Oppression Of Beauty Vs. Women In Media

Beauty vs. Women
Throughout history women have constantly faced social expectations of how they should look. Modern day societies are no different, in fact, within recent years there has been an increase in poor body image amongst women. The results are devastating. Younger and younger females face problems such as eating disorders, self-harm, and mental issues. This proposal will review just how influential stereotyping among characters in children’s media and objectifying women with in the beauty industry are in creating harmful and unhealthy mindsets in females.
Women have always faced exceptionally high standards when it comes to how they should look, act, think, and feel. This has historically resulted in oppression, unhealthy fashion

Throughout recent years negative body image as increased in more people at even younger ages. The repercussions of this mindset have resulted in eating disorders, obsessive behaviors, depression, self-harm, and cosmetic surgeries. In The Healthy Body Paradox, Lauren Rauscher analyzed data taken from a research based body positive program called "Girls on the Run of Los Angeles County.” In their conclusion they observed that the girls directly associated beauty with the quality of being thin, and most of the girls were not content with how they perceived their own bodies. Within the article the author believed that children’s media was the cause and wrote, “The presence of underweight characters in children's media has increased, and they are depicted as kind, happy, and successful, while representation of overweight characters has decreased, with an association of unhappiness and lack of intelligence.” “Children’s media” stresses just who the audience is, which is extremely important. Children are so easily influenced, that when they are presented with the idea that happy and beautiful people are always skinny, they grow up with that perception deeply imbedded within their belief systems. The use of the word “depicted” also signifies a fake, unreal standard. These artificial conceptions were created by authors and

Women are constantly being bombarded with messages about what beauty is or should be. This is because these advertisements were intentionally created to serve as a model for women. Industries know most women cannot live up to these expectations they are promoting, as a result women will turn towards their products in order to satisfy false standards. In Buying Beauty by Wen Hua addresses the impact Chinese beauty industry has on women and their poor self-esteem, and specifically examines how women are turning to more extreme ways to be beautiful. Wen Hua states “Filled with numerous photos of glamorous female bodies, glossy magazines have long targeted women in matters of beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. They reflect as well as create a huge interest in personal appearance, beauty and the consumer culture.” In this quote Hua uses the word “targeted” to emphasize that women are the victims, as if the women are helpless to the intentional mind games these industries play. “Targeted” also tends to suggest that women are being objectified, since the word itself is mostly used in the context of non-human objects. The word “Create” connotes a non-fiction, false, or unrealistic message. The women used to market beauty accessories are not average sized women. Beauty industries manipulate women’s desires to be happy and successful and