Alexander Sink and Dana Mastro (2017) studied women and gender depictions on American prime-time television. Although women are often perceived to be better represented on television in recent years, these researchers claim that this is not necessarily the case. They claim women are proportionally underrepresented on prime time television, making up 39% of characters even though women make up 50.9% of the population in the US. Men were also portrayed as more dominant than women, and although men were more often objectified, women were consistently portrayed as hyper-feminized and hyper-sexualized. Fewer older women appeared during prime time, compared to men, and were often shown to be less competent than older male characters.