A report by the Parents Television Council (PTC) finds an increase in violence against women on television.
The PTC's report is titled "Women in Peril: A Look at TV's Disturbing New Storyline Trend." It found a dramatic increase in the incidence of female victimization, an increase in the depiction of teenage girls as victims, and an increase in the use of female victimization as a punch line in comedy shows. Melissa Henson of the PTC says concern should be widespread. "As recently as last week in fact, [the actress] Nicole Kidman...was testifying in a congressional hearing on the issue of violence against women," reports Henson. "She acknowledged that Hollywood may in fact be contributing to violence against women by portraying them as weak sex objects." Henson explains children are especially affected by violence on television. "It shows that repeated exposure to media violence causes desensitization [and] may in fact in the long term lead to increased aggression," she says. "So we can extrapolate from that and conclude that perhaps children who are exposed to higher levels of violence, specifically against women, may be more prone to violence against women later in life." The study found that every network, with the exception of ABC, demonstrated a dramatic increase in the number of storylines that included violence against women between 2004 and 2009.
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