The Portrayal of Women in our Electronic Media

Since the beginning, the status of women has always been inferior to men in the male-dominated society that we live in. Whatever walk of life is considered, we find men taking the lead. Same is the case with our electronic media. However, with time, the portrayal of women has been subject to influence. Unlike western nations, in our media previously women hardly had a lead role in dramas or movies. However, now we see increased participation of women in our media. They can be seen hosting morning shows, political talk shows and even in serials we can see lead roles played by females or the whole drama revolves around the life of a woman. In past times even if women were allowed to appear on-screen (e.g. in news anchoring), they were bounded by several restrictions. They had to be very cautious in how the behaved and dressed up on-screen due to the Islamisation going on in the country. Any behavior that can be considered offensive could provoke angry reaction from the religious and regulatory authorities. Although now the role of women has increased, the situation is not very pleasant. Women are still considered inferior. Their real role is not portrayed on the media. They are shown in negative light and often as weak and dependent which has stereotyped the role of women in minds of people. According to a source, Women in the media are generally portrayed as unthinking, dependent and submissive beings with reproduction as their fundamental role. She is either portrayed as ideal or deviant. Her real life feelings and behaviors are rarely depicted on screen. She is shown more in fantasy roles than her real life. Common woman in the society finds it hard to relate herself to the depiction of females in the media. Moreover, the way women are used in advertisements is also not appreciable as they are mainly used to add glamour even if the commodity being advertised has no direct utility for women. It is believed that using women in advertising and marketing a product will gain attention of the people and help sell more of the product. One thing that has shown improvement is that now women are involved in other facets of electronic media e.g. direction, programming, script writing etc. The owner of the popular Pakistani TV channel, Hum TV is female which has uplifted the image of women as it displays that women can also in many walks of life. To conclude, it can be said that womens standing has been influenced and in many cases , impoved positively, yet it is still subject to male domination.