The Expectations Women Can’t Escape
From television to social media, women can face criticism for being too confident, too sexual, too independent or simply not enough.
By Nia Stewart
Women are often told they can be anything, but media portrayals can make that freedom feel conditional. Television and social media can reward women for being attractive and confident while criticizing them for appearing too sexual, too loud or too independent. The result is a contradiction: Women are encouraged to express themselves, yet judged when they do.
Via IMDB
Season 7 of the reality TV series “Love Island” offers a window into that tension, showing how female contestants can face criticism regardless of how they present themselves.
When Grace Kiko Kashiwagura watched the season, she noticed something familiar in the way viewers talked about women on the show. A Metro Detroit native and college freshman at Michigan State University, Kashiwagura observed that women seemed to face criticism regardless of whether they were outspoken, reserved, sexual or independent.
“No matter what you do, it’s never going to make people satisfied,” she said.
Her observation raises a larger question about popular media: Are women actually being given freedom to define themselves, or are they simply being offered different versions of the same expectations?
For actor and gender equality advocate Geena Davis, the issue became personal after she noticed gender imbalances in the television shows and movies her children watched. That observation led her to establish the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which studies representation across entertainment and advertising.
“Media images exert a powerful influence in creating and perpetuating our unconscious biases,” Davis said in a statement published by UN Women.
Recent research shows that while women are gaining more visibility on screen, the expectations surrounding them have not disappeared. A 2025 study from the San Diego State University Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film found that women made up 49% of major characters on streaming programs and 47% on broadcast television during the 2024-2025 season. But women were still generally portrayed as younger than men, with most female characters in their 20s and 30s, while male characters were more often in their 30s and 40s.
Advertising reflects the same tension. A 2025 analysis by the Unstereotype Alliance and Kantar, covering nearly 37,000 ads across 89 countries, found a roughly 30% year-over-year increase in positive gender portrayals. But representation was still uneven, with diverse body-size representation declining by 3%. The findings suggest that progress in advertising is real, but the way women are portrayed still matters.
These numbers do not prove that media directly causes gender stereotypes. They do show, however, the types of representations audiences repeatedly encounter.
On shows such as “Love Island,” those representations can become even more complicated because viewers can immediately respond through social media. A contestant’s appearance, personality, relationships and choices can become subjects of public discussion and criticism on social platforms.
Northwestern University Psychology Prof. Renee Engeln and her colleagues found that even brief exposure to Instagram can affect how young women view themselves. In a 2020 study of 308 undergraduate women, participants who used Instagram for seven minutes reported more appearance comparisons and lower body satisfaction than those using other social media platforms.
The study raises a larger question: If women are gaining visibility in the media, how can that representation give them greater control over how they are portrayed?
For Kashiwagura, the answer is not telling women how they should present themselves. Instead, women should have the freedom to decide for themselves.
“It can be empowering being comfortable in your sexuality,” she said. “If (women) want to be sexy, they can be sexy.”
Why It Matters
Recent research shows that women and men continue to be represented differently across media. In a 2025 analysis by the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film, women accounted for 38% of speaking characters and 36% of major characters in the year’s top-grossing U.S. films. Women were also the protagonists in 29% of those films, compared with 42% in 2024. The study found differences in age representation as well, with women 60 and older making up 2% of major female characters, compared with 8% of major male characters.
These numbers describe patterns in representation, but they do not determine how individual audiences view media. People’s views are influenced by many factors, including family, culture, personal experiences and social environments. Media is one part of that larger picture.
Rather than suggesting that there is one correct way to represent women, the data raises questions about the range of roles, ages and experiences audiences see on screen. Greater variety can provide audiences with more perspectives on women’s lives and experiences.
5 Questions to Consider When Viewing Media:
Representation: Who appears on screen and in creative leadership roles?
Character roles: What kinds of roles are women given?
Creative input: Who makes decisions about female characters?
Audience interpretation: How might different audiences understand the same portrayal?
Variety: Are women represented across different ages and backgrounds?
