"Women are aspiring to do great things in leadership, yet the glass
ceiling is still there because of the way media depict women." "It
influences our culture and dictates our gender norms and values," Jennifer
Siebel-Newsom, director and activist, states in this article. “Sex, lies and
media: New wave of activists challenge notions of beauty” written by Emanuella
Grinberg is article I chose to depict for our second blog, found on CNN’s
website.
Throughout this entire semester we’ve read articles and have been
lectured through PowerPoint’s about many struggles that women have encountered
over the years. “Sex, lies, and media: New wave of activists challenge notions
of beauty” discusses how women are still facing some of the same issues today. Two
documentaries, Miss Representation and America the Beautiful, have been called
to attention in this article for being the latest movements to challenge the
medias portrayals of women. Both of these documentaries are helping make
everyone aware of an issue that has been flowing over time with Miss
Representation screening more than 700 times since November. It’s not just
women who are fed-up with this double standard of beauty. Men are dealing with
complying with these ideal masculine traits that they believe they need to live
up to in order to be a man. Sure this article is discussing “women’s issues,”
but that just goes along with the idea that men wouldn’t be looked at as
“masculine” if they brought up the idea gender equality.
A video that was mentioned in
this article was one that we had to watch for this class. Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women, by Jean Kilbourne.
This video goes well with this article, mainly because it discusses how advertising
is one of the major roles that influence the objectification and the beauty
ideal for women. Women are always being portrayed as being thin, big-breasted,
and perfect. Women are also being portrayed as sexual objects in order to sell
products. This portrayal plays a role in the workplace as well, many retail
stores want attractive, thin women selling their products because of the belief
that more people will buy those products. Kilbourne is out to educate people on
the effects of these portrayals of women. You need to preach to the people
because the media and advertisers aren’t going to change how they portray
women.
Another big issue are fad diets and losing weight. Women are portrayed
as being slim and fit. The Thin Commandments, a film by Darryl Roberts
(director of America the Beautiful), is another attempt to spread a message
about fad diets and weight loss. Women are constantly struggling to grasp ahold
of this ideal beauty in order to live up to these standards. More and more
young women are struggling with eating disorders these days just to “fit in”. An article that we read for class, Beating Anorexia and Gaining Feminism,
by Marni Grossman, discusses the struggle of being hungry or diving head first
into feminism. “If I can’t be beautiful, I will be thin. I’ll be the thinnest,
in fact. I’ll be tiny and adorable and very, very good” (Grossman p.241).
Without the media changing how they portray young women, and growing up, as a
young lady, could potentially be one of the hardest challenges one might face.
If you aren’t thin, tall, and drop dead gorgeous, the thought of living in a
world where this is the beauty ideal is horrifying.
When it comes to power in the workplace and society, women’s value of
self-worth is highly dependent on their physical attractiveness. Lets face it;
women are hired, dated, and represented based on how attractive they are. The
media portrays women as purely sexual. So in our society, one is viewed as
being “beautiful” if they are tall, tan, slender, and young. The media is
everywhere. It’s something that you can’t escape.
Another reference from our class that relates well with this article from
our textbook, Women’s Voices, Feminist
Visions, is Chapter 8, Women’s Work
Inside and Outside the Home. This chapter discusses women’s domestic unpaid
labor and their employment in the labor force, the latter discussion focusing
on the global economy and the changing nature and patters of women’s labor
force participation, the dual economy and the gender gap in wages. One of those
issues being the fact that women are actually working longer hours than most
men when you factor in the care of the family members as well as their paying
job. When they do get paid for the hours they log, women are earning lower
wages then men. (Women make up)…about 50% of all workers in 2010. (Shaw &
Lee, p.406). The article states, women
make up 51% of the United States yet only 17% of seats in the House of
Representatives. They're 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 7% of directors in the top
250 grossing films. (Grinberg 2012). Is this because women aren’t portrayed as
being intelligent enough to earn jobs like that? Are the women that were lucky
enough to be in those percentages, earning the same wages as their male
co-workers? Why aren’t there more women within these jobs? These are all
questions that the documentary, Miss Representation, is helping us become more
aware of. With the help of all of these organizations and latest movements,
many people are finding themselves more in tune with these issues and able to
raise a voice. The message of this article and the documentary, Miss
Representation, is definitely one that is worth sharing regardless of ones
gender.
Grinber,
E. (2012, March 12). Sex, lies, and media: New wave of activists challenge
notions of
beauty. Cnn.com. http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/living/beauty-media-miss-representation/index.html?iref=allsearch
Grossman, Marni.
"Beating Anorexia and Gaining Feminism." Women's Voices, Feminist
Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher
Education, 2009. 241-43. Print.
Shaw, Susan M.,
and Janet Lee. "Women's Work Inside and Outside the Home." Women's
Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston:
McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. 391-449. Print.
Killing
Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women. Dir. Jean Kilbourne. Youtube. Web. 1
Apr. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ujySz-_NFQ
(Part 1)
Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of
Women. Dir. Jean Kilbourne. Youtube. Web. 1 Apr. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4-1xCf3I7U&feature=related (Part 2)
I agree with the section about the "ideal" woman that the media portrays, and how woman are constantly being pressured into losing weight. I would much rather see more commercials about woman being comfortable in their own skin, rather then trying to chase an extremely rare, "ideal" body. Unfortunately, such messages do not make money and do not always hit home, hence the strong persuasion in the media to be skinny. I believe to each is their own, and there is no perfect look out there for anyone. Sexy can come in every shape, size and color and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I really wish the Media would help portray this more.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog entry and I too did my blog entry on a similar topic. I liked your discussion on the "ideal" woman and the media's impact on it. The parts about the pressure the media is putting on women were great and reminded me a lot more about our class discussions and also made me think of some interesting topics. The media is creating this ideal woman and the women who are being shown all these "perfect bodied, big-breasted, long golden hair" ideals are suffering because not everyone can and will look that way, but the media is making it seem like men only want that, and as sad as it is I feel like some men have been brainwashed into thinking that the only good looking women are women with big boobs, zero fat bodies and perfect skin and hair. Like Ali said above, I too wish the media would portray women to be as beautiful as they want to be no matter what size, shape, color. Most of my guy friends do admit they don't care for the women in the media when it comes to what the look for in a girl they want to have a relationship with but they do admit the women in the media are "sexy eye candy" for them.
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