Analysis Of ' Men 's Men And Women 's Women ' And ' Real Beauty ' Backlash '

“Miss Representation” is a film released in January 2011, which shows the various ways the media represent women. In the short trailer it starts by showing quotes, various statistics, and input of various influential women, on how women are misrepresented in our society. Some statistics include on how women are vastly outnumbered by men in leading positions in the workplace and in government. It also claims that the media only uses women’s sexualized image for money, not because it is what consumers want to see in advertisements. For example, in a video explaining oversexualizing in young children Geena Davis comments, “…in G-rated animated films the female characters wear the same amount of sexually revealing

Jean Kilbourne is an advocate for women and is leading a movement to change the way women are viewed in advertising. She opens up the curtains to reveal the hard truth we choose to ignore or even are too obtuse to notice. Women are objectified, materialized, and over-sexualized in order to sell clothes, products, ideas and more. As a woman, I agree with the position Kilbourne presents throughout her documentary Killing Us Softly 4: The Advertising’s Image of Women (2010) and her TEDx Talk The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women (2014.) She demonstrates time and again that these advertisements are dangerous and lead to unrealistic expectations of women.

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

When we think of men in society, we think of someone strong and dominant. We think of the gender that is in charge. But what do we think of when we think of women? Do we see them the same way? Usually that’s not the case. When we think of women in society, we think of someone who does what they’re told without question. Maybe we think of the celebrities that advertise our favorite products. But, nobody every really looks deeper into the way women are viewed in society. However, Jean Kilbourne does. In her article entitled “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” she dives into how women are really viewed and what seems to be the “cultural norm”. In society, women are viewed as objects or as property. So in turn, men think

The use of sexualization also reinforces a pattern of gender roles that are currently circulating throughout advertisements. More often than not, women who are used as ploys in ads are seen doing household chores like vacuuming, changing the toilet paper, or making coffee. Females are rarely ever seen in a work place, and definitely not in a powerful position. In fact, the directors of most of these ads place women below or behind the man to show who has the power in actuality. Women are seen as skinny, fragile, and immobile in high heels, while men are strong and powerful. By setting up such a strong binary between the two different groups, it is obvious that the majority of the American society will not be able to fit into these roles, and it leaves a sense of rejection for the average person. This rejection, accepted by the viewers, manifests

What dictates the social roles, the individual responsibility everyone has in society, and stereotypes, an overgeneralized and oversimplified belief of a particular person or group, in America’s 21st century society? Can rationale and critical thinking be held accountable for the establishment of ethical beliefs involving people and their sex, gender related value systems? The following readings covered in this essay are both found within the textbook, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers; the Introduction: Popular Signs written by coauthors Sonia Maasik, a writing programs lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jack Solomon, an English Professor at California State University, and located within the second chapter of the textbook, the brief article, Dove’s “Real Beauty” backlash, written by Jennifer L. Pozner, the executive director of Women In Media & News (“Sonia Maasik”)(“Jack Solomon”)(194). Mass entertainment culture, the popular interests of the majority broadcasted in the media, can be attributed for constituting and sustaining the potentially hindering culture myths, a fictitious but widely accepted belief of a certain culture, regarding all genders. These cultural myths are not exclusive to men and women as they also involve transgender individuals and others who identify as another gender not classified under ‘cisgender.’ An extensive analysis of mass entertainment culture and

These roles for females represent what the advertisement industry believe buyers deem as the real world. As Goffman asked," What messages about women have been given to society through magazine

Gender socialization has played a powerful behavioral control in dictating our society and social norms. The influence of mass media on gender can be seen through teenage girls reproducing stereotypical media messages within their social groups. In movies, women tend to have less significant roles than men and often portrayed in stereotypical roles, such as wives, mothers or sex symbols. The advertising industry is governing the content of our television is another example this film presents how social media is impacting our society. They create social conditions of insecurities in people so they buy their products.

Every aspect of the media is controlled and manipulated to look a certain way. Meaning that while it may seem like the media is trying to sell you a product they are really trying to sell you a message, subconsciously. For example, TrueCar, a car pricing service, released an ad suggesting that women can now go car shopping without a man tagging along. While the ad may seem like it is about a car pricing service, it is really about suggesting that women are useless about men. There was no point in adding in the fact that women can now go car shopping without a man. They could have easily said anyone can go car shopping alone rather than singling out women, making us look useless. My point is, that the media is constantly proving that women’s oppression still exists. Jean Kilbourne refers to this at her TED Talk, where she proves the objectification of women in the media through images and videos from real-life ads. Jean goes on to explain that women are only seen as objects as seen by the media. Through ads, the media is constantly bringing women down and objectifying them. My point is now proven, women’s oppression is continually remade through the media and many other platforms as well. We see women’s oppression everywhere, in our surroundings, from the train all the way to our jobs, women’s oppression is an ongoing

Media is stuck in a loop and to diversify it needs to try something new. The end goal of most media, regardless of the form, is to produce revenue. Therefore methods that have proven to work in the past will be repeated until shown to be unsuccessful. A recent article in Feminist Magazine discussed an annual report released by the Women’s Media Center on gender bias in major US media creation. The report discussed some reasons as to why media creation is still geared towards males. The main cause dealt with how marketers utilize media to target the group of people that have the most disposable income, white males 18 – 49 (Mandanas, 2014). This mentality was been the status quo for years and does not take in consideration other groups or combined marketing

Scholars have discussed the media’s increasing influence within contemporary society, and shaping of identities. It has been suggested that the media provides us with limited notions and materials to brand ourselves, which involve the concept behind being a man or woman and differentiate the means of what is acceptable and not in society. There are various prominent mediums used by the media to convey or direct a message. Images from media arbitrated precepts tend to become the conception of the individual’s self. Vigorito and Curry (1998, p. 136) indicate that pop culture is increasingly visual and images seen in the media tend to convey the ideal cultural norms, values and gender relations. These images are not subtle, but explicit notions

On television commercials, billboards, the radio, public transportation advertisements, planes, the internet, and almost everywhere people go there is always directed broadcasting of advertisements for companies to sell their product; a product that is never promoted for all of the general public to use, but instead to emphasize on specific categories of consumption . Whether it may be categorized in the decadent, the money saving, health, cleaning, cooking, automotive, or whatever sub category it may be; and bigger roles that play in to commercialism are gender roles . Men and women have very different lifestyles, what they buy, do, consume, and produce. As stated in Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, “Popular conceptions of femininity

As a Communication major, I spend a lot of time studying the human communication process, which is the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages between a receiver and sender. This communication process does not only apply to face-to-face interactions but also includes mass media, rhetorical, and technological communication. Through these various forms of communication, the sender not only expresses his/her message but also expresses power hierarchies about race, gender, and sexuality that are present in society. Mass media has a significant impact on socializing gender roles and perpetuating gender stereotypes, and to prove that, I am analyzing mass media messages, such as television shows, movies, and advertisements.

Media shapes the world we live in, through advertisements. Most women are working mothers today. It is a frequent occurrence for a man to help out with daily chores; cooking dinner, cleaning, and watching the children after school. Yet, many advertisements still depict women taking care of the children, cleaning house and cooking dinner for the family. Many dads are picking their children from school, taking them to sports practice, and picking them up afterwards. The van commercial shows a working mom, but she is still in charge of being the family taxi. The truck commercial shows the dad, taking his stress out on the road. While mom is hauling the kids around dad is out having fun off-roading in the hills.