Women in Media

It is no secret that women often change their bodies in order to meet the societal expectations that are portrayed in the media. The patriarchy and the male gaze dictate the ideal female which is depicted on television, in movies, and in magazines. Woman most often alter their weight in order to match the small slim physique of models. Weight is one of the main aspects of the female body that the patriarchy controls. Woman are taught by society that their natural body is not beautiful and that they must conform to the societal standard of a thin, size 0 woman in order to accommodate the male gaze. The patriarchy dictates this of a woman in order to maintain male dominance in society. However, these expectations have a negative effect on

Females of this generation are being raised in a world where women’s bodies are viewed as objects.

Tiggemann, M., & Boundy, M. (2008). Effect of environment and appearance compliment on college women’s self-objectification, mood, body shame, and cognitive performance. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32, 399–405.

The results of this study suggest that the girls hold more of a negative body evaluation when they thought of their body as a form compared to when they thought of their body as a function. They were also more positive about their bodies when they made the shift to the instrumental lens. However, this study was limited by the small sample size as well as the clinical population of girls. It needs to be broadened to include clinical and non-clinical populations of girls as well as boys.

You have just bought a new pair of jeans. You think that you look absolutely great in them until you turn on the television or compare yourself to the person on side of you. Today, women all over the world are focused on the way society views them, which has an influence on the way they view themselves. The field known as sociology of the body investigates the ways in which our bodies are affected by our social experiences, as well as by the norms and values of the groups to which we belong (Giddens, Duneier, et al, 2007). Body image is an ideal image of what one’s body looks like or what she wants it to look like. It can also be defined as the value one may put on physical appearance. This

This raises the question about gender difference and the concept of body image and prevalence of

Our project focused on how females conform to the expectations of society. Body image has always been a big idea to women. Most men are doctors, surgeons, or in control of major businesses in the world. Living in an

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

Body shaming has been talked about throughout the centuries, whether it be indirectly through literature, like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, or through speeches at rallies, like Kate Winslet’s speech at WE Day. The subject of body shaming has evolved over time becoming more of an open topic of discussion, rather than slyly being portrayed through characters in novels it is now one of the center focuses when it comes to mental health. It’s important to discuss the topic of body shaming as it has a large impact on society, affecting both the mental and physical health of everyone who falls victim to it. Body-shaming has always been an issue, but has been confronted in different ways over the years. One of the first moments that body shaming is shown in Frankenstein is when Victor Frankenstein sees what he created come to life for the first time.

“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.

The rules manifest into a bigger issue for women—their views on their body. The views can lead to a female comparing herself to another person, and the judgements of their body furthers a female’s

If every woman has the same idea of beauty, then they all have goal that they work to achieve (Ferrante, 2014, p. 28). Nonetheless, this underscores the fact that women come in a variety of shapes and sizes, which make achieving this goal difficult, if not impossible (Ferrante, 2014, pp. 201-202; Shaw & Lee, 2011, p. ?). So, while having gender ideals in a society was likely meant to promote social order, it in turn created another form of disruption. This unintended disruption, or latent dysfunction, is what can be recognized as poor body image. Not only does poor body image foster insecurity within an individual, it causes women have hostility towards each other.

The Killing Us Softly series by Jean Kilbourne brings to light the portrayal of women in advertisements and analyzes how the female body undergoes constant scrutiny and objectification. The documentary further examines how women are still confined within age-old gender roles thus exposing them to be the weaker sex. In the fourth part of the series, Kilbourne discusses these issues through ads and images she collected and provides her thoughts on the effects of such demeaning advertising.

Another important consideration is the role clothing with regards to self-objectification. A study by Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, and Twenge (1998) which found that women with higher BMIs had higher body shame when wearing more revealing clothing. This was tested by calculating BMIs and then administering a Self-Objectification Questionnaire to participants in two conditions: swimsuit or sweater. Unsurprisingly, the participants who wore the more revealing swimsuit had higher levels of self-objectification and body shame.

At this point, it is already acknowledged that body dissatisfaction is one of the major psychological effects caused in women by the unachievable cultural standards of beauty. A massive total of women feel constantly insecure, inadequate and overweight. Body obsessive comparison origins from the permanent