Gender Bias is NOT Okay
Thursday night, reserved for relaxing on the couch with my partner and watching the latest episode of the bachelorette while patiently awaiting the drama filled cocktail parties. About 10 minutes into the episode the boys arrived at the group date to discover that they would be participating in a life-drawing session as part of Angie’s hens party (thrown by her bestie Yvie). Plot-twist by Osher, they need one of the boys to model and Ciarran Stott confidently volunteered.
Everyone has taken their seats and sure enough, Ciarran drops his robe and all the boys are cheering with one contestant saying “what an absolute legend,” and others in awe with his confidence.
Now usually I would react in the same manner and be happy that a man can be so confident in his own body, but tonight felt a little different. My partner turned to me and I realised we both shared the same understanding on this topic. How is this guy being cheered for being naked on national TV while a few weeks ago Bachelor contestant Abbie Chatfield was getting publicly slut-shamed for wearing a bikini to the beach?
In case you’ve been living under a rock or have a severe aversion to reality TV you would know the amount of shaming and critiscm Abbie got while the show was airing. Abbie was confident in her body and sexuality and wasn’t afraid to show it, which I found admirable. I remember at the time people saying how ‘annoying’ and ‘sexual’ she was and just thinking to myself how society could be so sexist and biased. Even Osher Gunsberg tweeted that women should be able to confidently express their sexuality without society judging and shaming them.
In contrast to reactions towards Abbie’s bikini appearance, when Ciarran was completely nude Angie and Yvie were both very vocal in saying how impressive his confidence was, complimenting his physical appearance and even asking him to ‘turn around’.
“Good on Ciarran for getting that wang out,” — Yvie Jones.
All I could think about was if Abbie and Ciarran’s roles were reversed, and it seems I wasn’t the only one as Abbie took to Instagram to call out the double standards.
Abbie pointed out that if she was the one posing nude she would be labelled as ‘slutty’ and ‘attention seeking’, while Ciarran was praised for being confident. The 24 year old still received backlash in the comments with people telling her to ‘move on’ and ‘stop trying so hard’ which shows the extent of this issue. This episode made everyone fall in love with Ciarran for his confident and open personality, so why was Abbie shamed for having the same qualities? Double standards have always been evident in our society, but how is this still an ongoing issue in 2019?
Social role theory argues that gender stereotypes reflect characteristics from the old-fashioned sexual division of labour and gender hierarchy. Consequently, men are perceived as ‘strong’ and ‘confident’ while women are ‘gentle’ and ‘nurturing’. Regardless of being ‘equal’, men and women are treated and viewed differently, even when portraying the same personality traits.
This is commonly blamed on the false ‘confidence gap’, even though a large amount of people believe that women are equally as self-confident as men. The real problem women are facing is ‘muted group theory’, which is negative backlash towards a display of confident behaviour. Research suggests that women often don’t speak out or express their opinions due to the likelihood of receiving backlash and being labelled as ‘arrogant’ and ‘attention seeking’, while men would be seen as ‘confident’ and ‘assertive’.
This has contributed to the gender bias in our society which is being exhibited on our TV’s. The Bachelor/Bachelorette series has been portraying a sexist representation of gender stereotypes and highlights the inequality and bias towards women and it is not okay. Reality TV and social media are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gender bias and unfair stereotypes, with the majority of the problem being our society.
