Self Objectification Paper

Kover, A. (2009, April 30). Effects of the Media on Body Image. Retrieved March 21, 2017, from

Just as body image is seen as a personal trouble, it is very well a social problem. Body image is also graded by social factors such as gender, social class, and race (Giddens, Duneier, et al, 2007). Women are more likely to suffer from eating disorders such as anorexia than men because of the way society expects them to

Thesis: The media puts pressure on women of all ages to conform to their standards of what looks best, and this pressure results in women having a negative body image.

Many people have a habit of asking others on the internet for opinions on what they look like. This creates body image anxieties. At the same time, women were being more objectified in media, with an extreme emphasis placed on their bodies (Klein). Some people believe that the answer to body anxiety is to give a bigger range of body examples in the media. Dr. Phillipa Diedrichs, University of West of England’s Centre for Appearance Research, said,“The more time spent on Facebook, the more likely people are self-objectify.” Media is everywhere, so telling them to ignore it is not going to work. Steps could be taken to help girls to not compare themselves to the unrealistic

In todays society media has many different represtionations of womens body ideals and they are portrayed in many different ways. The majority of body images are female and represented with negative connotations. Women are plasteted on billboards magazine covers and play an very important role in the way young women are viewed and how they feel they should look. Through out this essay I will look how media has such a massive impact on our lives and the power it has to control the ideals of young women and how the industries with in the use of media are exploting women of today and how they are benifitting from it to make multibillion companys with out the a second thought to the explotation and harm it is causing to our socity and health with in the new generorations. I will also explore how some organistions are fighting against this ideal and how this is creating a more healthy view of women and challenging what we have had drummed into since an early age.

“The media have 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 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, it

There has been a growing trend of hypersexualization of women over the span of all forms of media. The women within these images are made to look perfectly flawless. They are extremely thin without a trace of fat or cellulite to be found. The people who consume this media are exposed to the idea that the women they are observing are models for true physical beauty. These standards are accompanied by an alternate message from the media that pushes the idea that women’s value comes from their beauty. While some women may understand that the messages about the ideal woman are unrealistic and false, it is found that adolescent girls are vulnerable to the media’s strategies due to their lack of media literacy as well as the search for their own identity during this developmental stage in their lives. The exposure to these standards of beauty can have several negative effects on the girls such as lower self-esteem, higher body dissatisfaction, depression, and eating disorders. SPARK and 4 Every Girl are two of a growing number of campaigns that are working to fight against the sexualized images of women in the media and the negative effects it can have on the viewers.

“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,

Negative body image has become a pandemic which has spread to nearly every country. This affliction knows no boundaries, limitations, or prejudices. Cases of this issue can be found in all age groups, socioeconomic levels, races, ethnicities, and genders. The causes of this affliction can be pinpointed to the mass media, familial pressures, and the ever changing standards of beauty.

Music video contents portrayed women as sexual object and would satisfy any men fantasies whenever and however. It distorted the view of women not as an equal being but as someone inferior than man, some trophy that man can win and show off. Content of music video place and big emphasis on women sexual appeal, reinforces the ideology of women’s sexuality as nothing but her outer appearance (Mischner, Schie, Wigboldus, Baaren, Engel, 2013). Studies have found that music video influences how women think and feel about themselves. According to Nikodym (2013), many women listen to explicit music will try to understand the information more thoroughly, which leads to rejecting of these objectifying lyrics. However, many will internalize the outsider’s perception of their body, self objectified, thinking “I am my body” and nothing else, will lead to anxiety, shames, frequent appearance monitoring and not being able to reach their motivational state to perform important physical and mental tasks (Nikodym, 2013).

Since culture is our shared reality, sustained through common experience, the American culture for instance, is now maintained by the mass media predominantly. The physical appearance of a women and what an “ideal” women is perceived to be in popular culture has a long sorted history and has sparked debates over the world. In the context of women’s body image, we look into the connection between what women are exposed to through television and to their attitudes, ideas, values and

Grabe, S., Ward, L. M., & Hyde, J. S. (2008). The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies. Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 460-476.

The people have the choice of accepting or rejecting what is shown to them. Every expression of idea pressures the reader to adapt its thinking, but the power of cynicism and criticalness prevents a person from gullibly taking in and believing everything he or she is exposed to. The media, undoubtedly, presses unachievable ideals into the minds of adolescents, who are much more vulnerable to the effects of media exposure. But rather than trying to censor the media, a solution can be found in media literacy to debunk the distorted realities that magazines and advertisements may present. People know how women and men look and “we know when images are spurious — no paternalistic formal disclaimer needed… The problem isn’t altered photographs; it’s our failure to alter our expectations of them” (Fortini, 2010). Regulating the media is the least of our concerns if people fail to be media literate. Adolescents “must be taught to analyze the production and consumption of media products as ideological texts” (Alexander and Chambers, 2007 ) because there “there is no definition of the physical characteristics that make someone attractive or what is seen as beauty. It is simply a system of ideologies that have evolved over time” (Keyes, 2014). The idea of body image is a changing one and what the media presents to the public should be approached in the way every other expression of imagination –

In today’s world, people spend more and more time behind a screen on a device that is constantly streaming media. Though it seems like it may have no effect, Social media, social interactions and environment can play a huge role in peoples’ self-esteem and body-image. Peoples’ self-image is negatively affected by social and environmental factors because they create unrealistic body images that are widely advertised by social media, they shape our schemas, and these social interactions therefore push people to do things to fix their bodies.

Additionally, in “Body Image and the Media,” Walker affirms that “People compare themselves to images, internalize these idealized images as the norm, and absorb the message that they should judge themselves based on their appearance” (1+). The study published in “An Intervention…”, contemplated that the image of a woman with a slim figure would cause the viewer’s self-appreciation to decline, yet when presented with media fallacies, her self-appreciation would increase (Haas et. al. 405+). Haas postulates that “Interaction effects and post-hoc analyses revealed significant positive changes in the experimental group’s view of their overall boy esteem, sexual