Turning Boys Into Girls Michelle Cottle Analysis
In class we read “The Boy Code” written by a journalist, Michele Landsberg. I liked the format/layout of the article because the author initiated her introduction with an abstract outline, which gives the reader an overview of the topic. For example, “Landsberg questions the worldwide tendency to raise boys to be tough and emotionally limited.” This statement (located in the last sentence of the abstract) tells the reader the author will explain her concerns about the controversial issue throughout the article. Thus, the abstract benefits readers as it helps them understand what they will be reading and how it will impact them and their lifestyle.
“Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt,” written by Jean Kilbourne, who is an award-winning author and educator, is best known for her lectures on the effects of media images on young people and specifically young women. In this essay, Kilbourne discusses the ways advertising constantly uses images that make sexual and violent situations against women and children increasingly normalized in our society. In order to support her argument, the essay is heavily filled with images of these particular advertisements that portray the sexual exploitation of women and children. Overall, the author uncovers that these advertisements do not promote self-love or confidence. In fact, these constant messages invoke self-hatred and open contempt among young women.
The rhetorical imagery used to portray a man's body is spread throughout the fitness industry and health advertisements. These images are on the cover of well-known magazines, online websites and through television commercials. Fitness magazines and advertisements are distributed worldwide targeting men, ages 18-30. Fitness magazines give a visual rhetoric as a method of persuading beauty, body image, and the pursuit of “flawlessness”. The company’s focus on young adults due to their belief that their consumers have the money to buy products to obtain the body they want or the body portrayed on the cover of the magazine.
Moreover, Body Image, Media and Eating Disorders states that 30% of children are dissatisfied with their body image due to being overweight and 15% are dealing with obesity (Derene & Beresin, 2006). This demonstrates that the number of children watching television and the number of overweight, obese children are involving their selves more into the media rather than more crucial events. Correspondingly, the average model is 23% thinner compared to 25 years ago (Ravelli & Webber, 2012). Today’s media has an impacting effect on how women should appeal themselves to others in society. This guides them to behave a certain way and not truly be themselves.
Gender stereotyping continues to boom in society today. The advertising and media world play a chief part in perpetuating the nature behind gender roles and it is society as a whole who choose to receive it as a norm. A wide scope of portrayals of men and women exists in advertising, however masculine imagery traditionally depicts athleticism, strength, activity and competitiveness whereas feminine images suggest submissiveness, beauty, dependency and sensitivity. The Britax Decathlon’s car seat advertisement and the Californian beach-estate property advertisement both exemplify the stereotyped representation of gender roles in society: the female toddler dresses up in pink, is only concerned with her accessories and plays inside, where as
In her book, Body Shots: Hollywood and the Culture of Eating Disorders, Emily Fox-Kales, a clinical psychologist with a strong background in the treatment of eating disorders, which includes bulimia, anorexia, binge eating, OSFED, EDNOS, and PICA, as well as body dysmorphia disorder describes the strong impact media has on women’s perceptions of themselves and displays the evolution of eating disorders through firsthand accounts. Fox-Kales describes society’s current culture as “the culture of eating disorders” (1). She points out that women no longer exchange recipes, but rather share a fear of food as well as diet tips and tricks to reduce weight. She continues to explain that “food has become more taboo than sex ever was and the bathroom scale more challenging a confrontation than the confessional booth” (1). Our culture has engorged the minds of women young and old with diets that are taken too far and become problematic.
The United States of America has transformed into this sexist and dangerous world in which the media and society portrays real women as objects and not as human beings. People see this on TV through commercials, TV shows, movies, and even games where the bodies of women are promoted like toys for the sexual pleasure of men. The 2011 documentary Miss Representation brings up this idea of how the ridiculous stereotypes of women are portrayed heavily through the outlets of media and how that has negatively affected American women. Women are the minority groups when they are compared to men.
Myths about The Negative Influence of the Media on Young Adults Regarding Body Image Should I stay the way I am, or should I change in order to fit in what society sees as the ideal woman? This is a troubling question that many women face in today's society, because of the media myth of influence on identity. Today I will be talking about how the negative influence of the media regarding body image is a myth. You may be asking yourself how is the media influence on body image a myth ?
This form of objectification is often used as a means to appeal to men's sexual desires in order to promote and attract consumers, because marketers still latch onto the old “sex sells”, or so it would seem (Rowland, 2016). Music videos, magazines, fashion commercials, are all channels through which women are exploited and put out to be headless objects isolated for their bodies solely for sexual pleasure and viewing purposes. Rowland explains that although this charade may allure and trap most men, this is not the case for women. Emma Rooney cites in The Effects of Sexual Objectification on Women's Mental Health, “the sexual objectification of women is a driving and perpetuating component of gender oppression, systemic sexism, sexual harassment, and violence against women”. Jessica Vanlenti writes in ‘Worldwide sexism…Women’, that researchers from The University of Missouri-Kanas and Georgia State found these forms of objectification to be linked to women’s psychological distress, and are leading causes of suicide among young adolescent women.
Many critics agree on one fact about Canadian author Alice Munro: one of her most notable qualities in regards to her work is the distinct use of realism in her writing. Her writing provides a strong sense of familiarity to the reader, while also containing stronger metaphorical meanings that one can note when they begin to closely look at her work. Her short story “Boys and Girls” portrays the socialization of a young girl, once very close to her father and unaware of any sort of gender bias within her society, into a young woman with a pessimistic view of femininity and her expected position in society. This story shows the socialization process in a way that makes it easy to recognize, illustrating circumstances that the reader can notice the blatant sexism and misogyny; however, its portrayal is extremely realistic, allowing the reader to recall how oblivious they may have been in the past during times that they have been impacted by social biases in our world. Critics of Munro typically agree on her overall theme of femininity and coming of age in her writings; “Boys and Girls” emphasizes the ways in which young girls are socialized into a seemingly natural understanding of the sexist expectations and gender roles.
Children and adolescents spend most of their time with entertainment media than any other activity apart from school and sleep. Research has linked sexualization in the media to the three most common mental health problems in girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. Overall, research in this field tends to point to sexualizing material increasing intensity and in volume over time. Children and adolescents spend most of their time with entertainment media than any other activity apart from school and sleep.
Introduction It’s a topic that’s consistently been debated, and we’re left wondering why there continues to be an abundance of over-sexualized, sexist and misogynistic advertisements in magazines, commercials, and even in the hospitality industry. Shallowness and objectification seems to be the antithesis of American culture. A place that consciously promotes sexist and misogynistic advertisements should not be the same place where one can pursue “the American Dream.” We live in an age where shallowness is revered, where beauty is unfortunately skin deep, will we ever truly see what “girls our age” look like?
The short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro is narrated by an unnamed young girl who talks about life on her family’s fox farm where she lives with her parents and younger brother. She undeniably prefers working outside with her father on the chores and tending to the foxes instead of working in the house with her mother. Throughout the story there are subtle and obvious indications of the differences in and expectations of boys and girls. The narrator clearly demonstrates her preference to the role of a boy, but it wasn’t as if she was given the choice to not conform to society’s and her family’s expectations of a girl. Notably, the roles of men vs. women were clearly defined and differentiated within this story using the narrator’s
The representation of gender in mass communications has been a hugely debated topic for years and will continue to be one for many more years to come. The media plays a big role in how they want to portray a gender to the public. They create certain stereotypes through the role of a gender in order to attract a large audience and interest to sell a product, brand or image. Media is so important in today’s society, people spend hours and hours each day watching TV, browsing the Internet and reading magazines. There are so many images of men and women in the media today that it certainly has an impact on the viewer’s thoughts and sense of identity.
For this post, I chose to talk about the sexualization of young girls and women in the entertainment industry. It is known that the entertainment field, and specifically the advertisement discipline, has a big influence on the behaviors and attitudes of our society. The advertising of our times has deformed the concept of beauty and I think this is one of the biggest ethical dilemmas in the entertainment field. Companies and brands have always used, as a persuasive approach, the bodies and faces of “beautiful” models. These models represent an unrealistic beauty portrayal.
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