are male who reproduce masculine concepts within cultural products” (McIntosh, 2013, p. 219). Men get more in the workplace than women do and sometimes it seems as though women are walked over. There is such inequality when it comes to the workplace because to this day men believe that there are jobs just for men and women shouldn’t be allowed. Women are still seen as the “housewife” and belong at home raising the kids and doing housework. Society makes it seem as though men and women are equal but as Milestone and Meyer state,

“[T]here is an ongoing dismantling and discrediting of feminism which offers dissenters no space for complaint. […] It is suggested that feminism is an outmoded, comical ideology which has become redundant because we now have gender equality” (211-212).

            I agree with this article because I believe that women are still not treated equal in all aspects. I believe that society has come a long way but it also has a long way to go. Women should be able to do what they want and work any job they want. Also, why should women have to wear baggy clothes and dress uncomfortably to make sure that they aren’t seen as slutty? If a woman is raped, it must have been her fault because she was wearing a tight t-shirt that showed cleavage. Also, I believe that women have made great advancements in society including technology developments such as Susan Kare who helped bring Apple Computers to life, Hedy Lamarr who created the method of frequency hopping, and finally Roberta Willaims who created video games for the computer. These women were producers of big items throughout history and Milestone and Meyer even stated that men are the main ones who produce and use video games.

            Finally, I believe that this article is important because it lets society know that there are changes that need to be made and women deserve to be treated equally. Men and women should never be treated differently when it comes to work, societies perception of them, and their ability to create or produce items used by our society. When people believe that everyone is treated equal, no one steps up to help correct the problem that still exists. In addition, this article shows the many changes that have happened over time and how the media has played a big part in it.

References

McIntosh, H. (2013). Gender & Popular Culture. The Journal of Popular Culture, 46(1), 218-220. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12022_1. Retrieved on December 11, 2013.