The Media Has A Negative Influence On Women

Every day, millions of Americans view the front covers of magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and more. They see them while at grocery stores, on the television, and even in the waiting room at a doctor's office. The media offer advertisements with models that are seemingly slim with perfect skin, hair, and teeth. American propaganda leaves most young, adolescent girls between the ages of 5-18 to consider that the complexity of beauty is strict to be thin and perfect, though it is targeted to young adolescents, it does aim towards older female and male age ranges as well. An article states, “While the media attempt to target every person, the level of exposure is dictated by gender, and the majority of harmful messages is focused more toward women. For instance, in media such as magazines where a person relies on an image to relate a feeling, girls are often made to look inferior” (Chapman). When it comes to the media, specifically in the American culture, the popularity has massively increased over the years, turning to new weekly issues, becoming common to the society and civilization. This causes issues associated with eating disorders, depression and suicide, and self-esteem/confidence young girls.

There are no questions to whether the media has influenced the self-consciousness people have on their body or not. Whether it is the front of a magazine cover or in a film or television show, the selection of models or actors are primarily thin or fit leading readers and viewers to worry or want to change the way their body looks. Body image is the way one sees oneself and imagine how one looks. Having a positive body image means that most of the time someone sees themselves accurately, and feels comfortable in their body; negative body image, what the media exemplifies for the majority of the time, is just the opposite. The media uses unrealistic standards of beauty and bodily perfection to drive ordinary people to be dissatisfied with their body image which can result in the search to obtain these unreachable goals.

Media knows that belonging and love will sell perfume to attract, make up to look your best, items to keep your family safe and other popular items just to have what you need to fit in or belong to a certain in group. Media not only influence a person’s purchase choices but also can sway their political opinions. What is seen on the news can influence people to hate a certain group because they are a threat to the safety of families or politically influence a vote for a candidate because so families will prosper. Media influences self-esteem by suggesting finding love or being able to fit in a person should have a certain body type and if that goal is not met a negative self-image or feeling of failure could ensue. Eating disorders have been tied to media’s trend toward portraying women in certain model thinness and promoting only that body type (Neda Feeding Hope).

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.

The misrepresentation of women in the media has been at its highest. Reality shows such as Love and Hip Hop, have degraded and exploited women where they are only seen as objects who compete over men. They are not able to have a identity that is positive. I wanted to create a platform where you can see the true side of women. Having them tell their stories and accomplishments. Where they are seen past their physical features and given a voice. The issues discussed through the interviews are also expressed through my poetry. As women they are taking their identities back and showing who they really are, regardless of how they are depicted through the media.

Media negatively affects body image. medias are technology based platforms for opinions and facts, and have a wide spectrum of views. Body image must do with how one sees themselves and it can be either positive or negative. Across the board, the biggest platforms media has used to distort the image of the body are social media, TV, and magazines. Body images have been an ongoing controversial issue throughout history, especially with women, but with men as well. As technology grows and furthers the “filters” and photoshopping capabilities, the easier it gets to create and unrealistic image for one to live up to. It has gotten worse as technology updates, since it now is affecting children at a younger age, at the same time, it has also

Women have been misrepresented in the media for many years. Stereotypes have been around forever in media, but were portrayed more visibly in the earlier years. Although this misrepresentation of women is less subtle, the outcome of this issue is extensively impacting consumers and women in general. The impact of these stereotypes discourage women to pursue their goals, cause self-esteem issues, and hurt their chances at bigger roles in the business and political world. This also gives others false ideas and expectations. Some primary examples of concern include the value of women and girl’s looks over their personalities, the false imagery of the LGBT community, and society not taking women in politics and news seriously.

Over the past several decades, the media and its influence on popular culture has been the single most destructive force in the lives of American women. The media dictates much of what of our society aspires to, and sets standards and precedents for a number of topics and behaviors. While, at times, it can be the source of honest and educational information, media can also have a detrimental effect on a person’s worldview. The advertising industry, in particular, has transformed women from human beings into sex objects by using their physical appearances as a platform to increase revenue. Advertisers, in their effort to attract consumers, have abused technology, including photo-editing software, leading to ethical consumer disputes and serious

In western culture your image seems to be the most important. From watching models strut down a catwalk to music videos, we are constantly reminded of how we should look. Not only does our appearance matter, but our behavior as well. Women on television are constantly fighting, backstabbing, and being obnoxious in attempts to be recognized in the celebrity world. The media is the leading outlet to the people of the world. It affects everybody whether you want to believe it or not. Body dissatisfaction is defined as “a negative subjective evaluation of the weight and shape of one’s own body”. (Eating Disorders). Body dissatisfaction is very common in women, but more in young girls. The media portrays women as a prize or an object, making our youth feel they have to look a certain way to be accepted or liked. The media today needs to stop objectifying women and start promoting positive self-image.

Media influence causes 69 percent of girls, in one study, to state that magazine models impact their idea of the perfect body shape. This drastic affect on a young person 's life creates a reality that women need to alter the way they look to be ‘perfect.’ Media also portrays women as helpless beings, needing a man by their side to complete easy tasks in which they can do on their own. There is also the aspect of strong women being sexy, and not the intelligent, intellectual women that they are. Throughout many girls lives, growing up, there are self esteem issues that will resonate with them for years to come. Commercials and advertisements feed on the implication that females believe they will never be flawless or beautiful, so they will do anything to get there. These impacts from media have catastrophic results. This is critical today because there are more eating disorders, health issues, and suicides than ever before. Women should be represented as strong, fearless individuals as opposed to the stereotypical ‘damsel in distress’ media pins them as today. Media limits girls and women from discovering possibilities they could have as leaders through objectificatoin and sexualazation.

The media portrays what is attractive or unattractive in society, it builds a norm that women must be thin and men must be muscular. Society is constantly seeing their favorite celebrity on the screen or in advertisements and try to mimic them. However, there is a negative impact with the media. Photos are constantly air-brushed and edited which leads to unrealistic expectations of the human body. This is detrimental for both men and women because they start having problems with their body, which results in disorders and drastic measures trying to live up to this unrealistic expectation. By establishing this unattainable physical perfection, the pressure to be attractive does harm physically and mentally.

Those media with tendentious views always lead to people deepen misconceptions. The media prefer to use hyper-sexualized images to sell products, ideas, and services keep people’s eyes. In fact, using hyper-sexualized images to sell products, ideas, and services is just good for enterprise, but it will change people’s idea, and keep women in an unfair state. In addition, the media catch people’s mentality, which are people are more interested in what did not know before, or they do not have. For men, the easiest way to realize female figure is from the Internet. Even the media will representation directly by advertising, music, and something else. Men will consider the fact thing is what they see. For women, when they see a woman with great figure, they will consider themselves, and also want to be like what they see. Therefor, they will think the important point is appearance for women. All things like values also depend on her appearance. Due to the media can change people mind little by little, for a woman, I think the most useful way to avoid change personal view by media is having women role models and mentors. Models will save women who are in adversity. When a woman lack of understanding, she can use the model’s experience to motivate herself. E4I have a role model whose name is Christine Lagarde. I known her was from once I do my assignment, and I searched lot of background information about her. I found her is really excellent. Based on International Monetary Fund,

The way the media targets women is not right. They try to point out women flaws in order to make them think more lowly of themselves and create a negative body image. They then make women believe that their product can make anyone flawless and perfect. If the companies used more normal and ordinary girls to model their product, rather than the perfect, beautiful, and skinny girls, then maybe this problem would be solved.

Everyone has a different view of what is beautiful. Why then can we not transfer that to how we view ourselves? Why can we not be happy with how we look? The simple answer is the media. They show images to millions of people of what they think beauty is. Those images affect society and they view themselves about how they look. Most of these images are unrealistic, and send unhealthy expectations to women on how they should look. This causes body images to be skewed. Which in turn causes women to spend more money to make themselves look like what they think is normal. In severe cases it can cause eating disorders.

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.