DRAFT ESSAY 2

IDEOLOGY/GENDER

An ideology is a set of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class or culture. Where as, gender ideology refers to the attitudes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men in society. In the ever-modernizing society, men and women should have equal rights. However women still have the cliché of being a housewife who should spend their time in the kitchen or cleaning and ‘catering’ to their partners needs and wants.

The FHM website I feel follows this stereotype as all the woman are sexualized and are featured because of the way they look, which is to satisfy the mans male gaze. Laura Mulvey is a theorist who introduced the Male Gaze theory in her essay called ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ It states that women are used as objects in film as the camera is controlled as if it were the eyes of a heterosexual man. I believe this is present in all media texts today. FHM prove this again as all images are women looking sexy or improper, and they do this to attract their target audience of Men in their 20’s as they associate that age with sexual exploration and a change of lifestyle. This gives females the ideology that they should all look and pose seductively like the women on the website in order to interest men.

Vogue follows the ideology of women being their own person and not owned or controlled by a man. It is full of articles and pictures supporting the strength of independence in women and not being sexualized. Instead the Vogue website follows another stereotype of women being shoppers and spending all their money on looking good. It gives information on the latest fashion trends and where you can buy certain ‘must need’ items of the season etc. This gives the ideology to the audience that all women should follow the latest fashions and be wearing them in order to look good and therefore attract a man.

Both websites, Vogue and FHM portray similar ideas of the ‘perfect woman’. All the models are slim and do not represent a normal woman. The average size of a westernized woman is a size 14, where as Vogue and FHM have models who are a size 4, 6 or 8 which are in the minority of the population.