Women in the Media
Women in the Media
Media, as we know it today, plays a large role in all of our lives, whether we know it or not. It is all around us, newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media. However, with so much involvement in our everyday lives, is the media causing some major problems in our society? One of the main issues with the media is it only appeals to cultural biases, what the public want to hear and what it supports. Sexism can be found in multiple sources anywhere from magazine advertisements to movies, all of which support or portray women in a submissive or inferior and attack women who do not follow this example. Advertisements are the most obvious forms of usage of sexism in the media. In an ad selling cleaning products, women are portrayed as the ones enjoying the product as if men are not affected by it at all. This is therefore a modern day enhancement of the cult of domesticity. Society still expects women to be physically, mentally and morally inferior to men and the media is only driving this force. Brenna Coleman explains in her article, “Portrayal of Women: Female Stereotypes in the Media” that ads display and highlight the female body parts (thigh, butt, chest) to sell a product which objectifies a women in the eyes of a man. Hence, men see women as sexual objects, objects must be owned, therefore, men must own women. The media not only think this is alright, but it trains little girls to strive to be perfect little sex toys. In the article, “Our Barbies, Ourselves” Emily Prager describes how Barbie was a woman born of a man’s image. The physical attributes of Barbie cannot be replicated by any living women but still many women try today with plastic surgery and extremely deadly diets until they are as plastic and lifeless as their Barbie beauty idol. With Barbie, Bratz and Polly at every turn, little girls are brain washed beyond
Media, as we know it today, plays a large role in all of our lives, whether we know it or not. It is all around us, newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media. However, with so much involvement in our everyday lives, is the media causing some major problems in our society? One of the main issues with the media is it only appeals to cultural biases, what the public want to hear and what it supports. Sexism can be found in multiple sources anywhere from magazine advertisements to movies, all of which support or portray women in a submissive or inferior and attack women who do not follow this example. Advertisements are the most obvious forms of usage of sexism in the media. In an ad selling cleaning products, women are portrayed as the ones enjoying the product as if men are not affected by it at all. This is therefore a modern day enhancement of the cult of domesticity. Society still expects women to be physically, mentally and morally inferior to men and the media is only driving this force. Brenna Coleman explains in her article, “Portrayal of Women: Female Stereotypes in the Media” that ads display and highlight the female body parts (thigh, butt, chest) to sell a product which objectifies a women in the eyes of a man. Hence, men see women as sexual objects, objects must be owned, therefore, men must own women. The media not only think this is alright, but it trains little girls to strive to be perfect little sex toys. In the article, “Our Barbies, Ourselves” Emily Prager describes how Barbie was a woman born of a man’s image. The physical attributes of Barbie cannot be replicated by any living women but still many women try today with plastic surgery and extremely deadly diets until they are as plastic and lifeless as their Barbie beauty idol. With Barbie, Bratz and Polly at every turn, little girls are brain washed beyond