cietyconsiders certain body parts to be “shameful” or disgusting and once again, the media canbe “let off the hook”. Realistically, the only way to prevent women from being seen as sexobjects is for them to be seen as other things as well; but to say that women are notsexual beings would be misleading because both men and women are very muchsexual (Christensen 1990:42). Similarly, to say that women are singled out in themedia is fallacious due to the many examples of media where men are seencatering to the needs of women; something known as chivralic sexism (Christensen1990:42). Take, for instance, a recent television ad portraying young men grovelingat the feet of supermodel Cindy Crawford, almost begging to be the “one” tocater to her needs. There were no lineups of men aching to announce theirdispleasure with the sexist ad; and this is precisely why male stereotyping in the mediaoften goes unnoticed. Similarly, it is pornography in the media that is noticedand shunned by anti-pornographic and censorship organizations because itseemingly singles out females for their bodies. It should be well noted, however,that paperback romance novels, which make up an incredible 40% of total paperback sales (Gerbner 1988:15), depicts males as sexual objects,performing what is called “Sweet Savagery” (rape), just as pornography depictsfemales as sexual objects. But once again, this goes unnoticed. It is fundamentally important to realize that the media does notdeliberately create images of hate or disagreement (Howitt, Cumberbatch 1975:80). They just influence the more appealing things in society (thus directly increasing theirratings). Although it is obvious that pornography is largely a male interest,a noted increase in female interest would certainly cause an increase in the amountof pornographic material geared for women; this relates to the laws of thebusiness world (Christensen 1990:50). Ha...
