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Miss Representation Summary

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Introduction In this paper I am going to analyze how the media affects the gender stereotypes that the documentary Miss Representation addressed. I believe that, the media perpetuates harmful stereotypes to both men and women. In this paper I will argue that Audre Lorde would agree with my thesis but she would also believe that the minority needs to be looked at more as well. In this paper I will argue that Rebecca Walker would agree with my thesis.
Explain my Research Miss Representation is a documentary that explored the mainstream media’s often disparaging portrayals of women contribute to the under-representation of females in positions of leadership (Netflix). In today’s world, the media is everywhere and our society is directly influenced …show more content…

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). To quote Marie Wilson “You can’t be what you can’t see,” is important to understand when looking at the ever-perpetuating gender roles in the media. Girls do not see many powerful women in the media (i.e. The president, actresses, etc.), how can they strive to be something they have never …show more content…

She was the epitome of the minority in the 1970’s where women were predominately white, housewives. The 1970’s were a time where the second wave of feminism was picking up. Women began to work towards dismantling the workplace inequalities as well fighting for gender inequalities in court and legislation. I believe that if Lorde was alive during this period of time that the media controlling all aspects of our daily lives and misrepresenting women she would be one of the leaders at the front of the rebellion against the media. She would be against the patriarchy that the media is portraying. Although Audre Lorde was a predominate feminist she disagreed with many of the feminists of her time. Lorde believed that the feminist movement has an absence of respect and regard towards the minority. With this idea this allows very little change to happen in the feminist movement. This idea weighs in with the documentary; Miss Representation the film really only offered the viewpoint of the suppression of women from the majority’s standpoint. There were no statistics or remarks in the documentary that were just focused on women of other race and class other than middle or upper class white women.
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Throughout the documentary, Newsom utilizes numerous sources such as different facts and statistics that strengthen her claim and appeal to logos for the under-representation of woman in todays society. Through the usage of her credible data that was transformed into valuable information makes the documentary more appealing to the audience. One of the statistics that she employs was:

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More specifically, Lorde was a woman. Being a woman, Lorde’s perspective of life in the United States was vastly different from her male counterparts. In Lorde’s work she discusses her first observations of how woman were treated in America. She states “since my parents shared all making of policy and decision, in my child’s eye my mother must have been other than woman” (Lorde, 16). At a young age Lorde was able to recognize that woman were often left out of the conversations and having a voice made people view you differently.

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Nam has also brought up a study showing white males are likely to to increase whilst it decreases for white girls and black children with consumption of television media (Nam par.3). Showing evidence that this an actual problem society faces He has also mentioned the effects of the way news outlets talk about minorities. “These homogenized story choices can, in turn, affect the diverse communities in terms of how they view authoritative sources like the mainstream media and how they view themselves. ”(Nam par.3) Revealing that the way the media treat minorities is the reasoning for how minorities feel about themselves and authoritative

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