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“A Woman’s Place”
In 2013, the American woman can vote, be the CEO of a business, start her own company, and wear pants. Many would say that a woman has the exact same rights as a man in today’s society- and is treated the same as well. However, in addition to glaring economical evidence provided through data stating that women still earn 77 cents to every man’s dollar (Basset, HuffingtonPost.com), we find that women are still entrapped socially- by sexualisation and objectification of them. Sexualising and objectifying women in advertisements leads to the de-humanisation of them.
From a young age, women are taught that to be successful and happy they must reach a certain standard of beauty first. Rather than grow up thinking that the most important asset a woman can have is her self, young girls are taught through advertisements that their value rests on their appearance. This is an immense social issue. Today being a successful woman means wearing a sexy outfit that shows just the right amount of cleavage and curve. It means turning heads everywhere she goes- men looking after her in lust, women looking after her in envy. A successful woman is desirable and beautiful, confident and sultry. Her worth comes from her ability to gain men’s attention. If she is not servicing men by being physically pleasing to the eye, she is of no use. This is a dangerous mentality that is thriving in the United States, and unfortunately growing throughout the world. Just last month one of India’s senior policemen and leader of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Ranjit Sinha, compared rape to unlicensed betting, stating, “it is very easy to say that if you can’t enforce it, it’s like saying if you can’t prevent rape, you [should] enjoy it” (B...
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Huffington Post [Doutzen Kroes: Even I’m Not A Sample Size In Real Life] 09 09 2013, n.page. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Goudrea, Jenna. “The Hidden Dangers Of Cosmetic Surgery.” Forbes. 16 06 2011: n. page. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Sanders, Erica Lauren. “The Influence of Media Marketing on Adolescent Girls.” Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences. 2. (2002-2013): n. page. Web. 30 Nov. 2013
Peter, Jochen, and Patti Valkenburg. "Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects." Sex Roles 56.5/6 (2007): 381-395. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.Vaes, Jeroen, Paola Paladino, and Elisa Puvia.
"Are Sexualized Women Complete Human Beings? Why Men and Women Dehumanize Sexually Objectified Women." European Journal Of Social Psychology 41.6 (2011): 774-785. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.
Web. The Web. The Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Bartlett, Bruce.
Nordqvist, Christian. “What is Cosmetic Surgery? What is Plastic Surgery?” Medical News Today. 30 June 2009. Web. 13 March 2014.
The Web. The Web. 22 March 2014. Lizza, Ryan. The.
Signorelli, Ph.D., Nancy. A CONTENT ANALYSIS: Reflections of Girls in the Media A Study of Television Shows and Commercials, Movies, Music Videos, and Teen Magazine Articles and Ads. Kaiser Family Foundation and Children Now, Apr. 1997. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously over the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between the 1900’s and 1920’s, did the roles of women change dramatically here in the United States.
Paddock , C. (2007). Sexualization of girls in the media is harmful. Medical News Today, Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/63514.php
Web. The Web. The Web. 07 Mar 2012. Rosenberg, Jennifer.
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
...ers, Kim. Sexual Teens, Sexual Media: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexuality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
Brown, J. D., Steele, J. R., & Walsh-Childers, K. (2002). SEXUAL TEENS, SEXUAL MEDIA: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexuality. New Jersey: LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS.
Web. The Web. The Web. 14 Feb, 2014. Jerpi, Laura.
Catharine MacKinnon, an American scholar, teacher and lawyer describes sexual harassment as an “explosive combining of unacceptable sexual behaviour and the abuse of power.” It is not a new phenomenon that the women in the backward regions of the country are perpetually, even post six decades of having been granted these rights are trying to cope up with personal attacks on their bodies, minds, dignity and integrity. Prior to 1997, a complaint for criminal assault of women to outrage her modesty could only be filed under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 509 which punishes individuals for using a word, gesture or act which is intended to insult the modesty of a woman. Despite these provisions The change in Indian law was brought about by the brutal gang rape at her workplace of a Rajasthan State government employee, Bhanwari Devi, who tried to prevent a child marriage which was a part of the responsibility of her job in the Women Development Programme. She was raped by the landlords of the community who felt that she was just a “lowly woman” from a poor community and wanted to punish her for her guts to stand up against them.
The Web. The Web. 23 Jan. 2014. Cassidy, John. The.
Pornography degrades the moral values of a society. With increased pornography in the contemporary society, sex is no longer a sacred act shared between two people who love each other. Sex has been abused by many people, while there has been an increase in promiscuity (Sabo 150). In addition, the perceptions that people have about sex and women has changed. Women are seen as objects or instruments of sexual satisfaction. They are no longer respected while men expect sexual gratification from acts that can even be termed as beastly. The effects are far reaching as young people as young as 12 years have been fed with the same perception (Peter and Valkenburg 179).
One of the most prominent and detrimental forms of sexual objectification is in pornography, where it defines a woman’s role as a sexual object for men to use freely (Insert Plato Citation). It was concluded that 88% of the scenes on porn contain acts of physical aggression, which can overexpose men into thinking that this sort of aggression is normal and raise their tolerance of violence (Insert PornStats Citation). It can further warp the minds of the watchers into thinking that this is what relationships and sex are truly like, when in reality many women are forced into the industry or are overly intoxicated to keep the entire experience feeling numb (Insert ThePinkCross Citation). Pornography also touches in on an even darker subject of pedophilia, or the paraphilia involving sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Pedophilia is mostly found in males, who are also the sex that is 543% more likely to watch pornography (Insert PornStats Citation). Television shows and movies exhibit men of all shapes, sizes, and ages married or dating women of one body type, which is usually young and slender. The combination of the media and pornography feeding into the desires for young, petite girls by exposing them in an explicit way leads to the statistic that one in five men are capable of being sexually aroused by children, to some degree, though they may never act on those feelings (Insert TheGuardian Citation). On the other hand, it is still likely to see people telling young girls to not dress in a revealing manner. In the way society uses this, it is almost an oxymoron. The media is telling girls to look a certain way and when they do they are shamed for it. It should be left at if a girl is too young to be wearing ‘that short of...