All over the world, mass media has the role of informing and educating and in the process fashion a distinctive way and model how society works. Mass media influences the way people in a society think about issues around them.
In an ideal egalitarian society, both women and men ought to enjoy equal rights as well as fair and just representation in all aspects; including the media.
However, the prevalent scenario has on the contrary been that of the media objectifying women and depicting them in a provocative way, quite unlike their male counterparts, which is discriminatory.
And while this trend is not ideal in any way perceivable, modern society appears to have embraced it taking it as the norm. Many are now consequently convinced that women can only be valued based on how attractive their appearances are.
In films for instance, as actresses, regardless of how talented a woman may be, they are hardly accorded the kind of regard that a man is given. Many women actresses are often depicted as sexualized and weak in the roles they play. Essentially, the media portrayals of men and women are conformed to what men’s prerogatives are. Men decide what women should be like in the media.
Women are in effect constantly dissuaded from partaking in serious functions such as leadership roles as they are often perceived to be intellectually inferior to men. The common notion has therefore been that women are very sensitive, emotional and sentimental and therefore it would be unrealistic to have them take up serious roles and leadership positions.
These are ideologies constantly pushed through the media and which, unfortunately, the public inadvertently embraces and adopts, given that this same media has the power to sway and shape public opinions.
Transformations in the modern-day media landscape, therefore, require that one has great sophistry and insight to survive therein and make a change.
A graduate from the University of Oxford with a master’s degree in Criminal Justice, Diego Ruiz Duran who is a professor at Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico -where he previously studied- as well as one of the most prominent criminal justice lawyers not just in Mexico but across the world. He understands just too well how the current media works.
Prominent attorneys like him, who are often thrust in the public spotlight as they work on cases that attract huge media scrutiny, require to be smart enough to know how to deal with such attention.
The attorney who runs the Ruiz Durán Law Firm has oftentimes been known to fight for gender equality. He is very committed to the cause of achieving gender equality and addressing the atrocities committed in cases of domestic violence in his country.
For Diego Ruiz Duran, this fight is not just limited to the domestic kind of violence meted against women, but also extends to other norms of modern society which tend to discredit and diminish the value of women. His crusade is all geared towards ensuring that women get fair representation in the societies as the same societies seek to achieve egalitarianism.