Representation of females in media is skewed. I mean, seriously! Do authors and producers just sit down and absorb all the absurd notions and “ideals” surroundung the idea of the “perfect” female and build their female characters around that?

In classical fiction, many authors catered to idea of the “ideal woman” to be an image of beauty that belonged in the domestic sphere. She was meant to be a child-bearing machine that takes care of all household tasks without any complaint. She is meant to always look beauitful for her husband and it is extremely unattractive of her to ever have opinions.

Nowadays, we assume we have completely left this ridiculous notion of an “ideal woman” in the past. And to a certain degree, we have. Women now are given a lot more rights than they were 100 years ago. Woohoo! But, we’re not quite there yet.

Disney, as a pretty popular and loved franchise, can be seen as somewhat representative of how women are portrayed in media. One study shows that even though the main characters of Disney princess movies are clearly female, the amount of talking done by males is usually around double the amount as females in the movie. The princesses also recieve a lot of compliments - the older films featured the ladies recieving much more compliments on their appearance than their skill. And only films made in the past few years finally adjust the imbalance so that the princesses recieve more compliments on skill and effort instead of beauty.

We have come far, but not far enough. It’s going to take many years before all genders are treated with equity and many more after that before portrayal in media catches up. Wish us luck, guys. Wish us luck.