The Mass Media and the Feminist Approach to Socialization

Although people are free to choose socialization
influences from the mass
media, they choose some influences
more than others. Specifically, they tend to choose influences that are more pervasive,
fit existing cultural standards, and are made especially appealing by those who
control the mass media. We can illustrate this point by considering how feminist
sociologists analyze gender
roles—widely shared expectations about how males and
females are supposed to act.
Gender roles are of special interest to feminist sociologists, who claim that people are
not born knowing how to express masculinity and femininity in conventional ways. Instead,
say feminist sociologists, people learn gender roles, in part through the mass media.
The learning of gender roles through the mass media begins when small children
see that only a kiss from Prince Charming will save Snow White from eternal sleep.
Here is an early lesson about who can expect to be passive and who potent. The
lesson continues in magazines, romance novels, television, advertisements, music,
and the Internet. For example, a central theme in Harlequin romance novels (the
world’s top sellers in this genre, now conveniently available in e-books) is the transformation
of women’s bodies into objects for men’s pleasure. In the typical Harlequin
romance, men are expected to be the sexual aggressors. They are typically more
experienced and promiscuous than the women. These themes are well reflected in
some of the titles on Harlequin’s best-seller list for the third week of February 2010:
hampered her, and she had only taken a few steps before Alex
caught up with her, bodily grabbed hold of her and swung her
around to face him, his own face taut with emotion. . . .
“‘Men aren’t worth loving. . . .’
“‘No?’ Alex asked her huskily.
“‘No,’ Beth repeated firmly, but somehow or other her denial
had lost a good deal of its potency. Was that perhaps because of
the way Alex was cupping her face, his mouth gently caressing
hers, his lips teasing the stubbornly tight line of hers, coaxing it
to soften and part? . . .
“As Alex continued to kiss her, the most dizzying sweet sensation
filled Beth. She had the most overpowering urge to cling
blissfully to Alex and melt into his arms like an old-fashioned
Victorian maiden. Behind her closed eyelids she could have
sworn there danced sunlit images of tulle and confetti scented
with the lilies of a bridal bouquet, and the sound of a triumphant
‘Wedding March’ swelled and boomed and gold sunbeams
formed a circle around her.
“Dreamily Beth sighed, and then smiled beneath Alex’s kiss,
her own lips parting in happy acquiescence to the explorative
thrust of his tongue.”
“Frantically she got up, her eyes flooding with tears, knocking
over her chair in her desperate attempt to avoid crying in front
of Alex and completely humiliating herself. But as she tried to
run to the sanctuary of the bathroom the length of her bathrobe
In Bed with the Wrangler; Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress; Seduction and the
CEO; and Executive’s Pregnancy Ultimatum. The women who are portrayed in the
novels are expected to desire love before intimacy. They are assumed to be sexually
passive, giving only subtle cues to indicate their interest in male overtures. Supposedly
lacking the urgent sex drive that preoccupies men, women are often held accountable
for moral standards and contraception. Readers are assured that adopting
this submissive posture ensures that things turn out for the best. As the Harlequin
.com website says, “Happily ever after is always guaranteed with our books” (“About
Harlequin,”
2010; Grescoe, 1996; Jensen, 1984) (see Box 3.1).
People do not always passively accept messages about appropriate gender
roles. They often interpret them in unique ways and sometimes resist them. For
the most part, however, they try to develop skills that will help them perform gender
roles in a conventional way (Eagley and Wood, 1999: 412–13). Of course, conventions
change. What children learn about femininity and masculinity today is
less sexist than what they learned just a generation or two ago. Comparing Cinderella
and Snow White with Tangled, for example, we immediately see that children
who watch Disney movies today are sometimes presented with more assertive
and heroic female role models than the passive heroines of the 1930s and 1940s.
Yet we must not exaggerate the degree of change. Cinderella and Snow White are
still popular movies. Moreover, for every Tangled, there is a Little Mermaid, a movie
that simply modernizes old themes about female passivity and male conquest.
As the learning of gender roles through the mass media suggests, not all media
influences are created equal. We may be free to choose which media messages influence
us. However, most people are inclined to choose the messages that are most
widespread, most closely aligned with existing cultural standards, and made most enticing
by the mass media. As feminist sociologists remind us, in the case of gender roles, these messages
support conventional expectations about how males and females are supposed to act