INTRODUCTION :

“There is no chance of the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It
is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing.”
- Swami Vivekananda

Governments, educational institutions, non-governmental organizations are

responsible for the prevention of all forms of discrimination against women.
Besides all of them, the responsibility of the mass media is also big in this issue.
Because the effect of media is very large in the dissemination and interpretation
of a lot of knowledge, innovation and the news. Today, the media constitute a
big part of our lives. Almost everyone benefits from the mass media. Actually,
it’s a really big power to announce our thoughts and our goals about
empowering women’s economy. Women and girls are disproportionately
affected by information inequality. Often ignored or invisible in the media, with
far less content featuring their expertise and views, women are vastly
underrepresented in journalism and media leadership. Worldwide, women still
lag behind men in access to the Internet, and when they do engage online,
women and girls experience more intense harassment, including sexual
harassment.

 Mass media play a unique and important role in the shaping of a society where
men and women enjoy equal rights. Raising women’s legal awareness is
important for the creation of an egalitarian society. This is reached through
several means, including psychological, social, economic, philosophical,
awareness of human rights, political and so on. The role of media is important
for being successful in all the mentioned spheres. The media can promote and
speed up the reforms in progress, or, on the contrary, it can hamper their
implementation. A number of international conferences and conventions have
voiced and publicized the need to break public stereotypes through change in
the media policy. Mass media, however, continue to reproduce discriminatory
stereotypes about women and portray them in sexist ways. As a rule, women are
portrayed in a narrow range of characters in mass media. If we were to divide
mass media into two categories, such as fictional and news-reporting, then in
the former, women are often associated with the household. Only in a limited
number of news programs do women appear as main actors or experts. One of
the reasons for this situation is the smaller number of women in these spheres,
but even the existing number of women are underrepresented compared to their
male counterparts. In advertising and magazines, women are usually portrayed
as young, slim and with beauty that meets the accepted standards. Women with
this kind of appearance are often associated with sex objects.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

IMPORTANCE:
CASE STUDIES:

Indian should be proud of having a free and responsible press. An investigating journalist of a
leading daily newspaper proved in December’ 98 that women were sold in Eluru of Andhra
Pradesh. The elder of Rajya Sabha were shocked to hear that women were being sold in the
market place like cattle even today. Both the Supreme Court judgment on Shah Bano and the
Roop Kanwar ‘Sati”, brought forth a spare of reportage and editorial comments. The heinous
act of female infanticide was brought out only through the press. Dowry deaths moved from
the confines of the home to the front page. These incidents highlight two major points. One
that women are still treated only as commodities that can be sold and bought and thrown
away if unwanted a reflection of the damnable discrimination andindignity that women suffer
in various parts of the country. Second, it highlights the role of media inmaking it public,
however only a few sensational issues are flashed in the newspaper. Normally, it islamented
place in the newspaper. A few newspapers carry women’s page which is again the beauty
tips,recipes and fashion syndromes.Most of the women’s magazines consistently seek
to direct women’s energies into narrow channels and todefine their concerns, pre-occupations
and aspirations within an arbitrarily imposed ‘Feminine
Frame Work”. Apart from looks and dresses there is stress on development
of women’s mental faculties and behavior in a way that they can fit into male dominated soci
al structure. In most of the stories in themagazines, women are depicted with the life ambition
of getting a right man and keeping him at all cost.

PRESENTATION:
POTRAYAL OF WOMAN SHOWN BY

MASS MEDIA:
TV, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines and newsletters and technology such as the Internet and
E-mail as well as other media that may not be as obvious such as children's comics and cartoons,
theatre, puppetry, dance and song. The media is a vehicle used to inform as well as entertain the
public. The media is a carrier of information, ideas, thoughts and opinions. It is a powerful force in
influencing people’s perceptions on a variety of issues. The media can be both positive as well as
negative in terms of the position and views of women as well as a powerful mechanism for
education and socialisation. Although the media has played an important role in highlighting
women's issues, it has also had negative impact, in terms of perpetrating violence against women
through pornography and images of women as a female body that can be bought and sold. Overall,
the media treatment of women is narrow and continually reinforces stereotyped gender roles and
assumptions that women's functions are that of a wife, mother and servant of men. This is especially
so in advertising.

PRINT MEDIA:
 Indian should be proud of having a free and responsible press. An investigating journalist of a
leading daily newspaper proved in December’ 98 that women were sold in Eluru of Andhra Pradesh.
The elder of Rajya Sabha were shocked to hear that women were being sold in the market place like
cattle even today. Both the Supreme Court judgment on Shah Bano and the Roop Kanwar ‘Sati”,
brought forth a spare of reportage and editorial comments. The heinous act of female infanticide
was brought out only through the press. Dowry deaths moved from the confines of the home to the
front page. These incidents highlight two major points. One that women are still treated only
as commodities that can be sold and bought and thrown away if unwanted a reflection of the
damnable discrimination andindignity that women suffer in various parts of the country. Second, it
highlights the role of media inmaking it public, however only a few sensational issues are flashed in
the newspaper. Normally, it islamented place in the newspaper. A few newspapers carry women’s
page which is again the beauty tips,recipes and fashion syndromes.Most of the women’s magazines
consistently seek to direct women’s energies into narrow channels and todefine their concerns, pre-
occupations and aspirations within an arbitrarily imposed ‘Feminine
Frame Work”. Apart from looks and dresses there is stress on development
of women’s mental faculties and behavior in a way that they can fit into male dominated social struc
ture. In most of the stories in themagazines, women are depicted with the life ambition of getting a
right man and keeping him at all cost. A media advocacy group study [1994] on women and Men in
News and Current, Affair Programmes foundthat women are confined to areas traditionally
associated with them. Even those women who make newsare to be seen in prettified setting, giving
their opinion on matters concerning the home and family.Studies have shown that the image of
women that has predominated in magazine advertisements is of weak, childish, deepened,
domestic, irrigational, subordinate creature, the producers of children and littleelse compared with
men. Komisar [1971] suggests the audience of advertising could never know the realityof owners
lives by looking at advertising, since a “women’s place is not only in the home, according tomost
advertising copywriters and art directors, it is in the kitchen or the laundry room.” Komisar alsorefers
to the image created by advertisers in 2000 as a combination sex object, wife and mother
whoachieves fulfillment by looking beautiful for men. A women is not achieves fulfillment by looking
beautifulfor men. A women is not depicted as intelligent, but submissive and subservient to men. If
women are not

ELECTRONIC MEDIA:
Television is widely known to represent and reinforce the mainstream ideology of contemporary
western culture: patriarchy. While television representations of women have changed greatly in
the last twenty years alone, in order to accommodate the changing role of women in society, one is
led to ask how much the ideology has changed behind the more modern representations of women.
Television is regarded by many viewers to be the most 'real' form of media. If this is the case, then it
is important for us to question how real the representations of women are on television and how
this affects the attitudes of those who watch. Television has become both a boon and a bane of our
contemporary society. It’s influence is unparallel by any other form of entertainment. Television
plays on the psychology of the viewers and literally mesmerizes them. Social learning theory claims
that audio visual media provides powerful images that can be very important sources of both
desirable as well as undesirable models for imitation. When women’s images exhibit traits of
strength such as courage, determination, intelligence, self-respect and honesty, the viewers
perceptions can be exploited for positive results.
CAUSES
Gender Inequality

A vast majority of Indian women work throughout their lives but the fact is that it is not officially
recognized. Statistics on work force shows low figure of women workers. There is a serious
underestimation of women’s contribution as workers even though when given a chance they have
convincingly proved their ability. Women’s workforce participation - the percentage of adult women
who are actually working is accepted indicator of women’s status and component of the Gender
Empowerment Measure (GEM) used in GNDP Human Development Reports. According to a survey
conducted by NCW covering over 1200 women in both organized and unorganized sector it has been
found that 50% experienced gender discrimination by way of physical and mental harassment of
women at work. The survey reported discrimination not only in salary but also in promotions, work
distribution and working hours. Promoting gender equality was identified by the Government as
priority strategic goal for the UN System in 3 India under UN Development Assistance Framework.
We should not forget that Gender Equality is not just a women’s issue. It is an issue for the nation.

Wage discrimination

Women generally earn a far lower wage than men doing the same work. In no state in India women
and men earn equal wage in agriculture. This is equally applicable to other areas of works such as
mining, trade transport services etc. In the various work sectors average wages earned by male is
more than the wages earned by female. I would emphasize on the findings of UNDP which were
published as Human Development Report concerning gender equality. It says: “Women’s work is
greatly undervalued in economic term. The value of household and community work transcends
market value.” The media can certainly bring some of these biases in to light. Specially, women
journalists must take up this cause. The Indian constitution makes it mandatory to give equal
protection to every citizen. Thus sympathetic media, judiciary and executive should stand for this
together. Reform movement too is necessary in this regard.

Crime against women

The soaring crime rates and violence against women in the country reflects women as weaker sex
who are being dominated and exploited. They face violence inside and outside the family
throughout their lives. The Crime Record Bureau of India’s website shows that in the year 2006
(latest data available on website) total crime reported against women was 1, 91731. Police record
shows that a woman is molested in the country every 20 minutes; a rape occurs every 34 minutes
and every 43 minutes an incident of sexual harassment takes place. Every 43 minutes a woman is
kidnapped and every 93 minutes, a woman is killed.

EFFECTS:
Portrayal of women by the Media

By and large the media scene in India is that media does not address serious issues about
exploitation and inequal treatment to women in different spheres but is keen in reporting sex
related incidents by way of sensationalizing news of atrocities on women. Thus instead of
highlighting the exploitation of woman they end up becoming one of the reasons in increase of
violence as their coverage more often than not tend to glorify the crime against women. It is true
that media has brought to light, as never before, certain misdemeanours against women but in a
very subtle manner it also perpetuated the stereotyped image of woman as a householder and an
inconsequential entity in the traditional value system. Generally, women’s problems never figure on
the front page of a newspaper unless it is a gruesome murder or a case of rape. Newspapers even on
women’s page does not usually address relevant issues for women empowerment but reporting is
concerned with beauty tips recipes, fashion syndrome etc.

CONCLUSIONS:
The worse part of the whole episode is that there is no revulsion, no change to biased projections
and no regrets from any part of the society. We have somehow taken the whole gamut of dialogues,
stories and picturization of women as way of our life or as if of no consequences. It has never been
realized that if womanhood is come when the coming generation of the present children will
have absolutely no respect for their sisters, wives and mothers. Hence the major objectives of media
must be to perform the programmes relating to improvement of women’s status that they are free
to assert themselves as human beings, co-equal socially, morally and politically with men. There
should be positive portrayal of women taking note of their role in all facets of life. Thus it can be
concluded that overall effect of the portrayal of women in media is to reinforce rather than reduce
prejudices and stereo types. The mass media is to reinforce rather than reduce prejudices and
stereotypes. The mass media in India has not made adequate efforts to discuss serious issues
concerning women and prepare the women to play their rightful and equal role in society. To change
this condition, itis necessary to monitor the media and point out the merits and demerits
continuously

The representation of women in media and its effect on women’s behaviour and role in society has
been an issue of interest to the media and social science researchers. Plenty of studies has been
done on the topic. The study concluded that the “roles, which news media has represented to the
public had their effect on public perception about a woman in that society because media decides
about which information public should receive, see, listen, and read”5 . The important lesson
learned from this study is that media representation of women can shape the perceptions and
attitudes as well as the role of women in a society. The positive representation of women as strong,
independent, educated and working in high-level positions would help other women to increase
their confidence as well as shape a perception of women in a society which is respectful and trusting.
Negative representation of women as marginal, passive, uneducated and dependent will have a
negative impact on the self-esteem of women as well as shape a perception in a society which looks
down at women.

This process of communication is likely to change the perception of women in a society, giving
women self-confidence and transforming the gender communication in a society.

REFERENCES

Brown, M.E (1994):

 Soap Opera and Women's Talk - The pleasure of resistance

. London: SageDines, G. and Humez, J.(1995):

Gender, Race and Class in Media

. London: SageGunter, B.(1986):

Television and Sex Role Stereotyping

. London: John Libbey.Goffman, E. [1978]. Gender Advertisements. Canbridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.Kuhn, A.(1985):

The Power of the Image - Essays on Representation and Sexuality

. London: Routledge &Kegan PaulMinh - Ha, T.T. (1991):

When the Moon Waxes Red 

. London: RoutledgeSpigel, L. & Mann, D.(1992):

 Private Screenings - Television and the Female Consumer

. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press