Think about the last advertisement you saw that had a man and women on it. Now think about where the man and woman are placed. Who is above the other? Who seems stronger? Tougher? It’s the man isn’t it. Now think about an old advertisement. It’s 1951, and there is a polished, blonde, smiling woman cooking in a kitchen. She has an apron on over her fancy dress, and a string of pearls around her neck. She is holding out a plate of steaming hot cookies. When was the last time you came home to your mother looking like that? I’m guessing never. Not all women wear expensive dresses and pearls while cooking. I would say very few do, or ever did. It’s a stereotype we can’t seem to outlive.


Some things never change, but I think it’s time this should.


There are quite a few pictures and cartoons out there that suggest false things about women and what women do. I saw a cartoon just recently of a husband dressed in a suit and a ready-for-work briefcase, and he was telling his wife- who was dressed in an apron and high heeled shoes- to “get back in the kitchen”. The wife answered obediently, “Okay, hunny.” There are more than a couple stereotypes presented in a cartoon like this. The dialogue immediately suggests that women are meant to be in the kitchen cooking for their husbands. But what is the husband doing? Making the living. The idea that the man should make the living is not as recognized today as it was years ago, but it is still a judgment made against women. Aren’t these prejudices a little out-dated?

More recently, I have seen signs of sexism in the media everywhere. Media, a part of everyone’s life, has started to mold and increase the stereotypes we have of people. Everywhere you look, there are signs of gender prejudice. We see it at home on our television screens. We see it on Hollister bags at the mall. We see it on magazines in stores. It is a never-ending stream of messages the media is trying to express.

Not only that, but the media being put out to the general public is controlled mostly by men. According to The White House Project Benchmarking Women’s Progress Report in 2010, women only account for 22% of leadership positions in journalism- such as newspaper publishers and news directors. Even though we see more woman as anchors and on-air personalities, what happens off-air seems to be handled by men. Women’s standpoints are not even close to being equally expressed.

No wonder the public still sees men as the dominant gender.

Times are changing, but gender prejudices aren’t evolving as they should be. It’s not okay to have woman pose weakly next to men as they flex their pecs. Or to make jokes about women never making a living for a family. Woman shouldn’t have to sit and report a news article that a man published telling the public what is “right”. There should be gender equality when it comes to news and media. It has become socially acceptable for men to cook and clean. A woman can make a living just as easy as a man can. So why aren’t these things acknowledged? Why can’t these sexist and prejudiced videos and pictures go away?


We can’t forget that there are many powerful women in our society, women that can do everything men can and more. Women such as Christine Roth, a female body builder. Or Sheryl Sandberg, the first woman to serve on Facebook’s Board of Directors. She is now responsible for most of the social networking site’s success. There are many women who are powerful figureheads in society just as well as men.

“You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman,” says Jane Galvin Lewis. We’re not asking to forget the power of man, but we are asking to welcome the strength of a woman.