The world goes through constant economic, political, cultural, technological and social changes. Consequently, these changes affect the social subject: their habits, values, 'truths ', and lifestyle. From a social pragmatic perspective of Discourse, this paper aims to observe how women’s identity is (re)constructed by the media. It deals with the concept of identity not as an essence or a fact of nature, but as a social construction compounded by diverse elements or attributes emerging from social interaction between the subject and world. The old identities, which for a long time have been the mainstay of the stability of social organization, are in decline, giving rise to new identities. To observe the social identity of a woman also means to observe how women are seen by society. Changes suffered in the identity of this group are, partly, the result of social and cultural changes. Anthony Fung argues that “[b]y participating in and identifying with this [society], female readers’ self- perceived identity is reinforced.” (329). To understand how a woman is viewed socially, this paper analyzes representations of the female figure on the covers of magazines, specifically. Magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Elle and Marie Claire, were analyzed as a whole in the quest to understand how this phenomenon, composed by several genres, organizes and spreads the hegemonic female representation. First, it will be argued that magazines shape identity by selling the image of the perfect
Women within the western culture reflect the hypersexualization of those images within the context of a global market in which the mainstream of sexual objects of women has increasingly been accepted as the norm. In the book Women in Popular Culture: Representation and Meaning, Marian Meyers’ states, hypersexualization is the representation of women as highly sexual objects (p. 6). Hypersexualization among women in the media has affected the way society represents women by portraying them as fragile, passive, vulnerable, less intelligent, and powerless figures, compared to men. This paper will focus on the way women are stereotypically portrayed and will emphasize the pornogrification of women as sexual objects in advertising; and bad effect in reality. Hence, women in the media are represented as hypersexual objects that differ from women in reality. However, people in the society are strongly advocating abolishing the society phenomena that promotes hypersexualization of women. There is scholarly evidence to support the thesis in addition to class discussions on Wesleyan College and Charles University will stand as sources, which includes: the women in popular culture by Marian Meyers, Philosophy
It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts
Kenon Breazeale’s argument in his text begins by touching on how Esquire would place certain articles in their magazine in hopes of attracting the male consumer. In order to do this, Breazeale claims that the magazine did so by the “simultaneous exploitation and denial of the feminine” (Breazeale 72). In that way, the magazine
In our society today, there are many ways identity plays a role in how people live their lives, as well as how people are viewed or treated by others. A big part of a person’s identity comes from their gender. Men and women are raised differently, whether it be their beliefs and ways of thinking, how they view their future, or the actions they choose to take throughout their lifetime. In both Katha Pollitt and Silko’s essays, they discuss the differences in the lives of men and women and how these differences result from society’s expectations by using metaphors and life examples to explain their message to the reader, as well as allow the reader to connect to this message.
Melissa Milkie’s article, Media images’ influence on Adolescent Girls’ self-concept, explores forms of media, more specifically magazines directed at teen girls, that effect young girls’ self -concept. Milkie demonstrates how our self-concepts are impacted by what we perceive others think of us and how we use the “third-person effect” in where we underestimate how much influence the media actually has on ourselves compared to others (54). Some of the major points of the article are the research methods and findings. Using a subsample of 60 high school girls from two different demographic populations (one rural, predominantly white high school and one ethnically diverse urban high school), Milkie studied the findings of the impact of girls’ magazines on teenage females. The results of this study showed that girl’s ethnic status, along with the differences in region, made a significant difference in whether the girls felt any connection with the images of beauty portrayed by the media.
Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.
In Gloria Steinem’s, “Sex, Lies, and Stereotyping” she was known as the leader in changing the way women were viewed and wanted them to have a right in America. She also had provided a forum for women’s voice for more than forty years. In Steinem article she explain that it has not been easy to keep the forum going. In Steinem’s publication she included the revolution that occurred in 1992. It was a personal exploration of the power of self-esteem moving beyond words, outrageous act and everyday rebellion. Many people do not give the sameness of women’s magazines resulting from the demands made by makers of women’s products that advertise in all of them. It’s the advertiser who are determining what women are getting now.
George Gerbner’s article The Social Anatomy of the Romance-Confession Cover Girl discusses the contrast between the image of the cover girl and the verbal context surrounding her. He also discusses how this contrast successfully fulfils the editorial and distribution requirements of the magazine. Gerbner’s experiment explores how the alteration of the cover affects the perception of the cover girl.
Moreover, Butler’s literature review is based on philosophers and social theorists such as, Foucault and Nietzsche. The author attempts to analyze some of the attributes and variables in the society such as sex variable and the gender identity characteristics. She depicts gender in queer theories in media in a critical manner that makes her work a valuable contribution to the field of gender studies. The book would assist my paper, by providing insights into the idea of gender being negotiated through discourse and performance of gender in everyday interaction, and how identity is a performativity and it is constituted by expression. Butler’s views on gender challenges the cultural norms and gender categories. Therefore, she brought a creative chaos to the people about their sexual instincts and the establishment of the marriage agency. The book lacks empirical studies, quantitative researches. However, as my research relays on the literature review and secondary materials, this book would provide my paper with a deep insight into the queer theories.
Popular culture has an undeniable influence on how society perceives itself. When examining mass culture, one must keep in mind the equilibrium between how much we, as a society, affect the way popular culture is constructed and to what extent popular culture influences the way we view ourselves and shapes our ideologies. An aspect of popular culture that may serve to greatly exemplify this theory of society as both the affecter and the affected is the genre of magazines targeted at young women. Though these publications are targeted as the representation of our society’s adolescent females, they actually have a great influence over the ways in which teens view and construct
The first woman on Earth was created by God from the rib of Adam, the first men on Earth. Everyone has grown up hearing the story of the creation of mankind. One where describes how women come from men. Since the beginning of time, women have been relegated. Nowadays, things have slightly changed. Even though females’ rights have been protected by the law and some progress can be seen in opening society’s views about femininity, media is still portraying women as sexual and unpowerful individuals. Unfortunately, the majority of women on T.V. are always described as someone's wife, daughter, partner or friend. Their identity is not their own. Few characters have been making a change and standing out for women’s freedom of deciding the person they want
A women's role has changed tremendously and is making its greatest impact in our society today. Many years ago, women's contribution to society was limited and controlled by men. Women are standing tall and are playing a major role in many important areas. Women's role has changed at an accelerating rate and have part in areas such as Politics, Professional Training Jobs, Medicine,Business and Law. Formerly they were not part of any political matter, but they have advanced in many aspects. For example, women have attained power and have been growing in political office.
The purpose of this experiment was to determine the extent to which women are presented as sex objects in magazines. Previous research by Stankiewic and Rosselli (2008) resulted in 51.80% of advertisements in magazines that featured women, and portrayed them as sex objects. The particular way in which objectification is defined, and thus the resulting rates at which women are portrayed as objects, had varied by study. The objectification of women in advertisements also varied by magazine type.
In her essay, One is Not Born a Woman, Monique Wittig explains, “‘Women’ is not each one of us, but the political and ideological formation which negates ‘women’ (the product of a relation of exploitation). ‘Women’ is there to confuse us, to hide the reality ‘women’ . . . For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we call servitude.” Monique Wittig attacks the concept of naturalizing biology and the ‘woman’ category. She believes that the form of a woman’s identity is a product of normal and intrinsic human facts. Thus, her main point is that one is not born a woman but becomes a woman based upon the social constructs of gender and
The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following