These stories assist the reader in understanding the serious widespread nature of the issue. Producing these magazines could not only improve the health of many young women, but also mounts pressure onto big name fashion industries to change their ways on body image. Equally alarming are the opinions of Kristy Greenwood from the Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria. Greenwood, as a well-known figure with a great deal of authority, argues against the major magazine companies. She claims that “if consumers change their
Exactly, very bizarre practices that woman go by to feel better about there appearance rather then their health. For example, seeing today’s issues for beauty; models and movie stars all over the media show how being thin is the “hot” look as the expression came forth, “thin is in”. Woman all over the world view magazines, articles, television, movies etc, and with more people expressing vanity, many others confidence level has decreased. Everyone wants to look perfect. Everyone wants to be beautiful and wanting people to find them attractive which leads
Young women seem to be especially affected by our culture’s obsession with weight and beauty. America today is a girl-destroying place where young women are encouraged to sacrifice their true selves in exchange for false selves that are more culturally acceptable. “More than any other group in the population, girls and their bodies have borne
Valenti provides many statistics of abuse against women here in the United States as well as examples of evidence for the mistreatment of women. Valenti's appeals began before she had written a single word, mainly due to her being a woman. She appeals to the emotional side of her readers, writing that we “cry with Oprah and laugh with Tina Fey”, that we are “fooling ourselves” into believing that a “mirage of equality...is the real thing." She is trying to explain that it is a sort of ignorance-is-bliss situation: look at all these successful women on television so how could equality not exist? She also cites facts, while maintaining an emotion, by mentioning George Sodini, who specifically targeted women in his shooting “killing three women and injuring nine others."
Traditional imagery of the once nurturing housewife has been overridden in the media with frequent depictions of women as sexual objects. These objectifications are solely based on their physical appearance and sexual appeal (Caruthers, 2006). The socially constructed myths and ideologies in modern day society implant onto woman that they are or should be concerned about their appearance. This is what influences a guy’s impression. However we all acknowledge that one should just pay enough attention to her physical beauty because inner beauty is most important.
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.
5. Using examples from the reading you have done for this course describe and discuss how the social construction of “beauty” or the “beauty myth” affects women who have been diagnosed with cancer. Throughout history a woman's value has been determined in terms of her physical appearance and ability to mirror a socially constructed idea of beauty that continues within western society. As a result, a woman's body image, feelings of sexual attractiveness, and self-esteem has been negatively influenced by society. Due to society’s creation of unrealistic images of what women are supposed to look like, many women who have lost a breast to cancer with experience a decrease in self-esteem and have other negative emotions.
‘The Beauty Myth’ is an obsession with physically looking ‘perfect’ and traps the modern woman in an endless cycle of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to achieve what society has deemed "the flawless beauty" regardless of whether it is realistic or not. Naomi Wolf censures the exploitation of women by the fashion, beauty and advertising industries, particularly in women’s magazines as we delve deeper in to the chapter on ‘Culture’. She claims that as a result of being sequestered from the world and isolated from one another, the only real women’s space in modern mass culture where women can seek solidarity is through women’s magazines. Ironically, it is through the same myth that women are brought together and driven apart. These women may not share any particularly close relationship, but develop a sense of solidarity through sharing similar interests, agenda, or worldview.
Cosmetic beauty allows you to be diverse and express yourself, it also allows you to try to test and come up with many different looks. Generally speaking one day you could change your look, and be chic and sexy, while on another day you could calm your appearance down and have a more innocent and sweet look. Confidence is the key in the cosmetic outlook. Many females feel more beautiful and nice about themselves due to the fact that they have makeup on; you could say that cosmetics help people feel more self assured about themselves. In today’s generation people are a lot more judgmental, therefore many women believe they have imperfections and flaws.
Body dissatisfaction is a major impetus for surgical enhancement. The more a woman is unhappy with her physical looks the more likely she is to get an enhancement procedure. The other body image driving force is appearance investment. Many women want to do it for themselves and or for social reasons. These women feel that appearance is important to their self worth.