Media and Gender Power

The media favors one women's body type; the tall blonde with perfect, tan skin and long, beautiful hair. Because the images of women in advertisements are unattainable, it keeps them purchasing new products in their quest to be like the models they see (Moore). The actual women in these advertisements can't even match up to the image of themselves in real life. They are almost computer-generated women like in the movie Simone. Indeed, with the technology we have now, advertisers can transform a product into perfection, at the same time, misleading the consumer into seeing it as “real”, and thus permanently providing impossible standards (Ingham).

Pretty looks can only take a woman so far before she must rely on her intelligence and skills. From their apparel to their body language to their facial expressions, women are constantly being examined by the public, and moreover by men. It is a cause and effect relationship since men looking at women makes women feel like objects, which in return makes them want to become like pieces of toys for men to stare at and play with. Sanders and Cunningham make it apparent that women are much more than their appearance, and have a lot more to offer than a provocative picture or a plastic smile. However, it is up to the women to change the way they portray themselves to the world if they want to be seen in a different light.

When we see models and celebrities on commercials and in movies, we often wish that that was us in that body, because the media has made everyone so obsessed with their own bodies. The media makes young female teenagers feel guilty if they are slightly overweight. Models are beautiful, skinny, they have the right size thighs, hips, and butt. They are models but they are not role models. They are everything teenagers want to be, because of the television they watch and the magazines that they read.

Another personal problem that affects women is the objectification in the media. Sexually objectified pictures of women appear in television advertising, on the web and in newspapers. This encourages girls to think of and treat their own bodies as objects of others’ desires. Women try to improve their social position, yet sexual objectification reduces them to the status of mere tools for men’s purposes and makes them preoccupied with their appearance (Gill, 14). Women should have enough courage to

The music industry has taken a wrong turn, and it affects our new generation; music videos becoming more like pornographic trailers causing men and women to objectify each other as a sex object. According to Camille Paglia (lecturer, educator, and feminist) in “Lady Gaga and The Death of Sex,” “Hollywood discovered that sex was great box office” (2). Because sex sells, it is a market technique used by record companies to sell more record. So does sex usage really empower women? In Paglia’s article, “Madonna I: Animality and Artifice,” she claims that dominatrix (used by Madonna) empowers women, and it should be praised by all female musicians (89).

The song “Sexy Bitch” by Akon supports the idea that women are seen as sexual objects of men. “Im trying to find the words to describe this girl without being direspectful” shows how being called a “Sexy Bitch” is positively influenced. Although advertisements may be seen as harmless, one ought to recognize that the media has a large impact on a woman’s self esteem. Marketers use flawless models in their advertisements in order to attract women and induce marketing comsumption of their product. As women try to achieve their unrealistic body frame, women turn to extreme dieting, and eating disorders to achieve their goal.

This causes both men and women to have completely warped notions of an ideal woman. These pervasive images prey on women’s insecurities about their body image and forces them to scrutinize each body part separately to achieve an unattainable goal of perfection. Women come in all shapes and sizes but you’d never know it from looking at these ads. Women have always been measured by cultural ideals of beauty and advertising exploits and reinforces stereotypes of women as sex objects. Although this ad targets insecure women from their teens all the way up to their 30’s, it also affects women and men of all ages.

On the other hand, men, the targeted audience, are in a position of power and dominance where they can choose to own women. The ad is again suggesting inaccurate standards of beauty for men and women. It suggests females should spend their time, money and energy to decorate their appearance to attract men, whereas males should be well off enough to afford a luxury perfume to have sex with women. However, the model’s body on the ad above is edited hundred of times to create skinnier legs, flatter abdomen, shinier skin, and bigger breasts. Magazines are creating an impossibly perfect looking body that pressures girls to starve themselves to become thinner.

The media uses women to bring attention to it, using them as sexual objects, meaning that people will not longer see them as human beings but as objects. Women as sexual objects are usually young, posing passively, often dumb and beautiful. This happens a lot in media when the target is men, looking to satisfy and exploit men’s sexual desires. According to Julia T. Wood “the irony of this representation is that the very qualities women are encourage to develop in order to meet cultural ideal of femininity contribute to their victimization” (p.36). When the media represents women like this, they impact the whole women gender in the real world.

Advertisements are everywhere, found on televisions, buses, on the sides of buildings, on the Internet and in the magazines we read. Mass media affects each member of society even when they don’t realize it. Its reach is vast and its message seeps into the very fibers that are woven together to create a culture of misperceptions, mostly about women. While the media attempt to target every individual, the level of publicity is dictated by gender, and the majority of harmful messages are focused more on women. Women are often illustrated as inferior and “appear in poses that are more “canted”, more exaggerated and grotesque, more off-balance and tentative than tho... ... middle of paper ... ..., independent women, it just so happens that a sexually attractive women is socially accepted and any woman not falling in that category is not seen favorably.