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Is female perception of body image affected by the media
Gender roles in society and culture
Is female perception of body image affected by the media
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Through Thick and Thin Society is obsessed with fitness and weight loss. Ever since I was in sixth grade I have had issues with my weight and self-image. The article “Fat Is a Feminist Issue”, by Susie OrBach focuses on how our society puts this unrealistic image of what women should look like into everyone’s heads. The media and magazines urge women to conform, at any cost, into a constantly changing expectation of what is beautiful. Women are taught to look at themselves from an outside view, to be a sex image for men and fuel the diet and fashion industries. Society thinks if women do not fit within the unrealistic image something is wrong with them. The highly glorified concept of beauty marketed by the media contributes to the concern over body image that causes many women, including myself, to eating disorders and poor self-image. I could really relate to the article, like Susie Orbach wrote about, most women in our society occupy themselves with making themselves fit into a image that society, men and the media find attractive and beautiful. “The women’s body is not satisfactory as it is. It must be thin, free of “unwanted hair”, deodorized, perfumed and clothed” (Orbach, 451). Even if we don’t realize the effect of advertisement and media has on our image it still has its way of creeping into your subconscious. Flipping thru magazines I constantly think, “Geez, I wish I looked like that.” Women constantly compare themselves to others especially those in the limelight. I started this fight at age eleven to reach this glorified image the media constantly throws at our face. I was a healthy average size pre-teen but I viewed myself as HUGE and that I needed to lose weight. I turned to magazines like seventeen that are full of... ... middle of paper ... ...nd do not have to be under weight to look good. It was not always an easy ride, but it was a battle I needed to take, and I wouldn't take back my choice to fight my eating disorder. Now, I realize how beautiful I really am, and I never want to let go of that. I now realize that I do not need to be stick thin to be beautiful. Similar to what the article mentioned, not conforming to the unattainable image the media flaunts is a “rebellion against the powerlessness of the women, against the pressure to look and act in a certain way and against being evaluated on her ability to create an image herself” (Orbach, 252). I no longer strive to meet impossible standards but strive to be happy and healthy. The world needs to learn how to create it’s own image and stop giving the media so much power over their daily life’s and for women and men to respect themselves for them.
One of her points is how the media negatively affects many women’s self esteem. She talks about how in “Fashion, magazines, talk shows, ‘lite and fat free food in stores and restaurants, and diet centers and all daily reminders of these expectations [of women to have a slim body.]” She explains how fashion is moving to be more revealing, which is only flattering on the
Intro: Why do females care so much about the way they look? This growing issue is exacerbated by the influence of media. Because girls often compare themselves to celebrities and the media they feel the pressure to duplicate what they see which causes low self esteem and drastic unnecessarily changes to their bodies. I. Topic sentence: Because girls care so much about the way they look, they start to develop low self-esteem when they do not have the “perfect” body type. A. Quotation I.C.E.d
When we look into the mirror, we are constantly picking at our insecurities; our stomach, thighs, face, and our body figure. Society has hammered into our brains that there is only one right way of looking. Society disregards that there are many different shapes, sizes, and colors. Then society makes us believe that corporations can shove detrimental products to fix our imperfection. As a consequence, we blame media for putting all the negative ideas into women’s brain. It is not wrong to say that they are in part responsible, but we can’t make this issue go away until we talk about patriarchy. In the article Am I Thin Enough Yet? Hesse-Biber argues that women are constantly concerned about their looks and if they are categorized as “beautiful” by society. These ideas are encouraged by corporations that sell things for us to achieve “beautiful” but the idea is a result of patriarchy. Hesse-Biber suggests that if we want to get rid of these ideas we need to tackle patriarchy before placing all the blame on capitalism.
In conclusion, women should be comfortable in their own skin and shouldn’t feel compelled to be as thin as a model. Women need to feel appropriate and content in their own skin, and to not feel inferior to the model on TV or pasted in a magazine advertisement. We are all different and no woman is exactly the same and even the ones that seem to be picture perfect have flaws and love handles, and women need to realize that is the truth. So, by accepting one’s self for who they truly are and what they have accomplished in life is what is going to boost our self-esteem. Once the world understands this, then the media won’t have such a monumental affect on society.
For decades society has built up a pressure to have an ideal body. Women have performed a multitude of acts, from anorexia to fad diets, to acquire the expected physique among society. However, “the enthrallment with body image, previously imposed mostly on women, is now becoming a common feature in masculine practices and identification processes.” (Parasecoli 188) Both men and women still regard slimness as more important for women, yet men are being subjected, and responding to, social pressures to maintain fit, muscular bodies (Bentley 38) The media uses these pressures to target consumers to buy their products out of guilt of not having a perfect body or the desire to achieve one.
Women are bombarded by images of a thin-ideal body form that is extremely hard, if not impossible, to emulate. Comparing themselves to these women can lead to feelings of inadequacy, depression, and an overall low self-esteem. (Expand on, need a good opening paragraph to grab the reader’s attention)
In today’s society it seems as though women are forced into being something that they are not. Women see pictures in magazines and they believe to be accepted by everyone else they need to look like an air-brushed image. I believe that some of the feelings from “The Beauty Myth” are still true in today’s society, but on the other hand I believe that it should not have to be this way. I believe that women’s feeling that they have to look like something they are not are brought on by advertisements like this one and many other things.
Though there are significant shifts in representation of women, influenced by cultural differences and historical perspectives, the enormous influence of media portrayals of these ideals have always defined the trend of what women should look like. Slenderness is often praised as the “perfect body shape”. It is commonly related to the positive attribute of a healthy body, making it the “right” thing to do. Being skinny becomes what every woman pursues. However, despite the historical and cultural differences, social beliefs of “femininity” has forced women to fit in the mold of perfection, creating the sense of internal surveillance. With the desire to conform to the beauty standards, women are thus self-pressured to discipline, control and correct their bodies. This self-policing effect can be related to Foucault’s theory of panopticism. Body dissatisfactions result negative consequences on women internally and externally. It also leads to severe issues that should raise society’s concern. Furthermore, there are namely two ways suggested to minimise the negative impacts, including women should be encouraged to realise that media portrayals of ideal figures are simply photoshopped images, as well as women should be largely exposed to feminists ideas to empower inner self-confidence. However, it should not be denied that the counter effect of this normalization also helps encourage healthy livings in society. Nevertheless, “health” should not be perceived as a particular body
In this age, media is more pervasive than ever, with people constantly processing some form of entertainment, advertisement or information. In each of these outlets there exists an idealized standard of beauty, statistically shown to effect the consumer’s reflection of themselves. The common portrayal of women’s bodies in the media has shown to have a negative impact on women and girls. As the audience sees these images, an expectation is made of what is normal. This norm does not correspond to the realistic average of the audience. Failing to achieve this isolates the individual, and is particularly psychologically harmful to women. Though men are also shown to also be effected negatively by low self-esteem from the media, there remains a gap as the value of appearance is seen of greater significance to women, with a booming cosmetic industry, majority of the fashion world, and the marketing of diet products and programs specifically targeting women.
There has been a rise in cases of anorexia and poor body image and this substantial rise has been blamed on the media’s unrealistic portrayals of the “perfect” female. Girls look at these images and the only thing that runs through their heads is to wish that they can look like these models. They want beauty so badly they would be willing to do anything to achieve this idealistic representation of beauty; however, this is beauty is
...mselves at the same time. Thus, beauty and morality have become equated. For many women, weight is a quick and concrete barometer by which to measure oneself and one’s worth – how well one is doing as a woman. (Rodin et al., 1985, p.290) In this sense, a “good” girl must remain skinny and be in control of her desires, and this pressure is even worse by prejudice against fatness (Thompson et al., 1999). Though mass media should be responsible for this, individuals should also take part of their responsibility as it is not solely the problem created by the mass media. According to Focault (1977) contemporary women can control their body rationally and wisely in spite of the influence of the mass media. Women have their own choice in controlling their bodies, they slim down can be for the sake of health, not merely blindly follow the trend instilled by the mass media.
However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of being a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable perfect physical standards (Gill 2015). The media bombards the youth with gender representations and the types of bodies that are deemed to be attractive. Many teenagers all around the world are desperate to lose weight to be “beautiful”.
...y standards, further resulting in negative impacts on their self-esteem and confidence. Furthermore, this limited perspective of beauty causes women to be blinded and not realize that there is not one specific look of beautiful, but many. In a sense, women are taught to think that beautiful is being thin, having silky hair, toned legs, big breast, blemish and acne-free skin, and so on. However, in order to reach these beauty standards set by society, a woman can overwork her body in order to lose weight by dieting, or not eating to be “thin”, which also puts her health at risk and acts as an additional issue. Women who fail to reach these beauty standards set by society, may feel as though it is their fault and end up feeling even more insecure and bad about their body image, when in fact, the beauty standards were unrealistic and unattainable from the beginning.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Marilyn Monroe was iconic for the ideal ‘body perfect’ image. Ranging from a size 10 to 18, with the curvy body everyone fantasied of having. Gawking, awing, and oohing emphasized not only words affected the ‘body perfect’ image, but peoples’ actions did. When did this body image become ‘fat’? In today’s society Marilyn Monroe is consider ‘fat’, how she can go from the iconic ideal body, to an overweight ‘ugly’ woman (Blackwell, 2000). In today’s studies, the ideal ‘body perfect’ image, is ranging from a size 0 to 2, standing at 5’8 feet weighing 110-115 pounds, resembling the looks of a child’s toy called the Barbie (Dittmar 2009, 2). “In the mass media shape and weight define perfection. Women perceive themselves as being bigger than they actually are.” (Blackwell 2000, 367). Placing this as our ideal ‘body perfect’ image, is destroying young adults’ preference of what is beautiful. If you do not look this way, you are ugly, but why do we allow this. Today’s social media portray such an image, destroying a real body image of a real woman. In the past few decades, social media has overtaken what a young adult believes is the ideal ‘body perfect’ image, leaving them in despair to look that way. According to Dittmar (2009) and Sohn (2009) one’s image link negative consequences due to social media. Negative consequences range from eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, and low self-worth. Attaining these negative consequences results in the idea of maintaining an unrealistic ‘ideal body’. Social media allows young woman to believe thin is ideal, no other way (Sohn 2009, 20). Social media effects young woman in believing the ‘ideal’ body image is socially acceptable allowing one to endanger themselves. ...
Susan Bordo states in her article “Never Just Pictures”, that children grow up knowing that they can never be thin enough. They are thought that being fat is the worst thing ever. The ones responsible for this are the media, celebrities, models, and fashion designers. All of these factors play a big role on the development of the standard and how people view themselves. Everyone at one dreams about being the best they can in any aspect. But to achieve that most believe that one of the big factors is outer beauty. So people look at celebrities and fashion designers, and believe that to be accepted they have to look like them. That’s when they take drastic measures to change their appearance because they’ve been influenced by the Medias idea of “beautiful.” This feeling mostly happens in women but in recent years the gender gap has become smaller. Now men also feel the need to look good because of the media. On the TV, instead of having infomercials ...