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The effect of media on women self image
Social effects on body image
The effect of media on self image of women
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It’s an argument we’ve all heard before and there are more than a few books that have tackled the subject. But what’s different from even the last three years is just how widespread the media has become. Today’s teens spend an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes absorbing media in just one day, which includes the amount of time spent watching TV, listening to music, watching movies, reading magazines and using the internet. This is a generation that’s been raised watching reality TV – observing bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover; faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. They are, as Tina Fey puts it, bombarded by "a laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful.”
Everyone always want or desire for something in this world. And to get their want they must somehow bargain for it; whether it was begging or persuading, they are still considered rhetorical techniques. In the story “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines talks about how society setted a certain standard of what a woman's body should look like, and it practically destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem. Haines further explains that pictures and advertisement on tv and magazines are teaching young girls that they need to look like the models in the picture. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are, right in the beginning.
Girls are beginning to see a deep gender bias from very young ages. The media perpetuates this bias by editing women to be inhumanly perfect. Advertising is set around people’s insecurities. This is giving girls the idea that the only thing that matters about them is the way they look and how men perceive them. Women are said to spend more money on beauty than they do on their own education (Netflix).
(Pigott, 2). Likewise, Catherine altered her body size to meet their gender expectations and various cultural beauty standards. By applying the gender lens to this, we can better understand how gender expectations and cultural beauty standards intersect to shape women’s experiences of their body. It emphasizes how cultural beauty standards can have a significant impact on women's body image, self-esteem, and confidence. Women often feel the pressure to comply with the cultural ideal of beauty, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy, and shame if they do not fit the mold.
Most girls, if not all girls, have gone through one particular phase in life: finding self-confidence. Despite the fact they may say or act otherwise, most girls have gone through a phase where they feel uncomfortable in their own skin. I would like to say that I am comfortable in my own skin and come across that way (I also eat a lot), but I am just like any other girl and have gone through the phase myself (and when boys call me cute, I tend to turn into a strawberry and deny it vehemently). Over the centuries, American focus has shifted from judging a girl based on her personality to judging a girl based on her body image and sexuality, and in The Body Project, Joan Jacobs Brumberg goes into detail about how the United States have shifted in their views of girls’ bodies.
The ideal of a women magazine model are full of photos with women who are typically white and very thin. Many women will agree that they may feel pressured to dress or look a certain way because of the way the models look. The media can make women feel insecure about themselves and have low self-esteem. The messages in the media says that women will always need to make an adjustment to fit the “ideal” look. Since, the media portrays such images and make women feel like beauty is important women need to make sure they love themselves.
For many years, women have been expected to meet the unrealistic beauty standards of society, making women face harsh criticism from friends, family, and even themselves. I remember moments when criticism from everyone around me made me very self-conscious about myself. From refusing to wear makeup or girly outfits to obsessing over my overall weight and body shape, I myself am a victim of cruel and heartless judgement just like the girl from Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" was. In the first stanza of "Barbie Doll", one line says, "Then in the magic of puberty".
In general, from 1884 to the 1920s women worked so hard to achieve women 's rights. Women have always been looked down upon by different groups within society. From the early times women have been viewed as weak figures. As recently as the early 1900’s women were unable to work in professional fields such as business and medicine. This resulted in women being unable to advance financially in society and being dependent on their husbands.
Beauty company Dove, performed a study among three thousand two hundred women in ten different countries. They determined that 68% of the women surveyed strongly agreed with the phrase “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” One of the driving factors of why women cannot achieve what the media portrays as ideal beauty is because of Photoshop. Those that retouch photographs often use Photoshop to erase blemishes and wrinkles, slim thighs to be stick-thin, mold the body into an hourglass shape, and blend skin for a silky, smooth complexion. The majority of models are portrayed as perfect Barbie dolls.
The United States’ term of beauty is very similar to the World State’s term. Staying young and beautiful is the goal in modern society and Brave New World’s society. The media portrays beauty as superficial. People believe if they do not look like the model they see on televisions or magazines, they must make themselves look like that person. “You will never look like the girl in the magazine.
The majority of the problem comes from our images of personal attractiveness that are influenced by T.V. commercials and magazine advertisements. I, myself have been judged by my appearance because I think make- up does not create beauty. There is more to a human being instead of worrying about the minor details of your appearance, focusing too much on acquiring beauty can have negative consequences. In the essay, “The Ugly Truth about Beauty,” Barry talks about when men ask women the dreaded question that no man wants to hear.
The picture of an attractive female with the slogan ‘ Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.’ It’s up to the consumer to figure out what the answer is by buying the make up. In the 21st century, the trend has tilted towards market fragmentation where each consumer is placed into a designated niche and the elements of each advertisement appeals to the stereotypical characteristics of that niche group. Advertising agencies need to control public behaviour in order to ensure that supply constantly outstrips demand. The problem is that by having the monopoly on the control over public behaviour, it promotes the fundamentally unjust status quo.
Your decisions to comply with society’s view of “beauty” are no longer subconscious, but rather are more conscious-driven decisions. Barbie’s slender figure remains idolized; however, it has evolved from a plastic doll to a self-starving model that is photo-shopped on the pages of glossy magazines. You spend hours in front of a mirror adjusting and perfecting your robotic look while demanding your parents to spend an endless amount of money on cosmetics and harmful skin products to acquire a temporary version of beauty. Consider companies such as Maybelline, which have throughout the ages created problematic and infantilizing campaigns and products for women. More specifically consider the “Baby Lips” product as well as the company slogan, “maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline,” that reiterates the male notions of beauty to which women are subjected.
In 1998, people did not realize what they were doing to girl’s confidence and ability to feel beautiful in their own skin. They were showing the world what women could now look like through photo shop. For many years this trend continued, fortunately, in the year 2015 everything changed for the
Meaghan Ramsey's TED Talk "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you" is a powerful speech about low body confidence. Ramsey talks about how society's pressure to be perfect is one of the main reason for young girls' (and boys') low body confidence and how these feelings of low esteem can impact their lives and futures. I chose to analyze this speech because I have experienced low body confidence and I have felt those feelings of low self-esteem. In Meaghan Ramsey's speech "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you", she discusses how low body confidence is undermining academic achievement, damaging health, and limiting the economic potential of today's youth who are growing up in a world of social media. Ramsey has a strong start to her speech, using a photo and a story about her niece to gain the attention of the audience.
