Rise Of Enlightened Sexism Analysis

In the book, The Rise of Enlightened Sexism by Susan Douglas, gives insight and knowledge that digs deep into pop culture explaining how the media portrays the appearances of women that are in powerful positions in our culture. The appetencies tent undermines the actual progress of women. Douglas is interested in what these pop culture ideals shows about our culture. The way we react to women in our culture with powerful influence. What do these shows do to the female imagine in our culture? Why as a culture do we still glorify these kinds of shows?
Reality TV magnifies these stereotypes, that leads to approval of what a woman should be in a pop culture, lets women know how they are judged only on appearance. In some cases, the “fantasies of power” as she puts it, take the image of superheroes She says that these images do what is called “enlightened sexism”, creating the major actions we see in reality. The “enlightened sexism” tends to mislead the young women that are trying to look good, for the approval within our culture values trying to compete against each other. She discusses misrepresentation with a list of “ten enlightened sexism…pretense of simple, depicting reality.” (198) which reinforces these pop culture into own ideals of what gender roles should be in our society.

Women are to be judged first and foremost by their appearance. 2. Women need to compete over men. 3. Women can’t get along with one another and will stab each other in the back. 4. Women are overly emotional and obsessed with relationships. 5. Women should be sexy, but not overly sexual. 6. The worst thing a woman can be is a bitch: strong women are bitches and rich women are bitches. 7. African American women are lazy, threatening have a chip on their shoulder, are not marriage material or all of the above (except for Tyra Banks). 8. Women (especially blondes) are shallow, materialistic, and live to shop. 9. Housework and child rearing are a woman’s domain. 10. Lesbians? What