Indian Woman Representation:The Male Eye and the Media Lens

Contemporary world is dominated by communication that transforms and transfers information at a rate where it is not possible to escape its influences. Media mediates our attitude, outlook and lifestyle and moulds the stances we take in our everyday lives. The infamous Delhi Gang Rape case of 16th December, 2012 brought in a revolution in the world of media regarding a topic otherwise stigmatized and expanded the public eye's view of Indian woman and her portrayal of being the “weaker sex”. With this as the background the present study aims at elucidating the inter-generational differences of Indian men towards their view of woman and her associated roles. A mixed method approach was adopted to evaluate the concept related to women. The sample consisted of 100 Indian males-50 from the age group of 18-25 years and 50 from 45-55 years. For quantitative analysis, semantic differential method was used and the D-statistic was calculated. For the qualitative analysis, blogs written post 16th December, 2012 Delhi gang-rape were analyzed and the themes arising in them were identified. Results indicate an average magnitude of difference between the males of two age groups mthetr view of woman and her various roles that of a wife, daughter, girl-friend, mother to name a few. Qualitative analysis of the blogs helped identity the following themes: belief of a good and bad woman, entirety of appearance, concept of freedom and her safety as forwarded by men. Results highlight the issue of a woman as being acceptable only when her identity is defined by the male and also, when she lives within the parameters drawn bythe conservativesocial order. The study has implications for the field of gender studies, development studies, cross- cultural studies and issues of women empowerment.