Sex Week event discusses role of sex in media
Nora Berenstain, an assistant professor of philosophy, gave a lecture entitled, “Sex and the Media.” The lecture focused on who provides sexual images in the media and why the misrepresentation of sexuality is more magnifying in the media between sexism, racism and hetero-sexism.
Emily Deathridge/ TNJN
Nora Berenstain believes sex plays a large role in today’s media.
Berenstain, an assistant professor of philosophy, gave a lecture entitled, “Sex and the Media.” The lecture focused on who provides sexual images in the media and why the misrepresentation of sexuality is more magnifying in the media between sexism, racism and hetero-sexism.
“There is a very close relationship between the source of representations we see of groups of people and the commons conceptions and stereotypes we have,” Berenstain said.
The idea of “gaze” and how it gives the audience of a film the mindset of a heterosexual man by focusing on women being sexualized was discussed. To grasp this idea a super bowl commercial was used as an example.
“Women are seen existing publicly for male consumption as being objects for men to sexualize and when women don’t fulfill that expectation to be sexualized objects, they are punished for it,” Berenstain said.
While this is common in the media, Berenstain believes that audiences have grown to understand it as acceptable. She also discussed the symbolic annihilation that the media promotes by the misrepresentation of stereotypes and specific identities.
Professor Berenstain will be offering PHIL 382: Philosophy of Feminism and PHIL 360: Philosophy of Science this upcoming fall semester for those who are interested in learning more on the subject.
For more Sex Week events, click here.
Edited by Jessica Carr
