I wouldn't consider myself an avid TV watcher or Netflix "binge watcher", but recently I have been watching more and more television series and have observed quite a few things on how girls and women are portrayed in some shows. In some these "teen dramas" I have recently been watching, I noticed that girls are generally portrayed as the classic cheerleader that have a perfect, toned body, but do no other physical exercise. This may be hypocritical for me to say considering that I was a cheerleader in high school, however, cheer leading in these shows isn't even portrayed accurately most of the time. Cheer leading in real life requires lots of conditioning and muscle strength, which is what the media tries not to depict on females.
Although the plot of many of these shows isn't to display who lifts weights or who plays sports, it's not difficult to see that the men are always the ones playing sports, running, lifting, or anything else that requires a lot of physical exertion. Generally, girls in these shows can either be a cheerleader or only all about school, and that's it. It's very rare to come across a television series where the girls all play basketball or lacrosse or lift weights without them being portrayed as extremely masculine. When in reality, girls can be 3 season athletes and lift weights and can still be, what many individuals would call, "girly".
Not only is the portrayal of women's athletics disfigured, but the portrayal of women in the workplace is too. Just as it's very rare to find a television series in which women play the same sports as men, it's very rare to find one in which women can do the same jobs as men. Typically in these shows, men are the ones that do all the "dirty work". They're the ones that fix all the computers, cars, or anything else that's difficult to fix, and women are generally the ones that do all the easier work. It's extremely rare that you see a woman as a mechanic or a man as a fashion designer unless he's gay. Also, men are typically displayed as the boss or the head of their workplace. If a woman is a leader, then she is "bitchy" and strongly disliked; normally the antagonist. All of these portrayals are most of the time extremely false, as I'm sure many of you who are reading this know a woman that does a "man's job" just fine, and isn't a bitch.
These false portrayals by the media of what women can do need to be altered. Women no longer are forced to just do household work in long skirts and that's it, this is 2016. Women have come a long way since then, and can do anything just as well as an individual of the male gender can. It's time to begin applying that to today's media, to let those of society that may be blind to this know, that women can play sports, lift weights, run fast, do "dirty work", and can still kill it in heels.
