中山大学2015年下半年大学英语（三）第三次作业.docx

2015年下半年大学英语（三）第三次作业 Passage 1 The mass media influences all aspects of our lives, including the learning of gender roles. Newspapers and magazines, television, and film all have an influence on how we view the roles of women and men and on how we think they should behave. Four decades ago, traditional women’s magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Family Circle talked to women as though they were children who needed to learn the basics of how to care for their families. Today, magazines do not do this. However, they still tend to define the female role in terms of homemaking and motherhood, and to offer beauty advice to help women attract men and please husbands. There are now a few less traditional magazines such as Ms. that show women in a range of roles and that cover a much wider range of topics. Television commercials have also, until recently, presented women primarily as sex objects and as housewives. Young sexy women were shown admiring older men who smoked a particular cigarette brand. Housewives were shown smiling joyfully about their clean bathrooms, or looking guilty for not using the right laundry soap to wash their husband’s clothes. These days advertisers are more careful about the way they present women, and they are presented in a variety of roles. However, it is still quite common to see advertisements where beautiful young women are dressed in sexy clothes to sell cars or other products. One study also found that the changes are mainly on nighttime television, with daytime commercials still tending to portray women doing household chores. Prime-time television programs also often used to stereotype women. In past decades, women were usually portrayed as lovers, as mothers, or as weak, passive girlfriends of powerful, effective men. Today’s TV programs are somewhat different. Women are more likely to be presented as successful and able to support themselves and their families, but the traditional stereotypes of women are still there. Even