Women as Projected on Television and Cinema

There has been gender bias in the television programmes. In television; Men appeared as ‘newsmaker’ in 77.4 per cent of the cases while women were in that role in only 6.5 per cent. Reporting on politicians, women appeared in the political news as wives, mothers and daughters of well-known leaders. In television; they appeared as victims of calamities and as members of audiences. The analysis of serials and cinema shows that men characters were almost double that of women characters. In terms of occupation women appeared mainly as housewives. If employed, they were invariably school teachers, office workers and flight attendants. By and large, women are depicted as dependent, submissive and sacrificing, whereas men are self-confident, dominant, ambitious and even ruthless. In India women are underrepresented in general, and the television programmes and cinema have distorted the women’s movement and its role.