So how does this relate to "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?" and my PART 1 Analysis? Well, I want to consider the idea of incognizant sexism. In my last post, I complained about how journalists objectify, belittle, stereotype, and sexually harass women in the media. I also made the claim that journalists portray women differently than they do men, especially in written articles.
To explore these claims further, I compared and contrasted four other Vanity Fair documents to the "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?" article that I analyzed in my last post. I picked articles that, in my opinion, have a wide sexual range. I read and analyzed them, and came up with some key take away points pertaining to incognizant sexism. I reaaaaally like being right, and proving it (my grandma thinks I should be an attorney), so I was interested myself to see if the articles I chose would actually support these claims.
The articles I chose to analyze are:
"Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?" (Nov. 2008)
- This is the article I wrote my last blog on, and the one that got me interested in comparing these topics across several different papers. It was only right to use this paper in my comparison, as a source and as a reference point to compare the new articles to.
"What Tina Wants" (Jan. 2009)
- I chose this article because, for one, I love Tina Fey; but two, I wanted another profile on a successful woman, so that I could see if the points that I made in my last blog are actually such a common problem in media that they showed up in this article too. I tried to pick a profile on a a successful and well-known female professional, well-respected by both men and women, and some who also hasn't done anything crazy lately to get the general public to hate them.
"With a Little Help From His Friends" (Oct. 2010)
- I picked this article because first, Sean Parker is a genius and I love Facebook as a company, but also because he is a successful business man who paved his way from the bottom, already has a reputation (meaning everything is on the table), and is a male. I want to see the differences in how he is is portrayed compared to Tina and the two wall-street journalists from the first article.
"Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story" (Nov. 2015)
- I wanted to add an interesting and unique dynamic, and I thought it would be interesting to see how the media portrays Bruce/Caitlin, a transitioning transgender. I want to see if he is sexualized in his profile like women often are in theirs.
"The Boy Who Loved Chanel" (Sept. 2015)
Here are a few of the things that I found worth noting when comparing and contrasting the articles:
1. I claimed that men are used as credible sources much more than women are: and in every single article I found this to be true.
In "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?," several sources were called correspondents, not giving a sex. Of the seven of the sources that gave a name or used pronouns identifying the sex of a peer or correspondent, three were women: two of them being the women the article was written about, about the last one described as a no name, skanky-dressed, loudmouth wanna-be reporter. They used no credible women as secondary sources.
Comparatively, "What Tina Wants" (Jan. 2009) had only four of the sixteen sources as women and of these sources one was described as a friend, one (famous and credible Amy Poehler) was only quoted with word, and the other two managed to incorporate some sort of sexualization theme into the article. In "With a Little Help From His Friends" 2 of the 13 sources were women and one of the two was his mother. In "The Boy Who Loved Chanel" two of the six sources were women, and one was his mother.
Hmmmm..... see a pattern? Every story so far used many more men than women as sources, even the stories about women.
"Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story," was different when it came to sources, in that it only used family members. I think this is because it was such a personal and exclusive article that it was MORE credible when using only family members.
2. I talked about how it drives me crazy that journalists choose to describe women by what they are wearing or their physical appearances, and I claimed that they do not do this for men. I checked out all the articles to see if they corresponded with this.
In "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?," no men were physically described, but four separate times Bartiromo was either sexualized or described by a physical characteristic, like her eyes; Erin Bernett's number was even higher: reaching 6 times in one article. That means 10 separate times, in one article about two successful business women, the journalist thought the most important descriptors to the story and the women themselves was their outfits..
In "What Tina Wants," there were 12 times that Fey was either sexualized, objectified, or described by her personal experiences. In "With a Little Help From His Friends," however, Sean Parker was only described by his appearance once, and talked about clothes (without detailed descriptions) once. In "Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story," when they were using male pronouns, he was described physically as an athlete a few times, and was described by his simple outfit once. After the transition, photo's are captioned relating to style and outfits, and several times she was portrayed through fashion or sexualization. In "The Boy Who Loved Chanel," an article about a boy model and fashion, he was described by physical appearance twice, make to look cute and small rather than sexualized, and get this: It only named a specific brand or type of what he was wearing, ONCE.
An entire article with the beat of fashion and modeling, and it still cared more about content, the story, and appropriate descriptions for the young male, than it did to belittle him by only concerning the media with his appearance. I really wish the media saw women as young, bright, credible, worth-sharing, worth listening to, and didn't sexualize or belittle us by paying more attention to our outside appearance than all of the millions of content, opinions, quotes, ideas, characteristics, and personality traits we possess.
- I picked this one last, and on a whim, hoping that it would lead to interesting results coming from a different perspective. The article is about a young boy, who the media shouldn't be sexualizing, meaning that we will get to see how journalists describe and portray a young successful male model without sex appeal. The thing I was most interested to see in this article though, is if this child who already has a successful career in modeling (which is based on completely physical aspects) and is more passionate about fashion than anything else in his life, was described in mostly physical ways, like women are in media.
Here are a few of the things that I found worth noting when comparing and contrasting the articles:
1. I claimed that men are used as credible sources much more than women are: and in every single article I found this to be true.
In "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?," several sources were called correspondents, not giving a sex. Of the seven of the sources that gave a name or used pronouns identifying the sex of a peer or correspondent, three were women: two of them being the women the article was written about, about the last one described as a no name, skanky-dressed, loudmouth wanna-be reporter. They used no credible women as secondary sources.
Comparatively, "What Tina Wants" (Jan. 2009) had only four of the sixteen sources as women and of these sources one was described as a friend, one (famous and credible Amy Poehler) was only quoted with word, and the other two managed to incorporate some sort of sexualization theme into the article. In "With a Little Help From His Friends" 2 of the 13 sources were women and one of the two was his mother. In "The Boy Who Loved Chanel" two of the six sources were women, and one was his mother.
Hmmmm..... see a pattern? Every story so far used many more men than women as sources, even the stories about women.
"Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story," was different when it came to sources, in that it only used family members. I think this is because it was such a personal and exclusive article that it was MORE credible when using only family members.
2. I talked about how it drives me crazy that journalists choose to describe women by what they are wearing or their physical appearances, and I claimed that they do not do this for men. I checked out all the articles to see if they corresponded with this.
In "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B.?," no men were physically described, but four separate times Bartiromo was either sexualized or described by a physical characteristic, like her eyes; Erin Bernett's number was even higher: reaching 6 times in one article. That means 10 separate times, in one article about two successful business women, the journalist thought the most important descriptors to the story and the women themselves was their outfits..
In "What Tina Wants," there were 12 times that Fey was either sexualized, objectified, or described by her personal experiences. In "With a Little Help From His Friends," however, Sean Parker was only described by his appearance once, and talked about clothes (without detailed descriptions) once. In "Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story," when they were using male pronouns, he was described physically as an athlete a few times, and was described by his simple outfit once. After the transition, photo's are captioned relating to style and outfits, and several times she was portrayed through fashion or sexualization. In "The Boy Who Loved Chanel," an article about a boy model and fashion, he was described by physical appearance twice, make to look cute and small rather than sexualized, and get this: It only named a specific brand or type of what he was wearing, ONCE.
An entire article with the beat of fashion and modeling, and it still cared more about content, the story, and appropriate descriptions for the young male, than it did to belittle him by only concerning the media with his appearance. I really wish the media saw women as young, bright, credible, worth-sharing, worth listening to, and didn't sexualize or belittle us by paying more attention to our outside appearance than all of the millions of content, opinions, quotes, ideas, characteristics, and personality traits we possess.
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