Pride or prejudice?

Although during the last years campaigns against gender discrimination were increasingly and globally supported, we can see how the role of women is still influenced by stereotypes. In this post we will see an example of how media, which in the age of technology should break down certain stereotypes related to old beliefs or specific social patterns, actually are used for just the opposite.

Most of us have probably heard about Samantha Cristoforetti, the Italian astronaut. Last week Samantha left the Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two other astronauts, for a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). For Italy it is a historic moment because she is the first Italian female astronaut in space. Despite this, no TV program talked about the launch or at most, the event occupied five minutes during the news. This happens because in a country like Italy it doesn’t matter if you're an astronaut, a manager, an engineer or whatever, just because you're a woman your role is devalued, belittled. This happens because the image of women, as is given by media in our country, is that of an object covered by glitter. It doesn’t matter if a woman has certain skills, because if you have to let her talk is just to let her talk nonsense. The only important thing is that her body reflects specific standards of beauty. This explains why, few days after the event, a lot of sexist comments, like “someone had to wash the dishes aboard the ISS” or jokes about the not womanhood of Samantha, appeared on the main social networks. Thus, there is still a lot to do so that the efforts we make every day against gender discrimination are not waste in this way.