It happened suddenly, surprisingly and overnight. One day I was a child and the next I was a sex object. Catching everyone from friends to teachers, parents to siblings off guard I had grown into a women and to some, a piece of female specimen that welcomed sexual advances, harassment and jokes. The one thing that has defined my womanhood more then anything else has been my breasts. I was thrown, unarmed into this situation at the tender age of 13, since then my views have changed. At 13 I viewed my buxomest body as a toy, an advantage, but after 5 years of being viewed as a sex object my views have changed. Changing my views ever further was reading Chapter 9 in Julia Woods Gendered Lives, this chapter dealt with the stereotypical roles of both sexes. One female role that applied directly to me was the sex object stereotype. Even after 5 years of continuous harassment I feel empowered and proud of my sexuality, I love my body, including my breasts. Wood described a sex object as something that was wrong, something that shouldn’t be a part of our society. Wood inadvertently made me feel like I was harming other women by embracing my sexuality. Wrong, I say, society has made me a sex object and I will do everything I can to make society deal with what they have created.
I have always believed that my body was something to be proud of, something that I have treasured and praised throughout my life. For the first 6 months of my womanhood I felt I had been blessed. But, over the years I endured example after example that showed me there was something very, very wrong with the way society deals with sexuality. I did not see anything wrong when I was on an airplane with classmates and found them staring at my breasts. When I asked them what they were doing they simply replied, “waiting for turbulence.” That was funny, then. A couple months later I heard boys in the back row of my science class talking vulgarly about my body, naturally, I was upset, but chalked it up to immaturity and went on with my life. My freshman year of high school was the worst, so far. I didn’t feel like I could run in P.E. because the wrestlers, whom were all upperclassman would stand at the wall and yell elicit lines to me.
Today in modern society, we are driven by social forces. The media plays such a pivotal role in what we buy, eat, wear, etc. that we are conditioning ourselves to fit the mold for the “perfect” or “ideal” body type. This social construct has been a pressing issue for many years regarding the negative effects it has had on the female physique, but not as much has been said on behalf of men. What negative effects do the media have on male body image? When confronted with appearance based advertisements, men are more likely to experience both physical insecurities and emotional issues related to body image. This paper will address these facets of the media’s negative
Travis, Cheryl Brown, Kayce L. Meginnis, and Kristin M. Bardari. "Beauty, Sexuality, and Identity: The Social Control of Women." Sexuality, Society, and Feminism. Ed. Cheryl Brown Travis and Jacquelyn W. White. Washington: American Psychological Association, 2000.
A single moment, a single movement, a single protest against the system is the first step to finding change. For every parent that says “leave my child intact”, it would be one day closer to a time when it will be socially appalling to cosmetically alter an infant child who is incapable of consent or comprehension. The fluidity, complexity, and ambiguity of human sexuality extends far beyond sexual preference and onward into gender and sex. Accepting that some things will never fit within a textbook definition, and celebrating difference rather than condemning it, would fulfil the dream of many minds such as Fausto-Sterling and Butler as well as the author. Only time and individuals that dare to reject the flawed system can ease the binds of ignorance that tie society so tightly to an outdated Victorian mindset of sex and gender.
Even though our country supports equality in gender, differences still exist. This issue of gender and sexuality of our society has had one of the biggest impacts in my life since I was raised with five brothers. Since birth, I was immediately perceived by my parents as my gender role of girl and daughter. My brothers were given action figures, cars, and guns to play with. I was given the traditional girl toys Barbies, baby dolls and kitchen sets. Of course, I enjoyed my traditional girl toys but it might have been nice to have a choice and be able to have the same toys as my brothers to play with. I eventually concluded that I should be satisfied with whatever toys were given to me by my parents.
I always sensed that I was not a “girl’ and would partake activities such as sports and distancing myself from drama that is considered “girly”. I also have a niche for masculine things such as clothing and play video games, which are marketed profusely towards boys and men. At the same time, I did not feel like a “boy”. I was, during my early childhood, elementary, and pre-teen years labeling my as an “outsider” due to the perception of myself not fitting in. I went on to take on my persona as this “tomboy” while still having a distinctive identity that was not matching with the beliefs of how transgender people were in the
There is so much controversy in the society that we live in, it has resulted in an absolute mess. Certain topics as in gender or men and women’s bodies, is so controversial to the point that it has caused a misrepresentation of both men and women. Both Jean Kilbourne and Allan G. Johnson form their own opinions in their articles “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt” and “Why Do We Make So Much of Gender” that comment on society as a whole, while expanding on the concept of why gender is so important for a fully functioning society. Although, both Kilbourne and Johnson have differentiating opinions to gender, they both come to the conclusion that gender is a key factor to explain our society and the social change in it. We live in a society where
Gender role conflicts constantly place a role in our everyday life. For many years we have been living in a society where depending on our sexuality, we are judged and expected to behave and act certain way to fulfill the society’s gender stereotypes. The day we are born we are labeled as either a girl or boy and society identifies kids by what color they wear, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Frequently, we heard the nurses in the Maternity facility saying things like, “Oh is a strong boy or is beautiful fragile princess.” Yet, not only in hospitals we heard this types of comments but we also see it on the media…
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In our society today, people would rather see what celebrities are up to than what is going on with our health plan. Watching the news makes us aware of the latest trend, new gadget, who’s in rehab, or who has an eating disorder. In the eyes of society, women like Eva Longoria, Kim Kardashian, and Megan Fox are the epitome of perfection. What girl wouldn’t want to look like them? Unfortunately, this includes most of the girls in the US. Through TV shows, commercials, magazines or any form of advertising, the media enforces a certain body type which women emulate. The media has created a puissant social system where everyone must obtain a thin waist and large breasts. As a society, we are so image obsessed with the approval of being thin and disapproval of being overweight, that it is affecting the health of most women. Women much rather try to fit the social acceptance of being thin by focusing on unrealistic body images which causes them to have lower self esteem and are more likely to fall prey to eating disorders, The media has a dangerous influence on the women’s health in the United States.
Did I really wear bathing suits, at the beach? I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs and back were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but
Fresh from the womb we enter the world as tiny, blank slates with an eagerness to learn and blossom. Oblivious to the dark influences of culture, pre-adult life is filled with a misconception about freedom of choice. The most primitive and predominant concept that suppresses this idea of free choice involve sex and gender; specifically, the correlation between internal and external sex anatomy with gender identity. Meaning, those with male organs possess masculine identities, which involve personality traits, behavior, etcetera, and the opposite for females. Manipulating individuals to adopt and conform to gender identities, and those respective roles, has a damaging, life-long, effect on their development and reflection of self through prolonged suppression. This essay will attempt to exploit the problems associated with forced gender conformity through an exploration of personal experiences.
In this day and age, hundreds or thousands of women and men are having an ongoing battling against themselves to meet up to society 's standards on body image. Every day people are sacrificing their bodies to strive for the "perfect" figure that would make them feel like they belong in our society. Because of society 's pressure, it has given men and women the immense amount of pressure to achieve these unrealistic goals. Needless to say, women and men are grappling with their inner demons to reach their goal of having the ideal body. In today 's society, men and women both struggle with body issues by the profound impact of social media and a lack of self acceptance; however, it appears that men are struggling more due to having to shield
The human body is one of the most complex and yet beautiful things on the earth. We live in a time where our perception of the way we view the body is driven my social stereotypes. In todays world we are supposed to live by the standards of this unwritten code. All of this affects the quality of life we live in. It ranges from the workplace; our personal relationships to the way strangers perceive a person. At this very day in age we are categorized due to being born male or female and things that should be talked about are considered taboo to others.
I was criticized for minor things like getting my clothes dirty or refusing to stay still to get my hair done. These comments grew more and more frustrating as I got older and eventually became far more critical with references to how I played, the clothes I chose to wear, and even being told I was too loud and that my interests weren’t normal. When me and my grandmother went to visit other family member’s I would always be asked questions that seemed entirely inappropriate to me as a small child like whether or not I had a crush or a boyfriend but I noticed no one ever asked my male cousins these questions as though their value wasn’t based solely on their ability to attract the opposite sex. My disinterest in things like hair and make-up led to me falling behind my peers when it came to matters of appearance. While other girls were discussing their extensive morning routines I was showering and shoving my unruly hair up into a ponytail. This also meant that I was falling behind when it came to personal relationships as my female friends were discovering boys, boys were treating me like an anomaly. I was consistently asked if I was a lesbian
Some of the most controversial issues in society have historically revolved around matters relating to gender and sexuality. As gender plays an integral part in how we function in society, we quickly learn what is expected of us through our gender roles at a young age and our sexual scripts as we get older. We are expected to conform to our respective gender roles of femininity or masculinity depending on the sex we were assigned at birth. We learn that certain characteristics and expressions are attributed to each gender but are never taught that gender is fluid but instead it is binary. We also become subjected to assumptions of our sexual desires and attraction based on our sex and our gender and are expected not to deviate from it. We become