The Ted Talk Women Should Represent Women

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

As society advances and the opinions of the general public change several press outlets work to stay up to date with the changing times. However, in an attempt to stay modernized journalists often times sacrifice their integrity to stay favorable in the public eye. These degrading actions, often times sacrifice the true news for more appealing news. Clare Boothe Luce, American journalist and politician, gives a controversial speech to the Women’s National Press Club condemning her female audience. Moreover, as a female addressing an audience of women she is able to give her true opinion and is able to honestly critique her colleagues. She persuades her audience by preparing them for the criticism by reiterating that she is the guest, by praising journalism, and by logically providing reasoning that the journalistic view must change for the good of the general public.

Women have never been treated fairly in society, and the media, which is meant to give a voice to the population, reflects that. You’d think that today women would have a better representation in the media, yes? Unfortunately you’re wrong. How women are represented in media is very harmful to the population, and I’ll tell you why.

media in today’s society and culture. The documentary is arguing that women in the media are not

“Miss Representation” is a documentary film that is made by Jennifer Seibel Newsom. This film talks about many issues from the roles of females in politics, and the ways in which media negatively impacts women. The film examines how the media have contributed to the underrepresentation of women. Therefore, eventually, the film is persuading people to be open-minded, and study how media affects our perception, judgment, and behaviors. The targeted audience of this film is all people who live in America. People should be convinced to change their mind about stereotypes on women. Jennier effectively convinces the audience that the mainstream media has mainly contributed to the under-representation of women through the use of statements claimed

The Miss Representation documentary film by Jennifer Newsom explores how media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions. This message is portrayed by delivering content through media and technology as well as advertising partial and/or often degrading interpretations of women. The consequences are becoming more and more dreadful. In today’s world, composed of a million stations, people will tend to do more and more shocking things to break through the crowds. They resort to violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images. Jean Kilbourne, EdD, filmmaker, Killing Us Softly Author and Senior Scholar Wellesley Center’s for Women states, that “it creates a climate in which

Mass media not only reflects gender stereotypes but also plays a role in changing them. Females used to be portrayed as less brave and more dependent. Now there are strong, independent female characters like Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games and intelligent, brave female characters like Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Like women’s changing positions in society, more aggressive and dominant females are being featured. Mass media molds new stereotypes but not all the ideas that are communicated are positive.

In Miss Representation, many female actresses, news anchors, politicians, directors and producers talk about how females suffer a lot of social, political and economic inequalities in today’s society. There are double standards against women in magazines, on TV, in movies, the news, politics, and the workplace. The media is an influential part of modern culture. When women are portrayed as objects for men to use -- never as the protagonist or president -- and when female news anchors are objectified, this will cause girls of all ages to begin viewing themselves as objects. Girls grow up in a world where their voice does not count; where our culture does not embrace them in all of their diversities, where

The first section of Gender and the Media addresses gender representations and the beginning of feminism. During the late 60’s and early 70’s, women’s rights movements were first introduced with the challenge of the media, prompting them monitor the way the media portrayed women. This portrayal starting in the late 1970’s has seen many transmissions since. Gil states: “I use the term feminism to signal a concern with enduring gender

“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.

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 documentary “Miss Representation” deals with and discusses the sexualization of women within the media. It showcases everyone from movie stars to political leaders, and broadcasters to fifth graders. With such a wide range of women being showcased in the documentary, it goes on to prove that all women (and men), are affected in some way by this major problem within our media. The documentary showcases the sexualization of women in the media, the lack of powerful and independent women role models in the media, and the constant advertisements of sexual women throughout the world.

The United States of America is one of the most diverse countries, and the most media obsessed yet we still lack a vast amount of diversity in that media. Our media delivers a lot of the same narratives and perspectives and although we have in recent times seen progress in the medias display of diversity we are still being presented with a disproportionate amount of the same points of view. There is no aspect in our media currently that proficiently displays diversity. Diversity becomes especially important when representing women. Though we as a culture have made great strides in gender equality women but especially women of color are an oppressed and underrepresented group. What representation of women of color there has been in our media is often subject to stereotyping and

Reading Chapter 11: Gendered media reminded me why I majored in communications. The media has such a significant influence on all our lives. I wanted to be a part of that influence and to ultimately help turn the way society portrays people. The media’s influence can get into a person’s subconscious, and unwillingly it will control how we think and what we view as important. I would like to think I am not effected by the media, but I am. I tend to not settle for local news, I always make the effort to stay current on what is going on a global scale through different media outlets. With the rise of fake news I am constantly forced to question these sources and the agenda behind these new stories. It hurts me that in the United States we focus

The message that was presented in the video “Miss Representation” was that the media is a powerful tool to shape the world. However, the media has been utilized not for the benefit of human being instead in the most negative way that anyone can possibly think of. It has indeed shape the representation of women globally in this generation. It degenerated the name of woman and what they are capable in this world whether they are use for political, and/or economical. The trailer for Miss Representation presented this powerful message through the usage of a video of selected people being interviewed about feminism and the cruelty that they endure during the twentieth century. This highly sensitive message in the video of Miss representation is