Miss Representation
Women & the Law
Watch the documentary Miss Representation, found at http://tinyurl.com/y9a8jm7m and answer the following questions. Also read the posted NY Times article on Nancy Pelosi.
Questions
1. What’s the main message that girls get from the media?
2. What happens to a girl’s body image as she gets older?
3. Do American women spend more on cosmetics or education?
4. What is self-objectification?
5. What is the % of women in the US v. the % of women in Congress? The number of countries which have had women presidents or prime ministers?
6. What impact has reality TV had on women?
7. How are women newscasters different from men newscasters?
8. How does the media use language to differentiate between women and men, particularly in politics?
9. How was TV used to respond to women losing their jobs after WWII ended?
10. How did media respond to the women’s rights movement?
Analysis
1. How different do you think the medias portrayal would be if women were better represented on the boards of major media companies? How could substantive equality be used to increase the number of women on the boards?
2. Do you think your view of women how they should look and behave has been influenced by the media? Explain why or why not.
3. How different would ad campaigns and TV shows look if formal equality was applied to how women and men are portrayed in the media?
4. Find an example of an ad or article that illustrates one of the points discussed in the documentary. Explain how it does so and attach a link to it. Do not use one of the examples noted in the documentary.
5. What was your response to the documentary? Did it change how you view women’s representation in the media? Be specific.
6. How did the NY Times article portray Nancy Pelosi, in contrast to the examples of how media portray women politicians in the documentary? Do you think people would judge her interactions with the president in the same way if she were a man?
Format Instructions
(2 – 5 points will be deducted for each instruction not followed)
a. For the Questions section, put Questions as a heading, then number your answers but do not include the questions;
b. For the Analysis section, put Analysis as a heading, then number your answers but do not include the questions;
c. Write in complete sentences for the Questions section and paragraph form for the Analysis section;
d. Number the pages;
e. Double-space your answers and do not leave extra space between them;
f. Margins should be one inch on all sides and be measured from the text of your answer, not the number of the question;
g. Single-space the header in the right-hand corner.
FORMAT EXAMPLE
Name
Date
Class
Questions
1. Answer the questions in complete sentences. The margins should be set so that when you continue your answer, it extends to the edge of the page, lining up under the number, not the start of your written answer.
2. Do not leave extra space between the answers.
Analysis
1. Do not leave extra space between the end of the Questions section and the beginning of the Analysis section.
2. As with the Questions section, number your answers but do not include the questions in your answers.
3. Answers to the questions in the Analysis section should each be at least a full paragraph in length.
