Portrayal Of Women In The Media

Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

In Susan Bordo’s article “Never Just Pictures: Bodies and Fantasies” this is an article that is informative as well as interesting. Bordo mentions celebrity names like Alicia Silverstone and famous dieting products like Citra Lean to introduce the “thin” trend in today’s popular culture. The author explains how today’s society explores different media cites to acknowledge how individuals should appear in today’s world. Advertisements have also become a big part on the reflection of society’s beliefs. Bordo talks about body figures that were once considered normal, have become known as an abnormal appearance. Bordo wants to convince the audience that being thin has become an issue that must be addressed by the general public,

“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

Miss Representation conveys that media is derogative to the most powerful women in the United States. People learn more from the media than any other source because it is the message and messenger. Americans devote about 10 hours and 39 minutes daily to consuming media (Howard). The media’s misrepresentation of women in movies, television shows, and advertisements negatively shapes politics, our national discourse, children’s inquisitive minds, and ultimately society. The danger behind these stereotyped images of women is that their effect is subconscious, meaning we slowly become accustomed to a sexist portrayal of women without even immediately realizing it. To cease our unrealistic, prejudiced expectations of women, a culture change is necessary.

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

The media has become an essential part of men and women’s lives for years, dating all the way back to before World War II in the late 1930’s. It was said to be that the media during this time injected “values and morals into society” (Jade). In today’s society, there are several different types of social groups. Some of the social groups may be effected by the media and how they portray the perfect woman and some may not be effected because they may “reject the messages that are not consistent with the values of that group” (Jade). There are also several different types of people in this world, some of whom have very low self-esteem or confidence and are therefore affected more by what the media says than others with a higher self-esteem.

Our world is surrounded by media. Media plays an enormous role in affecting the way we perceive gender and gender roles. Media as well as communications are known to be the key elements of how people live their life in the modern age. The media can be a very inviting place, since it has so many things inside of it that appeals to people worldwide. At the same time, the media can be a cruel, judging and corrupt area that can be scary to involve yourself with. That being said, the mass media has had its history with harsh stereotyping, particularly when dealing with women. Many people within the media view women as a gender that is only allowed to be at home, whether it is cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, or being a slave to their male counterpart. Even with women who work inside of the media are usually overlooked, bashed by their appearance and do not get an equal opportunity as men do in order to succeed in life. This has been the case for hundreds of years, but there are still a myriad of problems that women face today, whether in the media or life in general.

While waiting for a recent hair appointment, I picked up the latest issue of Vogue and began to flip through the pages. I had barely turned ten pages when I began to feel a pit in my stomach. The cover models were all skinny, long-legged girls with luscious, straight hair: the complete opposite of the average girl. The way the media portrays the female gender is far from realistic, and consequently, the pressure to put your ‘best’ self forward has never been more prevalent. Each time I see a model on the cover of a magazine, or even a slightly altered photo, I find myself making comparisons. Unfortunately, even knowing that most cover images are digitally altered, the question of how my own body measures up still haunts me. Since the average American female will collect over 250,000 persuasive media messages by the time they are seventeen, the ubiquitous images seen are major factors in the way women perceive themselves (Gallivan, Heather).

Basically, the media is doing nothing but using subliminal messages. The way they portray the models in magazines, it only confuses a human’s mind. This makes them believe that they must look like them to be considered beautiful. Often in magazines, when positive values, success, love, and happiness, a thin person is shown. This not only completely lowers a “healthy”, or a plus sized person’s self-esteem, but the media also tries to make it seem as if in order to be happy and successful, a person must be skinny (Piazza). Every day, companies come up with a new beauty product, or a new diet product to leer someone into buying it to make themselves beautiful. New products every day completely sets aside the idea that natural beauty is already beautiful enough. According to the media, though, people need these products to look more humane, or look younger and thinner. The media also using editing and

70% of girls don’t feel good enough; that the bar is set too high for them to reach. Girls’ self esteem plummets at around age 12 and usually doesn’t recover until their 20s because media exposure tells them who to be. Many girls believe that happiness is a size and to be happy or feel good about themselves, they will do anything like plastic surgery, or even develop eating disorders. Although many factors impact how a girl perceives herself, such as genetics, the media, peers, the impact of the world can really push them over the edge and could lead to depression. Although youth and being skinny is glamorized, women should love and support their natural body types instead of changing their bodies through makeup and plastic surgery, making

This source is an academic (scholarly) journal. This article explains clearly how the power that mass media communication has in reaching a great audience, and how this feature of it used by the fashion media to propagandize extreme thinness among women. Knowing the considerable influence that TV, Internet, newspapers, and magazines have in one’s daily life fashion media managed to use wisely the content of their magazines and advertisements. In order to more easily convey the readers that slenderness is the real meaning of the ideal body image they would refer to fatness as something to be ashamed of. The research that is the main focus of the article, states that mass media gives a misconception of the factors that lead to extreme thinness

An individual’s body image, body satisfaction, self-esteem and confidence are affected by unrealistic, digitally altered, and stereotyped images used by the advertising and fashion industries. In the United Sates 94% of female characters on television are thinner than the average American woman (Yamamiya et al. 2005). By associating these images with happiness, desirability and success and stating that women can attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and surgery the media encourage female consumers to believe that they can and should be this thin (Yamamiya et al. 2005). While not all women are susceptible, exposure to images in the media of thin-and-beautiful women can lead to body image dissatisfaction which can be accompanied by social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al. 2005). According to studies, women become more body dissatisfied after viewing thin-and-beautiful images than after viewing average-size, oversize, or non-body images (Yamamiya et al. 2005). Due to the media’s emphasis on women’s thinness and attractiveness, females in our society are more body dissatisfied than males (Yamamiya et al.

We, the American public are hit from every imaginable direction every waking moment of our lives by slick advertising agencies trying to coerce us into or tell us why we need to buy their products. Their products will make us happier or thinner, or prettier. The advertisers often use the picture of youth and vitality so that the public will associate that particular product or service with being young and beautiful. They do this because of course in our society youth and beauty are to be coveted. Everyone would like to be forever young and beautiful or for as long as they can anyway. So, everyone is trying to look younger or wants to look younger. The things that we can associate with youth are obvious. We see the picture of youth and

Language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing. It is considered as an art because when used it able to help a person develop or create a certain picture in the mind. Language being an artifact of culture means that it is an interesting thing that is created by the people. It is an aspect of their way of life of the people. It also helps in development of the people as writers and intellects. As a culture it is a people’s way of life and therefore the impact it has to human beings cannot be under looked.