According to the article, a study done by the University at Buffalo, researchers found that "over the last few decades, the popular-media portrayal of women has become increasingly sexualized." Although this is quite obvious, the researchers used resources for their study that might surprised some people. The researchers used Rolling Stone covers from 1967 to 2009 to measure the change in sexualized images while using a scale to determine how sexual the image was. Researchers used the magazine because "it is a well-established, pop-culture media outlet that offers a useful window into how women and men are portrayed generally in popular culture." Points gained through their scale on determining how sexual the photo was were from having "parted lips, exposed tongues, partial or full nudity, and sexually explicit language."
The study concluded that indeed the sexual images of women had increased a lot, and also the images have become more "pornified" or "hypersexualized." Erin Hutton, one of the researchers in the study, was quoted in the article stating that "In the 2000s, there were ten times more hypersexualized images of women than men, and eleven times more non-sexualized images of men than of women. What we conclude from this is that popular media outlets such as Rolling Stone are not depicting women as sexy musicians or actors; they are depicting women musicians and actors as ready and available for sex. This is problematic because it indicates a decisive narrowing of media representations of women." This being said, it seems like it's more than just advertisements that are sexualizing women, but the magazine itself is sexualizing the musicians and actors in the magazine articles as well. (The news article shows a Rolling Stone cover of Britney Spears, practically nude.)
This article reminded me of several things we discussed in class, mostly the video we watched "Killing Us Softly" by Jean Kilbourne. I love this video, and as I said before, this was my favorite topic in class and I continued to watch more videos by Jean Kilbourne. Kilbourne discusses advertisements in the media that are hypersexualizing women and how it is damaging gender roles and creating negative stereotypes about women. It has even gotten so bad that I have noticed how many women post sexualized photos of themselves on social media sites such as Facebook and I believe this all has to do with the sexualization of the actors and musicians that we look to for fashion and lifestyle tips.
Another discussion from class that reminded me of this was "What We Do For Love" by Rose Weitz. In the reading, Weitz states that "51% of women dye their hair blonde to appear sexy." This statement fit into this news article to me because I thought of how the media is "pornifing" women and that women in the adult entertainment industry usually have blonde hair because in the media it is "sexy." Then I thought about how many musicians and actors have unnatural blonde hair, and maybe they are dying their hair to appear more "sexy." Perhaps this connection isn't correct but the connection was interesting to me.
Last, our class discussion of sex in the media and the representation of women was also thought of while reading the news article. Everything we discussed was shown in the news article and knowing the information did help me to better understand the problem we have with the media and their portraying of women. One thing the article did say that we did not discuss fully in class was how the media is not only sexualizing women in advertisements but they are also sexualizing the artists and even sexualizing political figures in the media.
Hopefully one day we can change this huge problem we have in our media and the awful representations it is giving women, from sexual harassment and violence to men and boys getting a negative feel against women (i.e., calling women "whores" and "sluts").
News Article: http://www.nerve.com/news/love-sex/study-media-representations-of-women-have-become-more-pornified
Sources:
Mills, Jeff. "Study: Media representations of women have become more "pornified"." Nerve.com. N.p., 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 2 Apr. 2012. .
Brown, Adriane. "The Body and Media Literacy." Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo. . Keynote speech.
Weitz, Rose. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions. 5th ed. N.p.: Susan Shaw and Janet Lee, n.d. Print. Rpt. of What We Do For Love.
Kilbourne, Jean, perf. Killing Us Softly 4. 2010. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.
I thought that your article was very well put together and written. My article is kind of similar to yours. My article is about how the media sexualizes and dumbs down women. Many women want to advance in be in leadership roles and legislation but because the media portrays women as only being sexual objects, they are not being taken seriously by men. I also agree with you that with time our society is becoming more sexual. Yes, teen pregnancy has always been around but our younger generation is having sex earlier and earlier because they are exposed to sex on a larger scale and at an earlier age. Musicians, athletes, and actors are all trying to portray a sexier image because they know that that’s what sells. Anna kournikova is a perfect example. She was not popular because she was a great tennis player, she was popular because she was pretty and played up her sexuality.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog. I have thought for a long time that the media has played a big role in how society looks at woman. We are used for sex tokens. In commercials they make you believe that you will look like that sexy little blonde if you use there product. And in the movies, you can get out of or into anything if you just use your sexuality for what you want. You see woman convincing men to let them do things illegal or to help them do illegal things. We complain that men womanize us and that they treat us like objects, but we do and say nothing when they portray us in this way. These things in the media not only change others views of us but it also changes our opinion of ourselves. Woman believe that they need to change themselves to fit these images. They believe that blonde is sexy, so they dye their hair. And they believe that thin is beautiful so they starve themselves. This has been an ongoing issue for years and I believe that it will continue to be an issue until we choose to stand up and do something about it.
ReplyDeleteI thought that your article was very well written and thought out. I agree with all of your arguments. When I think of media representation for some reason there is always one commercial that comes to mind, the Kia super bowl commercial with the Vicotria Secret model in it. No matter what the advertisement is for a lot of media now a days does sexualize women. In this commercial specifically she is in a very skimpy bathing suit waving down a car, however, it is not the car that catches my eye and probably does not catch others as well, it is the beautiful tall skinny model that is being shown. The whole idea of media representation really saddens me and i do not exactly see how it is changing for the better. However, there are still commercials like Dove that use real fuller women. But my question is why does the media have to, like you said, "pornify" women in order to sell a product?
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