Sexualized Images Of Women

If you turn on the television or flip through a fashion magazine, it is very likely you will presented with many displays of hypersexualization of girls and women in advertising images and in media. There are many components to sexualization. It occurs, according to the American Psychological Association, when “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics.” This person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy. “Sexualization” happens when a person is sexually objectified- that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than being seen as a person with their own independent actions and abilities to make decisions. Oftentimes, sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person without their knowing it or consent. Sometimes, researchers use the word “hypersexualization” to describe roughly the same idea. In the article, “Media’s Growing Sexualization of Women”, hypersexualization is defined as, “The act of making something extremely sexual and erotic.”

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

Media enforces the social-cultural standards, which women are required to follow in order to look and behave in a manner that society considers acceptable. Newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media (Scholar, C.2011). However, these standards presented by media send a false perception of women, thus portraying women in a negative and disrespectful manner. Society views woman as mentally, morally, and physically inferior to men, and media is only highlighting this idea (Scholar, C.2011). In fact, media represents women in a stereotypical form of beauty, they display women as sexual objects, and create the illusion that women are ignorant.

Theme on media of many influences on how we view men and women, media are the

“We tend not to write women as human beings. It’s cartoons we’re making.” - Paul Haggis. This is a quote that was explored in Miss Representation that especially impacts me. The impact of media on women and men is immense. Media shapes the way the genders view each other and themselves and therefore has the power to dictate how humans act, how they feel, and tell them what they want. I feel that with the constant, unregulated bombardment of media demonstrating the unrealistic and unfair treatment of the women, it’s not crazy to think that young women are harming themselves to fit these roles. The media being uncensored leads to harmful consequences including women being discouraged from positions of power and changing their body.

The paramount of social adversities facing the modern society is the divide between definitions of gender. Gender represents an abstract interpretation of sex and this notion is simply a societal construct. The establishment of gender has evolved into a tradition of humanity, however this tradition evolved into a social divide between masculinity and femininity. The pressure to conform to societal constructs of masculinity and femininity poisons society and branches off to toxic masculinity; such were nurtured from these figurative beliefs. Gender roles further stigmatize the victims who refuse to conform. However, gender roles has witnessed a revolution in modern times. The purpose of this collateral involves analyzing the evolution of gender roles present in media from mid 19th century to modern times. The period of time, or 1960’s, was chosen because of post World War II’s effects on stereotypes in society around the world. Post war not only challenged stereotypes but further kindled women’s role in the workforce and women began to fill in roles previously belonging to men. In later years, a radicalization of the feminist movement has spurred and our modern times is a witness to its ascension to the paramount of feminism. The media, since the 1960’s, has allowed society to be the primary witness. With the evolution of gender roles, the media must also adapt to the changes in societal views of gender roles and the entire feminist movement at large. This collateral seeks to

women that sends the wrong message to young girls and boys. After watching this documentary,

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.

As presented in the movie Miss Representation, media and technology are important because they work as powerful messengers that build many people’s way of thinking. As we live in a technologically advanced generation, being exposed to media is so easy. Both media and technology works as delivering any ideas that shapes our society. They shape our minds about politics, our emotions, and our importance. Then, it means that media can also manipulate our perception of gender role. Among all the ideas that media tries to indoctrinate, it can also portrait the importance of a woman to being all about physical beauty. Media presents a perfect woman’s image focusing on their bodily figure making their value, worth, or mind would depend on their physical appearances. Thus, it influences the way men think what is important about women is their bodily attractiveness. In any kinds of media such as advertisement, films, or video games, women are generally appreciated by their looks, not by their intellectuals or achievements. As media depicts an unrealistic body image of women’s beauty, many young girls’ value is set as to become someone else with attractive appearance, nothing like smart, powerful, or leader-like.

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.

For example, “young people are being sold the concept that women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity of leaders or intelligence.” Likewise, “boys get the message that they should be violent, in control, unemotional, and that women should be treated like objects and second class citizens.” Mass media is a huge contributor to one’s daily life so it would be fairly easy to say that they have a large grasp on the mind of society. Stereotypical criticism influences us to think what a male is ought to do and what a female should do. The objective of media is to influence people for their benefit. These ways of thinking are unacceptable conditions to be living in. “In almost every role a woman has in the media, she is somehow connected to sex. Even the powerful women we look up to sometimes become an object of desire. The media needs to start creating female

This source is about the gender roles in America. It discusses the different ways that the media influences gender stereotypes in women. It compares the present to the future. According to this paper, women are often sexualized and put in proactive clothing. Women are portrayed as nonprofessionals, homemakers, wives, and parents. This benefits my paper because this shows how the media has a negative effect on the stereotypes of women. It supports the theory that the media is one of the main causes of the negative stereotype and traditional gender roles.

The key research question of ‘Gender Roles in Media’ is to analyze gender roles to determine how women are represented in an array of media and how they are portrayed in a sexualized manner. The study was published in 2010 and 2011 by Rudy et al in two issues of Sex Roles. The research suggests that an increase in representing women in media can be worthy provided they bear in mind that the way women are depicted is positive in order to alleviate negative connotations. The research queries if media can affect the mindset of viewers in a negative or positive manner.

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

Mass media is the methods of communication, including television, radio, magazines, films, internet and newspapers, that have become some of society’s most important agents of socialization. In this paper I will talk about media and its effects on society today, things such as stereotypes the media portrays, the way media illustrates women and what that does to body images of women. I will also be talking about medias effects on teenagers, and sexualization in the media.