Chapter two Books: Perceiving Women, The First Sex, Identity: A Reader
Chapter two
Books: Perceiving Women, The First Sex, Identity: A Reader
Part I
Within today’s western world, women are often subjected to critical analysis and study when they are portrayed within the media and other influential forms of communicative channels. They are portrayed as objects of desire for the eye of the public and thus sex is a tool to attract customers. The consequence of this is that is can represent women as sex objects, provide unrealistic beauty standards and disregard a woman’s character and accomplishment: a set of values that give a negative portrayal of women. There is a general consensus within the media of what a woman should be like, that of an ideal that is unachievable by most, yet who see it as the epitome of what they can be.
Does this ‘thing’ we call beauty or what we see as sexual attractiveness really exist? We are bombarded with images every day that show us ‘beautiful’ people, but we should be sophisticated enough to realise that these images are unreal. With models that have been airbrushed, made up, and put into difficult positions often under harsh conditions to produce one final image that will sell to us, the general public, one would assume this would be realised! But, we see so many of these images that it is difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is fake. The subliminal messages we receive from the media are underhand and sneaky, they enter our subconscious thoughts and make it extremely difficult to break away from the masses and make our own decisions on what we want to buy in to. The images we see are targeted at us by using a communal and shared language that reaches into our unconscious: a language that we all understand. Advertisers dependency on their audiences need to be associated like the people seen in the adverts through buying their product, leaves them in constant competition with rival businesses. The subconscious message that is put across is to manipulate women into thinking
Books: Perceiving Women, The First Sex, Identity: A Reader
Part I
Within today’s western world, women are often subjected to critical analysis and study when they are portrayed within the media and other influential forms of communicative channels. They are portrayed as objects of desire for the eye of the public and thus sex is a tool to attract customers. The consequence of this is that is can represent women as sex objects, provide unrealistic beauty standards and disregard a woman’s character and accomplishment: a set of values that give a negative portrayal of women. There is a general consensus within the media of what a woman should be like, that of an ideal that is unachievable by most, yet who see it as the epitome of what they can be.
Does this ‘thing’ we call beauty or what we see as sexual attractiveness really exist? We are bombarded with images every day that show us ‘beautiful’ people, but we should be sophisticated enough to realise that these images are unreal. With models that have been airbrushed, made up, and put into difficult positions often under harsh conditions to produce one final image that will sell to us, the general public, one would assume this would be realised! But, we see so many of these images that it is difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is fake. The subliminal messages we receive from the media are underhand and sneaky, they enter our subconscious thoughts and make it extremely difficult to break away from the masses and make our own decisions on what we want to buy in to. The images we see are targeted at us by using a communal and shared language that reaches into our unconscious: a language that we all understand. Advertisers dependency on their audiences need to be associated like the people seen in the adverts through buying their product, leaves them in constant competition with rival businesses. The subconscious message that is put across is to manipulate women into thinking