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Global studies means forward-looking
Edited by Dr Gilbert Ahamer
1. Introduction
While many people nowadays are claiming that women and men have got equal rights, it seems obvious that there are still sectors in which equality has not yet been achieved. Females tend to be significantly underrepresented and often portrayed in stereotypical ways in various cultural products. This paper focusses on representations in different media that young, as well as older children are exposed to on a daily basis. It is argued that sexist portrayals of genders in these cultural products may affect children's development in a number of ways and lead to a reproduction of gender stereotypes.
This paper provides an overview of past research on the question of female (but also male) representations, starting out with their representation in children's literature, as this is a field that has been investigated for over four decades. The paper then goes on to discuss female representation in television programs and on the internet, as well as computer-related programs. Studies on the possible negative influences and effects of stereotypical and unequal gender portrayals on children are also presented for each of these different media. After this, it will be shown that there is potential for positively influencing children's development by exposing them to non-sexist gender portrayals. For this purpose, non-traditional children's literature is used as a case in point, as numerous studies have been conducted in this field. It is argued that exposure of children to other non-sexist media may result in similarly positive effects on children as exposure to non-sexist literature has been found to have. Finally, with an idea of "forward looking" in mind, the importance of equal and non-stereotypical representations of both males and females in various media children are regularly faced with is stressed and some suggestions for the future are made.
2. Gender inequality in different media and its potential effects on children
2.1 Children's literature
One of the fields that have been investigated particularly often regarding gender equality is that of children's literature. After a landmark study in the USA in the early 1970s ([38] Weitzman et al. , 1972), numerous other studies, almost exclusively conducted in the USA, have followed. Since this field of study is still dominated by...