Unequal Gender Divisions And Their Perceptions

The Beauty Myth’s central argument is the growing standards of physical beauty of women as they grow stronger. This standard has affected women in many ways, such as in the workplace, culture, and religion. The standard has taken over the work of social harassment. The beauty myth expands the belief an unbiased measurement of beauty exists and that women want to express it and men would want that women. The author, Naomi Wolf, states that the beauty myth is not about women themselves, it is about the power of men and their society. The myth supplies power to multibillion dollar cosmetics industries and it keeps women from rising too high in the workplace. Within this book, Wolf shows how the beauty myth functions and affects women in the workplace, media, sex, religion, culture, violence against women by men, and by women themselves in the configuration of cosmetic surgery and eating disorders.

When we think of men in society, we think of someone strong and dominant. We think of the gender that is in charge. But what do we think of when we think of women? Do we see them the same way? Usually that’s not the case. When we think of women in society, we think of someone who does what they’re told without question. Maybe we think of the celebrities that advertise our favorite products. But, nobody every really looks deeper into the way women are viewed in society. However, Jean Kilbourne does. In her article entitled “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” she dives into how women are really viewed and what seems to be the “cultural norm”. In society, women are viewed as objects or as property. So in turn, men think

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

Through the media society puts out high standards and expectation on women to adhere to what they say is beautiful. Making women judge mental and self consciousness about themselves and even judging other woman in a split second. In the book Mrs. Breedlove speaks on the affect the movies had on her,”She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it with some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen” (122). This explains how the media can cause society to be judgmental among their peer and categorize them as either beautiful or ugly. Giving society room to isolate and antagonize the ugly and adore and idolize the beautiful.

We are together but have been created physically different, we are equal when it comes to our rights to live, air, water yet not the same in certain issues. Both sexes are,“deeply ingrained in the codes of our society.” Stereotypes imposed on us by the society has shrewdly manipulated or brainwashed us into believing that being told how to comport ourselves and be is rather a liberation, not oppression. Unfortunately, we are unconscious of this conspiracy when trying to look and behave like those individuals we see in the media or magazines. For women, in particular, the assumption is that we wear beautiful clothes such as dresses and skirts, reveal some skin to attract men, wear makeup and keep our hairs long. Two different images of Grace Jones will be the source of comparison in this essay to illustrate gender stereotypes placed on women.

It is apparent that there are clear distinctions between men and women and what is meant by ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity.’ For example, as noted by Södergren (2014), feminine women possess qualities of empathy, weakness and nurturing. Men, on the other hand, are shown with qualities of ambition and dominance (2014). It should come to no surprise, then, that men and women are represented differently in the media. Studies have shown that women are usually portrayed as younger than men

There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner.

Jane has gotten used to cruelty and biased behavior towards her average looks, and develops a miserable self-esteem that believes the only possible way to describe her exterior is “plain”. This self-esteem prevents her from even beginning to recognize that anyone could appreciate her or find her beautiful in any manner. The society’s typical reactions and judgments shaped Jane’s self-esteem, and prevented her from receiving equal treatment as that of a beautiful woman.

In this paper, I will argue that the media portrays one image of beauty and this has a damaging effect on women’s mental health, resulting in low self esteem and further deepening gender inequality within our society. I will argue this by discussing the effect media has on women’s self esteem, how the media promotes a patriarchal society and the stereotypes it presents to the public. Finally, I will discuss the sexual objectification of women presented in the media and later examine how individuals have taken this matter into their own hands, and are using social media to create positive change.

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

Gender inequality plays a critical role when it comes to social progress. As a woman,

Since the dawn of time, women have been judged based on their looks. In today’s society, women who are conventionally beautiful are seen as less capable than the rest of the population, especially men. As a girl in today’s society, I’ve been judged based on my looks since the day I was born. Every woman on television, in movies, or in magazines is harshly photo shopped to fit the standards society has set for physical beauty. When you grow up in that sort of environment, you have no say in whether or not that affects you. Orual, Redival, and Psyche are experiencing the same situation in Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. In their own ways, each girl’s thoughts and action were determined solely be the world’s impression of them.

Gender is a sociological idea, in which it is not based on biology. While there is some biological differences between the sexes, the “meaning” of being male or female is based on social norms. Like race, these “biological” differences provided a system of enabling inequality between the sexes. History offers many examples of the gender norms over time. Women, for centuries, are few as the homemakers and often viewed as intelligent. Despite living in the twentieth century with greater equality, one does not need to go far to see how society and media influence our perception of gender. Advertisements in various media persuade its audience to buying their products. However, the means of attracting and persuading the audience can have underlying messages. Even in entertainment for young girls these underlying messages are prevalent. One example is the popular film, The Little Mermaid, in which the main protagonist is a young female. The protagonist gave up her identity to satisfy her lover. Even traditional gender roles are at work; the film showed young girls that to be happy and successful one had to find a husband and must relinquished one’s identity (Wood 1994). The generalized perception of male and female are polar opposites. Males are viewed as masculine, strong, authoritative, powerful, and devoid of emotions. Females are viewed as beauty, fragile, nurturing, emotional and sole purpose is to please men. These ideas can lead to sexism, which can have negative effects on

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.