Is The Ultimate Real Girl?

Throughout history, women have been regarded as of lesser value than men particularly in the public sphere. This is the result of gender stratification. Gender stratification refers to the issue of sexism, “or the belief that one sex is superior to the other” (Carl et al., 2012, p. 78). The theory that men are superior to women is essential to sexism. Sexism has always had negative consequences for women. It has caused some women to avoid pursuing successful careers typically described as “masculine”—perhaps to avoid the social impression that they are less desirable as spouses or mothers, or even less “feminine.”

We live in a society with rigid gender roles and expectations as to how people are supposed to be, based completely on their sex. (Benokraitis) Women are expected to be the housewife, take care of the kids, and on top of all that they need to look good doing it. Men are the

In society, women relate to friends, models and actresses which are actually people who are in the industry portraying the ‘ideal body.’ Women think too much about what others think of them instead of just caring about themselves. They also choose to take the unhealthy approach and gain all these bad habits to obtain the ‘ultimate’ body image of this ‘ideal woman’ society has created.

As one looks through society, one starts to see many cracks and loopholes where one set of standards does not apply the same way for men as it does to women, and vice versa.

Throughout history, men and women have been viewed in utterly different spheres. Men have been, and still are, believed to be the hard working individual who is in charge of “bringing home the bacon” and supporting the household finically. On the other hand, women are expected to have little to say, the house spotless, supper on the table, the children bathed, fed, in bed, and educated, all while maintaining a flawless hairdo and makeup. These stereotypes seem a bit offensive nowadays, but if you really consider it, it has been and most likely will be this way for our entire existence.

Thus, women have always felt the need to follow the steps of an ideally beautiful woman, which means to take care of herself, be skinny, were expensive clothes and accessories an wear tons of make-up in order to be attractive. These “haves” are not at all democratic, because by portraying a model of an ideal woman of a society, women will do anything to reach the “perfect” woman. When a woman is influenced by the fashion and beauty industry she feels the need to supply herself with products that are not a basic need for her, but they will make her the “perfect” woman she wants to be. But does she really want to be that woman? It is only a matter of being acceptable by the society ideals of a perfect woman and not what is right or wrong. Zoe Sugg is one of these “perfect” women out there, because she is successful, beautiful and smart. Since her female audience supports her and adores her so much because of all the great things they think she is companies’ use this in a way to promote their products threw her. Zoe Sugg is also a YouTuber who is viewed as an “average” woman, because it seems that she is not living a big life and she still supports companies whose products can be found in drugstores and not only in expensive retail

     One thing that Pipher describes is how girls’ views change as they enter adolescence. Lots of girls bury their childhood, and submissively enter adult existence. These girls who are becoming young women, according to Pipher, stop thinking. The main focus on their minds is, “What must I do to please others?” This thought is true to a certain extent in some young girls. It is true that many of the things that some girls do are solely for the purpose of living up to a societal expectation. Many of the beauty magazines portray images of supermodels; something that young girls may interpret as what the society expects. Also, all of the television and movie actors are very pretty, and many young girls are dying to fill out that expectation that seems to have been set for them. Although it seems clear that not everyone has “movie star good looks”, this idea can be hard for a young immature mind to grasp.

A very prevalent and obvious double standard between genders exists when speaking of how many sexual partners one has had. For women, having multiple partners may be considered promiscuous. They may even be looked down upon by friends and strangers. However, men with multiple partners are highly accepted, and even encouraged to some degree by our society. It is more acceptable for a man to have multiple partners than a woman. Another double standard that exists between the genders is the level of aggressiveness or assertiveness one shows, specifically in the workplace. Men who are assertive are seen as powerful and successful, while women are seen as bossy, irritable, cranky, or controlling. This makes female bosses even more of a rarity than male bosses. One last double standard that exists between the sexes is how self image and self esteem affects a person. Women and girls are much more aware and conscious of their bodies and how they look than men are. They are judged way more harshly by society for how they look and how they behave. Females should always behave like "ladies"—properly dressed, never foul mouthed or cursing, always clean, and always on their best behavior with polite manners. However, the male population is hardly ever scolded for cursing, being dirty, or not showing proper manners. It is unfair that women and girls have to live up to such expectations when men and boys don't give it a second thought. Although there are many more double standards that exist between men and women, these three are some of the most

It seems that younger females are more apt to believe that most everything they see in the media is realistic and attainable, and they try to mimic what they see on TV or read in magazines. They also tend to watch TV shows like One Tree Hill, Laguna Beach, and Gilmore Girls. Why do our young females look to these fictional characters for real life answers? Do they see these characters as role models? One has to wonder if they believe that if they mimic how these characters look and act they will belong and then they, too, can have the same outcome the characters do. How many times have you walked down the street and seen an 8- or 9-year-old girl wearing something that might be more appropriate if worn by an adult? Females between the ages of 9-12 read fashion and beauty magazines, and their exposure to these "ideal" images coincides with a period in their lives where self-regard and self-efficacy is in decline. This is the same time period where body image is tied to self-esteem and it becomes quite fragile due to physical changes of puberty. This is also the same time frame where the tendency for social comparison is at its peak. Girls thus find themselves in a subculture of dieting, due to the messages given by the media.

Sexy, Confident, Attractive, Nice body, Intelligent, and Classy are some of the many words that the media uses to describe women. In society women have to be perfect and act lady like. Women have to have a good attitude and always pleasure men. One example of this is the clip titled “Flirting with Danger” where young women were interviewed and had the opportunity to talk about their sex life and difficult experiences. When they were being interviewed many women mentioned that they felt like they had a double personality were they were expected to act both mean and nice. Women often have to deal with difficult decisions and perform personalities where they pretend they are someone that in reality are not only to fit in and pleasure their partner

As for these women, most of them have: an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, problems in relationships, substance abuse problems, and various health problems all to “fit in”. These women have all of these problems, because they think if they can be like the girls in the magazines or on the billboards, they will be accepted.

As longs as humans have existed, women have been oppressed. Men were generally seen as the breadwinner, the man in the relationship, the man of the house. This theory, or belief further lead to what was known as the retro-era. The retro-era, around the 1950’s, was the epitome of gender-based stereotypes, where women were only valuable to household skills such as cooking, cleaning and housework. In more modern times, women gradually received more rights to pursue careers men would stereotypically take over. Pursuing “manly” careers, which include lawyers, actors, politicians and anything that requires exceeding cognitive function, as a woman elicits criticism. It’s clear to see women have much more limitations, restrictions and expectations than

On all platforms of media, women and even young girls are oversexualized; thus leading to men viewing women as no more than breasts, vaginas, legs, or any other body part they prefer. Even in current television shows, movies, comic books, and advertisements, women are still depicted as sexual objects, which can damage a woman’s confidence. The oversexualization of women 's bodies can degrade a young woman’s confidence, and when girls try to boost confidence by dressing or acting like the women they see in the media, they are reprimanded for it. Girls cannot be blamed for their sexualization; they are just emulating what they see in the media.

Advertising uses a lot of different techniques to show the public the perfect female image. Body doubles and computer retouching are two examples of how advertisers are able to “doctor” images. The majority of women we see in magazines, music videos. and movies do not appear in reality, as we perceive them in the media. We may actually believe we are looking at one woman’s body when we are actually looking at sections of three or four women’s bodies, which, when spliced together, shows us the best parts of each women’s body as the final product. Women cannot attain these impossible standards of attractiveness. Young girls learn very quickly that they must spend much time, energy, and money on achieving these standards.

In American society, there is an obvious gender hierarchy in which men are viewed as strong, powerful, and valuable while women are viewed as weak and timid. Women face this challenge every day, and more prominently when they are trying to go against the hierarchy. Regardless of how many social norms or “power ceilings” that women break, they constantly face messages that perpetuate stereotypes, which reinforces this gender hierarchy. At the same time, men are also facing similar, gender-related pressures. Because men are on the top of the social hierarchy, there is an expectation that they be strong, brave, and confident. This causes an undue burden on the men that are unable to fulfill these gendered expectations.