Gender

In today’s American society, the views of women have changed for the better and continue to make progress. Compared to the views of women in other societies, women in America seem to have a more privileged life. Is the way that women in America are shown in media non-discriminatory or fair? Movies and shows portray women as the weaker and helpless sex while men being the strong and valiant. The media shows that there are still some unfair opinions of women and their rank in this society.

There are shows and movies in America that take female characters and portray them as the stereotypical weak and helpless damsel in distress. There are certain T.V. stations such as the “Oxygen” channel that are made for shows about women and their struggle against some predator, usually men. These shows are about women being victims to life threatening events and show women in a state of weakness in which they have to fight for their life. These female characters are fighting for their life and showing strength against a man who’s hurting them yet, in almost every story like this there is another male character that always saves the day and helps the “weak” woman fight off the antagonist. For example, the movie Halloween shows the main character named Laurie, female, being hunted and attacked by her older brother Michael Meyers. The movie portrayed her as this weak, pathetic damsel in distress; she could not stand up for herself in any way. At the end of the movie she is saved by another character that of course is male. Throughout the whole movie, Laurie was running, screaming, and crying helplessly and could only find comfort in another dominant male character. There are many examples of women being the poor, helpless characters that stand and watch someone else fight the villain instead of trying to help themselves. The fact that women are always portrayed so stereotypically is frustrating because any one would try and fight for their life with all their strength with help or without help.