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Why does the media continue to depict ambitious and successful women as threats?

November 24, 2020
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker Stars As Carrie In The Hbo Comedy Series "Sex And The City" The Third Season.
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Lack of representation in the mainstream media is nothing new. Women are put into a very small box to represent a certain aspirational image –– the thin, beautiful, 20-something woman who is awaiting her white knight to save her from her jejune life. As I settled in and accepted my life as a child-free woman, my eyes opened wider to the misrepresented image reflected of me and what I should be aspiring to is a far stretch from the person I'm actually becoming.

The childless woman specifically is represented one of two ways. The first way is the the evil, cold-hearted, selfish lush who needs someone (often a man) to come along and knock her down a few pegs. She has given up everything in her life to get to the high powered place she is and really just needs a man to show her what she's missing.

This woman could never achieved what she did if she were married, a mother or a decent human being for that matter. We see examples of this woman in movies like 'The Proposal' or 'The Devil Wears Prada' and in TV Shows, like Sex and the City and Will and Grace.

These depictions all represent the negative qualities of a powerful woman.

The other illustration is of the unfulfilled woman who doesn't know it yet. Once the right man comes along she will change her mind and realize she does want to give up her dreams and have a baby instead. At first, this woman seems strong, independent and confident but ultimately meets the "right guy" and changes her mind.

This is perfectly represented in Clare Underwood from House of Cards –– more than vocal about her dislike for children, ambitious to get into the White House and come season 6... she is "blessed" with a pregnancy. Robin, from How I Met Your Mother, spends the entire series talking about traveling and dreams of being a news anchor. On several occasions she is clear on how she does not want children, but eventually gives all that up to be with Ted.

Yet another depiction of women sacrificing her ambitions for a man.

Add to that list Penny from The Big Bang Theory, who finishes the series with a pregnancy announcement, and Kate from the movie Four Christmases, who starts off as a happy ,childfree couple, only to end the movie with giving birth.

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians"

- Pat Robertson (in response to the feminist movement of the 60s/70s)

An independent woman is viewed as unhappy, unfulfilled and searching for something more because an independent woman is still viewed as a threat. Men are told they are the ones with the power, and if we don't need them, the balance of power is shifted. Ambition isn't admired or desired in women, but frowned upon and treated as a negative quality to have.

We saw this happen immediately after World War 2. Between 1940 and 1945, the amount of women in the workforce increased by 10% and by 1945 one out of every four women worked outside the home. When the war finally ended 80% of the employed women expressed interest in keeping their jobs.

A mere 2 days after the men returned home, almost all of those women were fired. The mainstream media then shifted focus back to advertising to women. Appliance companies sponsoring TV shows, like Leave it to Beaver, put women back in their place: in the home.

As men continue being fed the dreams of power, clout, respect and luxury, women contrarily are told we should be focused on our looks, our desirability to men and our ability to nurture and raise children.

"America's decline as a world power is a direct result of the feminists movement for reproductive freedom and equal rights" - The Christian Voice

From a young age, the media is where we receive most of our information and begins to shape how we interpret the world around us. Starting with classic Disney movies portraying the damsel in distress, to the magazine covers informing us that those last 10lbs are easy to lose, to the lack of female faces in congress and toxic treatment of women on the news.

If these are the images girls are growing up with, if these are the messages sent to young men, it's no wonder women only make up 24.5% of national level parliament, or that only 15% of women are CEO's, and only 13% of directors working on the top 250 films were women. The inequality is still prevalent and the media is partly to blame.

We need to rid our screens of the cold-hearted boss woman and the damsel in distress to create characters based on the strong, empowered role models. We see Wonder Woman and think "wow, what a great role model" but Wonder Woman is still wearing a bikini as armor, so how far have we really come?

We need to recognize women like Gloria Steinem, Rosa Parks, Kathrine Switzer and Jane Goodall. Create characters that can be empowered without having to also dress sexy. Characters who aren't viewed as cold for being ambitious and characters who don't have to sacrifice relationships or family to also be successful.

We need to start seeing real women on our screens and in our magazines or we will never be viewed as real women in our lives.

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.