Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media by Susan Douglas

The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.

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

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be for a certain age, race, and sometimes even a certain gender. Pop culture has influenced the minority groups and shed light to women 's rights or so it was thought. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards a particular gender. What is interesting is it shows a false image of the opposite sex to the audience being portrayed toward their preferences. It is the image the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell their products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows commercials brings gender norms that produce the ideas of what a man’s man and a woman’s woman which is why he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

The chapter, From Rosie to Lucy, by James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, is about how the feminine mystique changed drastically from the era of WWII to the era of the baby boom. The shift was attributed to men’s influence on the women through fashion trends, magazines, and TV shows. The main purpose of the chapter is to show that the propaganda through TV and society affected individuals, and more specifically the feminine mystique.

The quality of American television has become a national disgrace. Young women in America who are displeased with their appearance more likely then not can trace those feelings directly back to images from the mass media on television. The unrealistic representations of women that the mass media bombards young women with indicates that the television has become a source for a distorted understanding of gender roles among adolescent women. These images warp young women’s views of their own gender identity. The mass media on television should in an attempt to provide more positive gender identities for adolescent women depict women on television in more realistic ways, should stop

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

Carter's (1984) interesting argument regarding young women and their relationship to consumerism and the market owes much to early feminist critique. Carter insists that the "image industries"

The Netflix documentary Miss Representation by Jennifer Siebel Newsom explores how the media contributes to influence the young girls and boys in America. Every day in America we are showed this unrealistic look of what the so-called perfect image of women is supposed to be from the TV shows we watch, the movies we see, to the magazines we read, to the online social media outlets we visit. This documentary shows the negative effects it's having on teenage boys and girls in America, Miss Representation interweaves between the stories of teenage girls, telling their own experiences and how the media has portrayed the image of women to them. They share their stories from pressures they feel they have to live up too from how the media shows them

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010714208/OVIC?u=scot67242&xid=d9cbf746. Accessed 20 Nov. 2017. Originally published as "Feminism, Consumerism, & the Sexualization of Girls,", 2 Mar. 2007.

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.

As you’re walking down a street you may notice a young group of girls or women walking and they see a huge billboard of a beautiful model. They might stop and stare at her and then discuss about her perfect her body is. Not knowing in the next five minutes they’ll be comparing their bodies to the model and feeling bad about themselves wishing that they had her body. Not to mention, that the photo may be photoshopped to make it seem as her body is perfect, or she had plastic surgery to fit the idea of having the perfect body. The fact that the media thinks they’re encouraging young girls and women to embrace their beauty, they’re influencing them that they have to have a perfect body in order to get attention. The media has put a lot of pressure on young girls and women to look perfect and second guess their bodies, when plastic surgery is never the answer to build their self-esteem up.

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.