Society’s perception throughout history has put extremely unhealthy looking women in the media spotlight as the ideal image of beauty. “The desire to fit the cultural ideal of thinness drives many women to diet severely. In some vulnerable young women, this leads to bingeing and purging or self-starvation,” says Terence Wilson a psychologist at Rutgers University (Smolack). “The general public seems to have an unhealthy obsession with celebrities. The media is constantly bombarding us with images of celebrities with extremely thin bodies.
The slender, “beautiful” women are regarded as influential, successful, and erotic. This being said, it is very much so based on facts and reason, also known as logos, in the aspect that real life is often viewed this way. Throughout Elementary school up to High school, no one wanted to be best friends with “the fat kid”. As the world already knows, girls and women in general seem to stress over their physical appearance and have been especially concerned about weight for many years now. The emotional effect media has on a woman’s mindset, or ethos, could very well send her overboard into what is commonly known as an eating disorder.
Sex and Young Girls In Kilbourne’s “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt” she speaks extensively about how advertising could have many underlying and shocking meanings when analyzed closer. Some factors that Kilbourne speaks of in her essay allow us to look deeper into the hidden concepts of advertising and show a world of suggestive sex and abuse. Many of the ads allowed us take a closer look at how woman are portrayed as objects to sell a product. I believe that many of underlying factors influence our young girls. Many of the ads today give an image that in order to be happy and satisfied in life you have to be sexual or look sexy to get ahead.
“The construction of gender stereotyping of both males and females in the media is based on outdated and unfounded beliefs and therefore has had and continues to have a detrimental impact on society.” (Yes!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUyfD1F7k1I Women are subjected to many stereotypes in today’s society. Movies and television shows suggest that all women are airheads, whose sole purpose in life is to please men and rear children. Magazines and other advertisements push photographs of very slender, over groomed and “sexy women” into our minds. Men’s magazines write articles on how to seduce a girl into sleeping with them.
Females between the ages of 16 and 26 make up approximately 24 million women as of today (Population clock). This “chick” age bracket represent the group of people that popular media outlets market to that often feature women with bodies that are unattainable for the average woman. These media outlets also focus on what women can do to acquire and please men. The self-esteem of these young girls are also eroding due to the various forms of marketing and advertising tactics they employ because sexy sells. The many celebrities like Miley Cyrus and magazines who all try to portray their idea of a woman, alter and distort their perception of womanhood.
Or perhaps it’s from the magazines that plague the checkout stands at the local supermarkets. 4 Week by week women are exposed to negative body images of themselves and others by means of media. They fall victim to thousands of half-naked women who have perfect bodies, flawless personalities, and beautiful faces; but while this image of perfection is very desirable, it’s extremely unattainable for most. As a result, younger women feel inadequate within society, and older women fear the effects of ageing. Body image is a person’s perception of his or her own physical appearance.1 A person with a poor body image will perceive his or her own body as being unattractive or even repulsive to others, while a person with a good body image will see him or herself as attractive as others, or will at least accept his or her current form.
Whether we realize it or not we are constantly surrounded by images of sex; in the media, advertising, movies, and even in schools, sex is everywhere. So it is not uncommon for us when we open a magazine and see images of half naked women and barely legal girls posing provocatively in order to sell a product. In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” she explains how much women are objectified and dehumanized in advertisements like this. Constantly in the media there are women who are looked up as sex objects rather then actual women. Kilbourne describes how when you depict men or women as sex objects rather
In my opinion, Americans tend to think that their appearance is everything and go to great measures to get their desired looks. I also believe that people in society are always trying too hard to make them self look like their ideal celebrity. I feel that men and women have different standards when it comes to appearance and how they view it. I also agree with Nancy Hellmich in her article, “Do Thin Models Warp Girls Body Image?” as she says that girls are becoming skinnier and skinnier as the years go by. I think as society tends to focus on their appearance more, it also becomes more dangerous.
The Exploitation and Misogyny of Women by the media The passing of the Woman's Right Act empowered women to do things that would have once been considered impossible such as, taking part in beauty pageants, modeling in the nude to holding high positions in offices. In hip-hop and advertising Jean Kilbourne and Joan Morgan concur that woman's bodies are being dehumanized, over sexualized and objectified. Consequently, although women have made remarkable progress, their unbridled autonomy and power are being exploited by the media.Hence forth, the explosion of pornography and the mentality that sex sells anything and everything have caused advertising agencies and the music industry to use woman's bodies as the main tool for commercializing and selling their products. Hence, the media uses sexism and violence in advertising to get people’s attention in order to get them to buy their products, and also to obtain free press. In “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” Jean Kilbourne believes, that sexism and violence in advertising is systemic and rooted in our culture.
There are a number of women who have eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia trying to look like Miss USA when really it just might not be their body type. Women who starve themselves and call themselves fat on a regular basis. Well they would have nothing to compare themselves to if we as a society weren’t constantly flashing slim women on TV or in magazines. I wonder if there was a Mr. America pageant if men would start to doubt their body types and conform to what is socially accepted for a mans body. All in all I was shocked when I read this and think it is very sad that on national television there is a body type this is accepted.