Pop, Girl Groups, Anime, Soap Operas: How East Asian Media’s Negative Portrayal of Women Shapes Adolescents’ View on Gender Equality and Self Image

Abstract

Media has long been shaping people’s perspectives and media in the patriarchal world has been constructing a typical portrayal of what women ought to resemble. This study aims to reveal how media in East Asia has been shaping women and how it has been affecting teenagers. Through gathering findings from different articles, it is found that women are often sexualized and commercialized under the heavy male gaze, acting for men’s benefit, especially in East Asia where patriarchy had stuck along. With males dominating the industries and holding the wealth and power uniformly in most parts of the world, they have active control over their passive surroundings. Men choose what to represent according to their own standards and interests, injecting the male gaze onto all of the media they have touched upon. With its wide prevalence, people assimilate and subconsciously adopt the male gaze, which diminishes women. Adolescents can be strongly affected by this portrayal, such as encountering body dysmorphia, internalization of the male gaze, early attachment to pornography, etc.