This article highlights some structures of social relations which influence the formation of images of women in society in general, and in the mass media in particular. Drawing from examples in Tanzania, it adopts a neo-Marxist analysis of society and suggests that both traditional structures and attitudes and modern socio-economic relations, buttressed by prejudices in dominant religions, subjugate women to subsidiary roles in development. Hence their negative portrayal in the mass media. It suggests major reforms in the socialization of the youth within the family and the wider society as a means of fighting the negative images of women which justify their exploitation by partriachal and capitalist social systems.
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