The program for the 2014 Diversity Conference was, quite understandably, diverse. However, students agree that there was a clear underlying theme to conference: women. The video Girl Rising shown in the assembly on February 14th highlighted the plight of women, and three afternoon workshops were devoted our culture’s portrayal of women.

This attention to women is not coincidental; it is happening all over the world in response to the “crisis of representation in the media,” according to the Women’s Media Center.

This crisis is exemplified by a study conducted in 2012 by sociologist Stacey Smith. In “Women in the Media: Female TV and Film Characters Still Sidelined and Sexualized,” an article in The Huffington Post, Nina Bahadur says, “Smith’s team looked at female characters’ occupations, attire, body size and whether they spoke or not” in television shows aired in spring 2012 and family movies released between 2006 and 2011.

The results of the study demonstrated several trends in the portrayal of women, as well as a general deficit of female characters. Smith said women were “more likely to be shown wearing sexy attire” and “most likely to be depicted thin.” The study also noted that only 23.8% of speaking roles in family films and 34.9% of speaking roles in TV shows were women.

The misrepresentation of women has manifested itself in advertising as well. The documentary Miss Representation demonstrated how photos of women featured in advertisements and modeling for clothing lines are always digitally edited.

This manipulation is not lost on freshman Natalie Aquadro, who comments on the consequences of digitally editing women to make them “flawless,” saying, “this causes other women and girls to feel bad about themselves, because they think that they have to look like advertised women.”

This would be an issue in and of itself, but it is made worse because our society has become so numb to this manipulation. Sarah Klumpp, who teaches a Woman and Gender Studies Class and led the workshop about the misrepresentation of women in the media, says, “Girls and women internalize so many of these message about sex and body image without being aware of the impact of the media.”
The media, which is the main means of mass communication, is the single most influential power in today’s society. The Women’s Media Center explains that the media “has the power to educate, effect social change, and determine the political policies and elections that shape our lives.”

According to the documentary Miss Representation, the average American teenager spends 10 hours and 45 minutes consuming media daily. As the media is our number one source of information, the misrepresentation of any one group, especially when that group makes up 51% of the world’s population, could have dire consequences.

Where does this misrepresentation come from? One explanation is the lack of women holding influential positions in the production of media. According to Miss Representation, “Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media.”

Sophomore Pinky King, who attended Ms. Klumpp’s workshop on women in the media on Diversity Day, says that “the misrepresentation of women in media is an important issue because we aren’t going to see equality in our society until we see equality in the media.” King realized that because of the enormous influence of the media, the crisis of women’s misrepresentation can have far reaching effects.

Effects of the media’s portrayal of women are evident in politics. As Pat Mitchell, former president and CEO of PBS, said in Miss Representation, “There’s probably no greater influence in the way we view power than the way the media treats power, and media treats power as defined by men…”

Men certainly hold the power in the United States. According to the National Women’s Political Caucus, in 2011 18.3% of representatives in Congress and 20% of state governors were women. This shortage of women in politics prevents many young women from going into politics because of the scarcity of role models. To add to that, the few women who do succeed and gain attention in politics are ruthlessly torn apart by the media.

The media’s representation of women also affects women’s body image. Miss Representation says that “53% of thirteen year old girls are unhappy with their bodies.” By age seventeen, that number increases to 78%. This insecurity, which is largely prompted by the impossible standards of beauty set out by the media, creates a host of problems, not the least of which is reduced self-confidence. According to Miss Representation, 65% of women in America have an eating disorder and rates of depression in women have doubled in the last decade.

Though the media has a huge effect on women’s lives, men are not immune to misrepresentation. In Miss Representation, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, commented on “how emotionally constipated men are taught to be very early on.” If today’s society sets impossible standards of beauty for women, it also sets impossible standards of masculinity for men.

In Miss Representation, Jackson Katz asked, “How do we expect our sons to be men of integrity and conscience and to be social justice advocates and to treat women with respect. . .if they don’t see men in the public culture doing it?”

Senior Sylvia Skerry, a student leader of the women in the media workshop, comments on this phenomenon, saying, “Misrepresentation of women goes hand in hand with stereotypes that men and boys feel pressured to follow and when they feel that pressure, they feel the need to be superior to someone- and it is usually women.”

However, the battle against the negative portrayal of women in the media is not yet lost. Some would argue that the battle hasn’t even begun. Sarah Klumpp says, “I think it’s important for people to understand the messages that the media gives us  about women and their roles in the world so that we can start to change the message.  The media can be a tool for positive messages if we make it one, but the first step is empowering ourselves.”