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Social medias effect on body image
Sexism in sport
Sexism in sport
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Sexualization in Sports The sexualization of girls is a growing and alarming trend in today’s society. The report we read brought up solid points and I feel the biggest factor is not media but parents. With parents today being much more open and accepting of their child’s choices in wardrobes, leisure activities and role models, it provides room for younger immature girls to mimic older mature women. The article brought up an example of a direct contribution such as entering young children into beauty pageants and even plastic surgery, but the process start much earlier (Zurbriggen, Collins, Lamb, Roberts, Tolman, Ward & Blake, 2010). The growing number of young parents and the multitude of easily accessible media mediums, mainly social media, provide influence that was once left to family and neighboring surroundings. We are in an instant sharing environment where people are now using social media as excuses for impromptu photo-shoots. From the time of birth children are photographed for the sake of social media and it is not limited to young girls. Young two and three month old little children are dressed in 1920’s “flapper girl” outfits, and what was once cute and maybe inappropriate photos reserved for private family albums are now stream instantly over the web for millions to see. Parents are buying “too sexy” diapers and onesie outfits for babies. Children are exposed early to the gender roles their parents want them to play and in many cases the instances are very mature for their age. As the young children grow older the resources and material they have access to also expand. A 12 year old girl with an Ipad and smartphone has the same access to the material a 35 year old woman has unless the parents have placed restric... ... middle of paper ... ...ed-sports-2013-brandspeak/ Estaban. (2013, December 3). The %0 most goodled female athletes of 2013. Retrieved from http://www.totalprosports.com/2013/12/30/the-50-most-googled-female-athletes-of-2013/ McBride, K. (2011, December 22). Letter of intent. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/espn/story /_/id/7379853/espn-tries-solve-equation-women-sports-fans Stephey, M. J. (2009, May 21). Sex sells. here's why we buy. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1900032,00.html Zurbriggen, E. L., Collins, R. L., Lamb, S., Roberts, T., Tolman, D. L., Ward, L. M., & Blake, J. (2013). Report of the apa task force on the sexualization of girls. Retrieved from American Psychological Association, website: https://elearningpilot.utdallas.edu/ bbcswebdav/pid-422437-dt-content-rid-2965627_1/courses/2142-UTDAL-PSY-4346-SEC001-21123/report-full.pdf
Female beauty ideals are an overwhelming force in teen media. Approximately 37% of articles in leading magazines for teen girls emphasize a focus on physical appearance. This is none to surprising considering two of the top contenders in this media genre are Seventeen and Teen Vogue. CosmoGIRL and Elle Girl were among the ranks of popular teen magazines, but in recent years have become exclusively online publications. Add in a dash of publications Tiger Beat and Bop, and it becomes glaringly obvious that girls are charged with the prime directive of looking good to get the guy. The story becomes more disturbing when the actual audience, which includes girls at least as young as eleven years old, is considered. In a stage when girls are trying for the first time to establish their identities, top selling publications are telling them that their exteriors should be their primary concern of focus. Of course, this trend doesn’t stop with magazines. A study conducted in 1996 found a direct correlation between the “amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos” a...
Deborah Tolman author of “Dilemmas of Desire” dwells on uncovering a wealth of feelings about sexuality from teenage girls who are faced with a lot of struggles in developing sexual identity and detached from their sexuality. One of her main argument is centered on the juxtaposition of media representations of girls as highly sexualized objects. For instance, “the urban girl is viewed as the overly sexual young jezebel. Latinas are often eroticized as exotic, sexually alluring and available.” (Tolman, pg.170). I agree with this statement due to simple fact that we are living in a highly sexualized cultural milieu and evidence of sexualization is seen through mainstream culture. Images such as Sarah Bartman depict African American/ urban portrayal of sexual imagery formed socio-historical
Durham, Meenakshi Gigi. The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do about It. Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2008. Print.
Sexualization of women is taught to the public from an early age through the media. This is not a new phenomena, however. As Roberts and Zurbriggen (2012) address, the problem exponentially compounds over time, as evolving mass communication technology creates more opportunities for the press to teach sexualization. New technology is not entirely negative though, as it allows the public to more easily engage in discussions regarding the expression of
Women begin to be sexualized at a young age and through time this sexualization has been met with a mix of controversy and empowerment. One must understand what sexualization is to see how it can be seen with such contrasting ideas. Thomas G. Fiffer of the Good Men Project describes sexualization as a person being sexually objectified by others basing the individuals worth based on their sexual appeal. Furthermore, the hyper sexualization of women is a learned idea. For example in sports, the commentary of female athletes is not on their athletic abilities or accomplishments but rather objectification (3). In contrast, sexualization is sometimes seen as empowerment; an outlet for women to reclaim their sexuality. Dr. Durham, author of The Lolita
The media is a fascinating tool; it can deliver entertainment, self-help, intellectual knowledge, information, and a variety of other positive influences; however, despite its advances for the good of our society is has a particular blemish in its physique that targets young women. This blemish is seen in the unrealistic body images that it presents, and the inconsiderate method of delivery that forces its audience into interest and attendance. Women are bombarded with messages from every media source to change their bodies, buy specific products and redefine their opinion of beauty to the point where it becomes not only a psychological disease, but a physical one as well.
Our media continues to flood the marketplace with advertisements portraying our young teens much older than their age. Woman’s body images have been the focus of advertising for generations. However, now the focus is more directed to the younger teenage girls instead of woman. Young girls are often displayed provocatively while eating messy triple decker hamburgers, or sipping a diet sodas on an oversized motorcycles. As a result, young teens are dressing older than their age, trying to compete with this ideal media image.
A longitudinal study was conducted on this trend called “Changes in Sport and Physical Activity Participated for Adolescent Females” by Rochelle M Eime et., it concluded, “There was a clear trend over time of decreases in competitive sport, and more specifically club sports participation” (2). Also, that “Female adolescents are consistently reported as being less physically active than their male peers” (5). These statements prove that girls are losing interest in sports as they age, but why are they losing interest? They lose interest in competitive sports for many reasons and they vary between each girl. Hanes claims the reason is a result of sexualized sports media by explaining, “Star female athletes regularly pose naked or semi-naked for men’s magazines; girls see cheerleaders (with increasingly sexualized routines) on TV far more than female basketball players or other athletes” (511). This is why young girls struggle with enjoying sports as they age, they are continuously told their bodies aren’t good or sexy enough. Girls at this point are already struggling with their body image, so when a role model for their sport of choice is looking sexy and perfect in a magazine it makes them question whether or not they should look like that too. This is a result of young girls constantly comparing themselves to those they look up
...3, November/December). Women in sport: backlash or megatrend? The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 64(9), 49-52.
Over the years the perception of women in sport has changed considerably. In this course we have viewed several films all dealing with the depiction of female athletes in an attempt to gauge society's current perception of women in sport. I will briefly summarize each film and the main themes of the films before providing a description of the female athlete which I will infer from commonalities between the films.
“ The media needs to take responsibility for the effect it has on our younger generation....why aren’t we regulating things like calling people fat”(Lawrence). The actress Jennifer Lawrence expressed her opinion in what she believes that the media is responsible for the damaging body image that has affected the younger generation into believing this image is ideal. Considering this quote, recently there have been more .The negative body image in female adolescents has been affected by the influence of impossible body types in the media such as the doll “Barbie” and characters in popular children shows.
Imagine you are at home, watching tv. Flipping through the channels, you see a preview for next week’s episode of Toddlers & Tiara’s. They show the girls dressed in frilly, sparkly attire, fake teeth, fake hair, fake tans, and makeup that could transform their faces into someone in their 20’s. These children are usually misbehaving, disobedient, overdramatic and they are between the ages of four and six. Any person could see that this lifestyle is incredibly harmful to these children not just because of what it does to their appearance, but what happens when these little girls’ minds become tainted with the thoughts of needing to be beautiful and talented in order for people to like them. They also learn that being beautiful means doing whatever it takes to make yourself look perfect, even if it means that everything about you is fake. At the same time, when these little girls are dressing up for these shows, they are being put in outfits that could be worn by strippers. This draws attention to sex offenders and pedophiles, which could potentially end up in something tragic. Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, says, "We do know that predators or paedophiles continually tend to justify their interest in children by saying children are sexual beings. That children are now given a channel to become little Lolitas, to be portrayed as older, to almost become mini adults – these are all trends that give legitimacy to that kind of thinking." In the end, children’s beauty pageants are essentially harmful to both young girls safety and minds.
For many years gender inequality in sports was still present, even after the women's right movement, Title IX was passed in 1972 (Sandys, 2007). Title IX banned sex discrimination in any education program that is federally financed. This was supposed to correct the imbalance of treatment between the sexes of college students. Since the passing of the federal gender-equality law, universities started to offer a chance for many of women to participate, that was not previously offered before (Adams & Tuggle, 2004). Now that more women have jumped into the sports arena, many institutions are giving the appearance of offering more sports to females (Hardin & Shain, 2005). Equal opportunity for women in sports would provide better psychological and sociological development that would derive from the impact of sports participation.
Social media is a daily part of most today, which has started a trend of constant oversharing of one’s emotions and lives. Although one may not see this as an issue, since it is one’s decision whether they share private aspects of their lives, the problem arises when children are involved. Parents who overshare on social media tend to depict details of their children’s lives, which shapes their identities and shares details they may not have wanted to be shared.
According to K. Nola Mokeyane, a professional writer who wants to pursue graduate studies in social work, “It's no secret that media has had an increasingly negative impact on the way teenage girls measure their personal image and beauty standards”. Social media such as Instagram, are mainly based on pictures of oneself and others. According to Joan Stern, an ABC news technology editor, there are about 150 million users on Instagram, this social app that is mainly based on followers, comments and likes on a picture. Instagram allows people to share their every moment through pictures and small captions, its like an ongoing documentary of ones life. This social app allows one to share and manipulate their photo through ‘filters’. This would give the impression that each and every user on instagram is judged based on their pictu...