Monstrosity In The Media

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

Media in regards to tv social media, news broadcasts, magazines, and all other forms in which are presented on a widespread coverage to society. The documentary explains how from an early age girls get the message that their value, their worth, and their potential for success depends on their looks. On the flipside boys are getting the message from an early age that looks and how a girl dresses is what important. They bring up the idea of how when one considers the “ideal women” their capacity of education, knowledge, life experiences, strength, and who they are as a person are often left out. The ideal women is typical in regards to her looks alone in regards to weight, height, hair color, skin color, and the way in which she dresses”. As mainstream media grows larger and wider, girls are becoming increasingly self-conscious at younger and younger ages and the shelter in which we try to protect young children is become harder to maintain. A group of young high school women were interviewed about the challenges they have faced as a result of mainstream media and their peers and the results were shocking. Every flaw one could bring up from being told they were ‘too skinny’. 'too fat’, their natural hair was ‘too nappy’, their skin was ‘too pale and so forth’. Society is teaching women all the things that are wrong with themselves and not paying any attention to how it is effecting women of this generation and already playing such a

Social media and advertisements continues to shape the bodies of girls and women. They are targeted through all aspects of their lives when they are viewing advertisements, television, and body care products. So if unchecked or unchanged, it is likely that current and future females will continue to have a lack of self-confidence, self-esteem, and wont define their own image. Teens that range from four to nineteen, are influenced by the images of Barbie’s and the television show Toddlers and Tiaras. Eighty percent of these teen girls are dissatisfied with their image. Woman that are twenty or older also view different media that sway their images through the show Kardashians, Victoria Secret, and the beauty line Dove. Therefore, all forms of media need to change how they portray females. This way, women have a chance to be proud of who they truly are and can live to express themselves. Girls and women will seem guilty when they do not see the ‘model’ figure when they look in the mirror. This is not how society should be in the United States. The

“The media has taken many celebrity appearances into their own hands, many times without permission” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). Because of the media photoshopping women 's beauty on TV, social media, and even advertisements, it began to create a high rate of accusations of teenage girls’ all over the world. “In a recent study, the University at Buffalo sociologists found that the portrayal of women in the popular media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even pornified"( Donovan par.1). Due to this, women have been treated as sexual objects everywhere. Objectification comes from the lack of confidence and media 's portrayal of beauty; Due to this, the portrayal of men is not the same as females objectification is when women are treated like sexual objects. ‘Objectification is often defined by physical appearance, rather than personality” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). As a result, women should not struggle to keep up with these trends today. “In order to achieve a ‘perfect’ look, the media manipulates photos using unnecessary editing in Photoshop to completely contort the original, creating an unnatural image” (“The Objectification of Women” par.2). The media is the dominant cause of these actions of teenage girls insecurities, high rates of surgical treatment, and males creating these fictitious assumptions. Objectification in social media should end because it causes teenage insecurities,

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

They also state that the media forces images and ideas on how to dress and look like. The authors continue discussing strategies they use to target young female teens and how they influence certain teens, they also state that some magazines state that their clothes they advertise can attract men. The article also states that young people buy clothes not just for fun, but for a statement that the person wants to make. Not only are advertisements everywhere, but now certain advertisements promise young female teens certain things if they buy their clothes.

The mass media establishes ideological standards that if achieved will equate with happiness and acceptance” (19). However, most girls are never able to meet up to those standards for numerous reasons, which cause a great deal of unhappiness and distress. The media has given young women an overall negative mindset toward their body proven by women’s attempt to get the perfect Barbie image, sometimes resulting in unhealthy methods such as eating disorders and the loss of women’s individualism.

There has been an ongoing issue that has not been acknowledged. This issue has affected the lives of particularly young girls and has led to a deep disconnect in the many lives of girls and that culprit is the media. Much of the media has altered the way our young girls look at the world due to the media painting a picture that women are only beautiful when they are tall, skinny, and powdered down in makeup. In society today, women are being degraded, sexually degraded to be exact, in every way possible. On magazines, television and the internet, the women that make it to the front cover are the ones who are wearing the least amount of clothes and because of this, young girls feel that they are not good enough and tend to seek other outlets so that would feel like they fit in with the women that are viewed as perfect.

There is no doubt that the media powerfully influences modern society today. Whether it is television, magazines, celebrities or musicians, the world of pop culture creates role models for society to look up to, whether or not those influences are good or bad. The impact media and pop culture has on young girls also proves to be very significant, as young females are affected by wanting to be the ideal girl in the modern world, and fulfill those standards in order to feel happy about themselves. Articles such as Wonder Woman by Gloria Steinem, Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination by Deborah Ross, and The Globalization of Eating Disorders by Susan Bordo, all represent that

Mass media imposes how adolescent girls are supposed to act through advertisements in teen magazines, such as the thin body type representation and being feminine. Teen magazines reinforce stereotypes and gender prescriptions directly to adolescent girls into womanhood and negotiate their roles of being feminine, being fashionistas, and focusing on enhancing their appearance (Currie, 1997). In Decoding Femininity, Currie (1997) explains that during the 1980s “feminist sociologist characterized the advertisements, feature articles, and stories appealing to women’s magazines as vehicles of women socialization into subordinate roles” (p. 456). “Research on adolescent girl magazines has been done, and these magazines promote socialization of

On November 16, 2015, Dr. Anna Rogers, Professor for English 393 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, formally asked her students to do research on a topic of their choice and create a recommendation report on that. I chose to conduct my research on how the role of media affects how women perceive body image. I was interested in knowing the ways in which the media influenced the ways in which they perceive themselves and their beauty. In order to perform my research, I conducted surveys of female students ranging from ages 18-28, carried out experimental research on them to test whether they feel worse about their bodies after being exposed to thin media models than after being exposed to other types of images as well as conducting secondary research from articles, books, and magazines. After conducting this research, I found that the media really has a stronghold effect on how women define beauty and body image. About half of the students acknowledged comparing their appearance to the appearance of people in magazines. In addition to that, more than half of the students acknowledged feeling pressure from society and the media to have a perfect body. Over 60 percent of the students acknowledged thinking of wanting to get some sort of plastic surgery done to enhance or adjust “problem areas”. I recommend that parents should try to build a strong foundation of self-esteem and self-identity in their children at a very young age in order to in build positive

Throughout the century, the ideal image of a woman has changed drastically, which can be directly attributed to the powerful persuasion of media. This ideal image has transformed from a voluptuous, size 14, 1950’s Marilyn Monroe to a 5’9, 100 pound, 1990’s Kate Moss. The most shocking aspect is specifically what young girls are now doing to achieve this “Kate Moss” image. Through the utilization of advertisements and stars on the big screen, this female portrayal directly targets the physical and mental well-being of females in cultures across the globe.

Early interpreting of these images predicts the start of a never-ending struggle with identity and self-image. Unsurprisingly, girls adopt unhealthy self-images especially with the prevalence of mass media messages in early developmental stages: “Between the ages of eight and eighteen spend more than 10 hours a day using media, including more than four hours with television content delivered in a variety of formats and almost 1.5 hours on the Internet” (McGladrey). This early exposure leads to later, lasting issues. Most shocking, media pressure can lead to premature feelings of despair before adolescence: “The early girls’ coping mechanisms for dealing with these body-related pressures are diverse but almost universally self-destructive. Rates of depression markedly increase during adolescence, with twice as many girls displaying depressive symptoms as boys by the age of fifteen” (Hankin et al. as cited in McGladrey). When a female feels as if her appearance does not match that of the media norm, she struggles with her image. A factor most do not take into account, the accurateness of traits commonly associated with beauty, can also be the downfall of overly accepting women. Especially

2. The study revealed comprehensively that in all forms of media girls and women are under represented. Research notes that although the role of women in society has changed dramatically over the years there is still a disproportion of male and female representation. The research indicates that the media climate is representative of the 1950’s versus 2010. The research leads to the question of how consumers are affected by media content. Will young females feel less important or have lower self esteem if they are not appropriately represented in the media? Another area of under representation is with respect to health related media content. This begs the question as to whether women’s risk factors relating to specific health concerns are overlooked. The study

Throughout American history, gender equality and gender exploitation has played a significant role in the stereotypical American culture. The media ultimately determines who the perfect women or man is. Magazines and racy commercials have misconstrued the image of gender perfection. Even television shows and big-budget movies spend millions of dollars on famous actors and actress to look and act a certain way. This is killing the self-esteem of young and impressionable pre-teens and teenagers that feel they must stack up to these generalized standards. Specifically, young women are more affected by these sexist and glamorized ads and television shows. We are being targeted and molded into what society believes to be the “normal” way to be. This stereotypical thinking should be changed. If we continue to promote the addiction to unhealthy weightloss, beauty products, and sexist remarks it will harm not only these women’s self-esteem but also lead to even more severe consequences. With more positive female role models in the media, we can slowly change the image of women and how they are perceived.