Research on women and the media

The feminist revolution
The women’s movements didn’t suddenly arrive. Since the days of the suffragettes an increasing number of women had seen the need for equality with men.

Representation and stereotyping of women in the media
Feminist believe that the media is a contributory factor in perpetuating a narrow range of stereotyped images of women. For instance, women are always based in the home, they are inferior to men, they like men who are violent.

Film was one area of the media that could become a battlefield for the women’s movement. Film would be used as an ideological tool, which would counteract the stereotyped images of women presented by the male dominated media and raise women’s awareness of their inferior position in patriarchal society.

History of women in the media
In the late nineteenth century women were excluded from the film making process, during this time women did work in non technical areas such as being the make-up artist or production assistants. The early women film makers were in France and America and were none in Britain. The first women director was Alice Guy Blanchè from France who made her first one minute short film programs called The Good Fairy in the Cabbage Patch in 1896 after working 11 years in France she moved to America and found that there were greater opportunities in America.