Media and Women
...colored glasses on, highlighting this shall be the main aim of our discussion today. „« TV Television today can easily be called the mass medium since TV had a 19 percent higher reach than the press or in other words, Out of 48.6 million urban households, 33.6 million, or 69 percent own TVs, In the rural areas. 123 million people watch TV, mostly through community sets. Since it has a large penetration in the remote pockets of the country, it really matters how we portray women on this media because consciously or unconsciously we are influenced by the way TV depicts our lives. „« TV today shows 7 to 9 women oriented serials today. Where Monday we have SAANS on Star plus and Koshish on Zee and many more such serials on every channel „« The story line of each of these serial has a strange conformist trend. Priya of Saans can fend for herself, reject the alimony yet she cannot be a single mother and will marry the father of the child because of the social pressure. „« The cause of every thing in a serial is a woman, be it Tulsi of Saas b Kabhi Bahu thi or Manjit of Hum sab ek hain, we laugh at them, we curse Manisha of Saans and this way women are being portrayed as cause of all worries, conforming to the old adage ¡§aurat, nark ka dwar¡¨ „« The men are always shown above the glass ceiling and help out these women once they have landed themselves in trouble. Then be it Gautam of Saans or tushar of Kahani Ghar ghar ki. „« Representation of women in Advertising. Advertising is also one of the mesmerizing aspects of media. The beginning of advertising is very old and it came into being during the industrial revolution. Since then it has come a long way, today on an average, there are 3000 advertisements created everyday!! The average number of advertisements that embellish a half an hour program on TV has 15 minutes of commercials and half of them have women and they do it for any product. „« We have women today to prove the worth of the product then be it a perfume, shoe, deodorant, car, shirts and many such things, which generally have no concern with the women. „« Advertising tends to create false myths around us. We have slimmer, never tiring, smiling, fresh beauties, which is false for the real life. „« In spite of creating a myth of ¡¥ Millennium Women¡¦, we are still shown only as mother, daughter, wife, sister and seductress. Conclusion It is said very truly ¡§ A...