Body Image With Ambition By Francis Fukuyama's Essay

Throughout History, women have been permanently oppressed and treated as subordinate to men. They have been considered mentally weak and biologically inferior. The power of their opinion has been limited and in many situations ignored, being condemned to live in that condition for several years. Therefore, we can conclude that the only responsible for strengthening this characterization of women’s inferiority is our society.

Gender inequality in professional tennis is a real and alarming issue, from the pay gap between mens' and womens' tennis players to the low media coverage of women's professional tennis. This issue even goes as far as how differently tennis commentators discuss and analyze mens tennis as opposed to how they discuss and analyze womens tennis. When commentators discuss men's tennis they solely focus on the skill of the players, but when they discuss women's tennis they place more importance on the appearance of the female players, rather than their skill. This instance of gender inequality in professional tennis is further exacerbated by the differences in advertisements for male tennis players and female tennis players. The advertisements involving male tennis players display their athleticism and tennis abilities, whereas the advertisements including female tennis players are appearance-focused, with the females often wearing little clothing. This is corroborated by the popular belief that focusing on the physical appearance of female athletes is the only way in which generating money from women's professional sports is distinctly possible (Fink, 2015, p. 338). Female professional tennis players train just as hard as the men do, thus the gender inequality that exists in the sport is not necessarily a result of how women perform on the court. It is rather a result of how society perceives women playing in professional sports overall, which the mass media is partially to blame

Most people in today’s society are not pleased with their image, whether it is physically or how they form their character. In “Enhance Your Body Image” (2015) Rebecca J. Donatelle opens her essay with “When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? If you feel disappointed, frustrated, or even angry like Ali, you’re not alone.” She continues with a study depicting 80 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearance (p.339). This does not only mean physical appearance; Santiago Quintana in “The Space In-Between” (2015) talks about how he did not belong in his social environment because resulting in him being bullied. A person’s values are molded by cultural influence, friends and family; furthermore, to be appreciative of

In today’s world, men’s sports seem to always be in the spotlight while women’s sports do not draw much attention, as if women who play sports are not taken seriously. This happens on all levels of sports, and I have personally experienced it myself through basketball in high school. While the gym would be full for any of the boys’ games, our games had very little support with almost empty bleachers. When it comes to the professional level, when women’s sports do get covered by the media, most people judge female athletes more on their looks rather than their athletic skill, which is negative and unfair.

While both Black and White women are subject to sexualized images, the white woman defines the standard of the socially acceptable view of what it is to be a woman. Not being able to fit into that set of stereotypes, Black women consequently become deemed as the “other” within their own gender. The stereotypes formed for African-American women were even more significantly derogatory than that of the image of the submissive house slave. This ideology of the 19th century Eurocentric norm was to objectify these woman as sexually promiscuous. By exaggerating their actions and portraying them into a negative perception, these portrayals were designed to oppress these women and deem them inferior to their female counterpart. Decades later, these images still have influence today in the perceptions of the Black women and their bodies. A great example of this sexism and racism can be seen in today’s criticism about female sports athletes such as the six-time U. S Open tennis champion Serena Williams and her sister Venus. Both have been scrutinized and over sexualized and ridiculed by today’s media with remarks such as the sisters being “too masculine”, “Gorilla - like” and “Savage”. She is also not only dehumanized by her body but also by the fact that she

Whoever said appearances don’t matter was a boldfaced liar. What a person wore, how they carried themselves, and the things they did to their body: it all mattered. No matter how big of a person one thought they were, everyone judge everyone else, so people might as well be whoever they wanted to be, haters be damned.

This is just one example of how women are being exploited in today’s society. Another example is of a female Australian athlete Catherine Skinner who was considered “ugly” and had no sponsors and little money but was able to win a gold medal at the Rio Olympics, while Michelle Jenneke was said to be “prettier” than her and got money, had lots of sponsors and was doing advertisements for companies. An example of how sport can be considered a microcosm of sexploitation of women in sport would be women’s beach volleyball games and how they wear branded bikinis revealing their body. When famous female athletes dress in a revealing nature or are part of a marketing advertisement they often make the expectations for young girls in school very high and since young girls in school

“Our world is made up of so many different people. Beautiful people. People that are worthy of representation. Worthy of respect. Worthy of love and self-love. No one should be made to feel that their body is somehow wrong, undesirable. This feeling holds people back. You can't live up to your full potential if you are always feeling that, because you don't look like what the media tells you, you can't be successful. You can't find love. You can't love yourself,” Fruth told Clapway.

Many begin the day by arranging their hair, finding clothes to wear, or any other daily habit that may alter one’s image. We can thank social pressure for this everyday burden. In the late nineteen-hundred’s, people, especially women, had to obsess over their looks and constantly improve upon them. Thankfully, in today’s communities, those features are not judged upon as much as four decades ago.

In today’s society, there is a lot of pressure to fit into a certain type of standardized beauty. People go into extreme lengths to change their appearance. In Disney films, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, pseudo-individualism, popular culture

An example of a female athlete being ridiculed for portraying society’s idea of non-femininity is Martina Navratilova. Martina was the first female tennis player who began to play tennis more as a power sport than a sport of technique. Subdued by an oppressive communist system that controlled the Czech Tennis Federation, she was seen to be playing in the style of men instead of playing women's tennis. As she did not fit into society's image of how a woman should look, behave and play tennis, she was ridiculed and branded as the proverbial ‘bad egg’ when compared to her contemporaries. Additionally, she was branded as a lesbian, which caused more hardship for her as she was forced to face a world which was much more homophobic at that time than it is now. Her sexual orientation is not a prime issue; it was something that was used against her and something that was assumed simply because she did not portray the feminine image that is expected of women.

The saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” was first heard in the third century by the Greeks. Meaning that the view on one’s perception of beauty could be another one’s ugly, the standards of what is beautiful and what is not could differ from person to person. The media, which consists of highly edited images of men and women, sets unnatural standards for what is considered beautiful and what is ugly. Often illustrating standards impossible to reach, magazines teach boys and girls that if you are not a certain size in clothes, a certain height, or a certain weight, you are ugly. In the media, they never report the beauty of someone based off of their personality; however, there are always stories about models losing weight, or how great a celebrity looks after plastic surgery. Ultimately, the perception on what is ugly and what is beautiful is highly influenced by the

Often when magazines display female tennis players, they will dress the player up or make them wear less, which is promoted to pique the reader’s interest and accordingly increase sales. By doing this, the tennis players get more attention, both good and bad, from other forms of media and the public about their appearance and not their performance on the court. As stated by inquiries journals.com, ‘when depicting female athletes in suggestive poses and clothing, or even nude, magazines and commercials basically project a “woman first, athlete second” attitude that challenges athlete’s achievements and self-esteem.’ This statement also takes into account the negative effects the media has on the players. To make matters worse, magazines often “Photoshop” the women in an attempt to make them appear more attractive and less masculine.

From biblical times, creation began with man. When God created the world and all the things in it, and he thought it was good. But as man walked the earth, God said man should not be alone, and created woman. Since this time where woman has become second to man—almost a spare part, man has ingrained into society that a woman is an accessory and throughout the centuries and millennia the world has evolved and cultures have arisen, it has become the social norm to push a perfect creation that is woman out of the view of importance and discriminate against her. Women throughout different said cultures were stripped of their freedom, youth, and had no right to choose their futures. Even now in some countries, women

As coaches, especially those of us who coach female athletes, it can challenging to help our athletes understand the difference between the ideal body image in society versus the body