Gender Representation

Gender is represented in multiple different ways. A gender stereotype is a generalized view or preconception about attributes or characteristics, or the roles that are or ought to be possessed by, or performed by women and men. A gender stereotype is harmful when it limits women’s and men’s capacity to develop their personal abilities, pursue their professional careers and make choices about their lives. For example in society women are objectified and dehumanized by men as they seem to believe that they are there for house keeping and cleaning up their messes. More specifically, women and men were not seen as equal. Women were seen as the weaker sex. This particularly affected middle class women because they had no reason to leave the home or go to work. The middle classes took the role of women very seriously because they did not have to worry about things like poverty. The ideal woman was someone who supported their husband. In most cases the women has no say in the relationship, it would decide by the man. This goes to show that women were not equal to men and were seen as weak and insignificant. To this day, women are still being objectified and seen as weak. There has been many empowering women who have spoken up and dealt with the situation first hand and have proven that women can do and will continue to do what men can do. For example, one of Katy Perry's music video "Roar" is empowering for women because at the beginning it's the stereotypical male getting eaten by a tiger to show that men can be weak and scared as well. This also shows that women have survival skills as well. She then becomes queen of the island and out roars the tiger and the tiger gets scared, and she becomes victorious and takes the tigers land. This suggests that women are powerful and dominant. Katy Perry used intertextuality for this specific song because the idea came from Hellen Reddy's song "I am woman". Hellen Reddy wrote this song to empower women who were in the dumps or going through a breakup or something that made you feel incapable. This made women feel empowered and gave them a sense of hope. This song also reassured that women can be as brave and powerful and strong as men. This subverts the sterotype of women being weak and inferior and delineates that women can with stand power and maintain it. On the other hand, men are the dominant gender and were seen as the brave and strong independent gender. In the 1900s, men were in charge and what ever the men said went and in most relationships the women had no say. The men had to go to work and provide food and shelter for the family whilst the women would stay at home looking after the children and house cleaning. Women aren't even allowed voting and have a say in anything. Women aren't even in education as they didn't need it; they would stay at home and learn to knit and cleaning jobs around the house whilst the boys were at school. Only the fortunate rich girls like royalties and the bourgeoisie could go to school or might even be home schooled and learn a language and other subjects. The stereotype of the ideal woman was a white middle classed blonde hair women who was loyal to her husband and did what she was told. Women of colour were seen as ugly insignificant and worthless. Colourism is formed from where the lighter your skin tone was the prettier you were. The definition of colourism is prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.and the more accepted you would feel. Women are not even able to go to war as they were seen as to innocent and weak they had to first aid the injured men that were wounded and try save their lives. There is also a massive gender pay gap between men and women. More specifically, if a man and a woman took the same job as being a teacher the men would get paid more than the women just purely the fact that she was a woman. The gender pay gap has dropped throughout history but it still isn't equal or fair. In 2019 the gender pay gap was 17.3% in the UK, which means that on average, women were paid approximately 83p for every £1 men were paid. Getting paid less for taking the same job as a man is ridiculous. During 1916-1917, the House of Commons Speaker, James William Loather, chaired a conference on electoral reform which recommended limited women's suffrage. Only 58% of the adult male population was eligible to vote before 1918. An influential consideration, in addition to the suffrage movement and the growth of the Labor Party, was the fact that only men who had been resident in the country for 12 months prior to a general election were entitled to vote. This effectively disenfranchised numerous troops who had been serving overseas in the war. With a general election imminent, politicians were persuaded to extend the vote to all men and some women at long last. In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criteria, it was only about two-thirds of the total population of women in the UK. The same Act abolished property and other restrictions for men, and extended the vote to virtually all men over the age of 21. Additionally, men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The electorate increased from eight to 21 million, but there was still huge inequality between women and men. It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million. Nowadays men ans women can vote when they reach 18 years old.