Media
o Roughly $12 billion is spent on advertising and marketing to children…over $150 per boy and girl in the U.S. (Born to Buy, Schor)
o The average young person views more than 3,000 ads per day on television, on the Internet, on billboards and in magazines.” Ads are also creeping into schools, where marketers have cleverly placed them in “educational” posters, textbook covers, bathroom stalls, scoreboards, daily news programs, and school news networks. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
o By the time adolescents graduate from high school, they will have spent about 15,000 hours with the media, while only having spent 12,000 hours in school. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Body Image
o Eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet. The number one magic wish for young girls age 11-17 is to be thinner. (justthink.org)
o Females cite the media as the most important source of pressure to be thin.(If Looks Could Kill, Reaves)
o Studies show that reading “teen magazines” and having exposure to thin models creates lower self esteem, body dissatisfaction, decreased confidence and potential eating disorder symptoms (mediafamily.org)
o By age 13, approximately 53% of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies”. This number increases to 78% once girls reach 17 years of age. (National Institute on Media and the Family)
Advertising
Key points from Killing us Softly, Kilbourne
o In addition to products, advertising attempts to sell women the myth that they can, and should, achieve physical perfection to have value in our culture.
o As advertising pushes its objects, it turns women’s bodies into objects, often dismembering them with excessive focus on just one part of the body to sell a product.
o Advertisers themselves acknowledge that they sell more than products, that the images in advertising are designed to affect the way we see our lives.
o Men and women inhabit very different worlds. Men’s bodies are not routinely scrutinized, criticized and judged in the way that women’s bodies are.
o Media images of female beauty influence everyone. They influence how women feel about themselves, and they influence how men feel about the real women in their lives.
o Little girls and teenagers are increasingly sexualized in advertisements. A growing number of ads are reminiscent of child pornography.
o Advertising is not solely to blame for rigid gender roles. However, there is no aspect of our culture that is as pervasive and persuasive as advertising.
Leadership & Politics
o Congress: Women hold 91, or 17%, of the 535 seats in the 112th US Congress — 17 of the 100 seats in the Senate and 74 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. In addition, three women serve as Delegates to the House from Guam, the Virgin Islands and Washington, DC. This number declined from the 95 women in the 111th US Congress.
o Statewide Elective Executive: In 2007, 76 women hold statewide elective executive offices across the country; women hold 24.1% of the 315 available positions. Among these women, 47 are Democrats, 26 are Republicans, one is an independent, and 3 were elected in nonpartisan races.
o State Legislatures: In 2007 23.5%, of the 7,382 state legislators in the United States were women. Women hold 422, or 21.4%, of the 1,971 state senate seats and 1,312, or 24.2%, of the 5,411 state house seats. Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has more than quintupled.
(All statistics above are from Center for American Women and Politics, Rutger’s University)
Television & Movies
o Male TV characters (41%) were more likely to be shown “on the job” than female characters (28%). Men were more likely to talk about work than women were (52% vs. 40%) and less likely to talk about romantic relationships (49% vs. 63%) (Children NOW and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 1997)
o Women are about 37% of prime-time TV characters (they are 51% of the U.S. population). Women 45 and older are only 15% of prime-time TV characters (American Association of Retired Persons, 1996)
o Women are only 132 of the general managers of the 1,600 television stations in the U.S. (National Association of Broadcasters)
o In 2005, women comprised 17% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. This is the same percentage of women employed in these roles in 1998. (Celluloid Ceiling 2005, Lauzen)
o Although women control 60 percent of the wealth, and influence 85 percent of buying decisions, they have only 11 percent of the roles on TV and film. (Women in Film)
Music
o A study shows that when men are shown in the background of a video, they are most often fully clothed. But when women are in the background, approximately half the time they are dressed in ways that expose or focus on their breasts and rear ends (ChildrenNow, Boys to Men: Media Messages About Masculinity, 1999).
o A study from the mid-1990’s shows that 90% of the top 100 music videos shown on MTV were directed by men. (Sut Jhally, Dreamworlds 2, Media Education Foundation, 1995.)
o Today, if you travel across the United States, you will hear the same small number of songs over and over again, because the same big company picks the songs for all of the stations. That’s a very bad thing for musicians and music fans. It means that many musicians can’t get their music heard by the public. It also means that music fans don’t have an opportunity to hear new music. (PBS Kids, Don’t Buy It)
Do you have more “Shocking Facts” for us? Email us at tbio@mindonthemedia.org!