Jill Stark’s opinion article, appearing in The Age 19th Jan 2008, outlines in a concerned and direct fashion, that most stereotypes seen in glossy magazines have a negative and dangerous impact. She contends that there is a growing trend for woman to produce magazines, promoting healthy and realistic figures, empowering the female. The headline ‘Sick of impossible princesses, real girls fight back’, indicates to readers how fed up the author is with these unrealistic stereotypes. Stark informs the reader that the traditional content of glossy magazines, with “extreme dieting tips and air-brushed waifs in micro bikinis”, is being questioned by ‘real girls’ who are “fed up with images of emaciated models and a celebrity culture pushing them to be thin, sexy and silent.”. Confronted with these images, the reader is encouraged to sympathise with the author’s contention.
Everyone perceives beauty in different ways, shapes, and forms. Obesity and overeating in women can be linked to sex/gender roles as well as societies expectations on what the ideal woman should be or look like. The essay entitled Fat is a Feminist Issue by author and therapist Susie Orbach; touches on an issue that many women have problems dealing with today that can be linked to a direct effect from society. Hence obesity and overeating, which is believed to be a social disease, according to Orbach. She believes that being overweight was indeed a feminist issue.
“ There is even an underlying element of self-hatred here, as individuals try to deal with their problems by doing violence to themselves.” A hole through the skin or a tattoo cannot erase the grief behind it, increase creativity, or redefine self-identity. Moreover, extreme body modification is considered obnoxious within the society. People tend to become uncomfortable around someone who has unappealing piercing all over their face or body. They are considered extremely censored and because of this “The US Navy has banned ‘tattoos/body art that are excessive, obscene, sexually explicit or symbolize discrimination.” Body piercing expresses the crisis of social identity but extreme body modification can also be harmful to oneself. People push themselves to do more and more of body modification because they believe that it is a symbol of self- respect for other people to notice.
She does this in order to show how the obsession that the girlchild has with her own body was one of the largest factors in the suicide. Another one of the stereotypes that Piercy draws upon is their behavior. Piercy describes how the girlchild was told to “play coy.” This describes the societal pressure of what is stereotypically “lady-like.” She was “advised” to act as other ladies would act, and she tried to the furthest extent she could manage. She attempted to act demure and sweet, which was the only thing society allowed for. The term
Most women these days would do anything to look pretty and attract the opposite sex. This story gives us the importance of body image to women and they get judged about it. Amber the “finger throated sickness one”. She gets teased because of her anorexic appearance. This is a mental illness common to the young woman.
“It is not enough to say that women are being sold a lie by advertising, magazines and cinema” (Page 30-31) This is probably the most painfully obvious reason as to why women in today’s society strive themselves on looing like something that horrifically opposite to them. This contributes greatly on their health and lifestyle. Women go through so much effort to change themselves. For example: Botox, facelifts, pretty much anything that to them, they would think ‘enhances’ their appearance. On another note, it is very rarely would you see an Australian woman go to the extreme to idolize a particular celebrity and clone their appearance and lifestyle.
In her view, a backlash against girls is taking place, led by scholars and authors who are sometimes critical of Gilligan's research methods and conclusions. "At a point when people have started to look at girls and see their strength, suddenly this comes up," she has said. By "this," Gilligan means the explosion of "mean girl" books and movies, portraying girls as equally as—if not more—aggressive than boys, in their own conniving and manipulative way. "I don't know if I'd call it a backlash," says Marnina Gonick, Penn State education and women's studies professor, "but I would agree that the mean girl idea is troubling. I'm especially critical of the way these problematic relationships between girls are represented in the media."
Strengths of this study would include the large number of participants over various countries therefore a socio-cultural strength and more in depth data is produced. Another strength is the ability to access existing conditions or phenomena ethically. A weakness of this study would be using a self scale is unreliable as the participants might have a different approach on how intense the level of disgust is on the scale. Another weakness could be that there could be participants who have not taken the online survey seriously therefore altering the results. These results showed that because people find the pictures that harm our immune system more disgusting , we use the disgust gene as a protection against disease.
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
Teens tend to turn to the most popular celebrities for guidance in their day-to-day lives. Celebrities are not only envied by our society but their images are splashed across magazines, social media, television and movies thus it is natural for teens to use them as role models (Pejakovic.www.selfgrowth.com/ 2015,PP1-2) . This essay will argue that there are many serious impacts of celebrity youth icons on youth identified in the world today therefore it is very important for the society to address these challenges. To begin with, this essay will identify celebrity role on youth culture. Moving on, this essay will discuss the effects of celebrity youth icons on youth in the world today.