Representations of Gender in the Past

IN THE 1950'S 1960'S and 1970's only 20-30%of characters on tw shows were female,by the mid 1980's there were more women in leading roles however the number of men were still so much more.

Dyer (1980s) In drama the numebr of women in central roles in police or crime series had increased.

Miles (1975) found that there were nearly equal proportions of men and women in situation comedies where as in action adventure films only 15% of the leading characters were women.

A 1987 study found women to be most common in comedy programmes (43%).

Davis 1990 - Action adventure and dramas women had alomost doubled their showing to 29 % of characters, this is clearly still very low.

Gunter also says that studies in the 1970's also consistently find that marriage parenthood and domesticity were shown to be more important to women on tv.

Tuchman - Women are 'Symbolically Annihliated', women don't matter much. Also were to be seen as working were portrayed as 'incompetents and Inferiors'.

Mcneil - female characters were unlikley to work especially if they were wives or mothers.

1970's studies - Men were found to be more dominant, the "decision makers" on TV

Gunter 1995 - men were more likley to be assertive or agressive whilst women were more likley to be passive, men were more likley to be adventurous active and victourious whereas women were more frequently shown as weak and emotional and a lot of the time victimised or "merely token females"