Degradation of Women In Media Today
The media has degraded women by portraying them in negative ways. The media has allowed women to be looked at as weak, vulnerable, powerless, sexual beings, and etc.. In our society today perspectives are based off of messages seen in mass media. In the past media was used for supporting and promoting consumerism. Also, in our society today people are allowing the messages of media to influence their judgement and perspectives. Mass media mainly harms and effects women because it creates negative perceptions of women that can be seen daily. This paper will show how the media has degraded the portrayal of women and the effects it has on society.
Mass media is a method of communication used to influence an audience in several different ways. Many people believe that they aren't influenced by the media, but media is almost everywhere. The reason why some people believe this is because “advertising’s influence is quick, it’s cumulative, and for the most part, it’s subconscious” (Killing Us Softly, NP). The way that women are portrayed in advertisements greatly affect women and is almost impossible to ignore. According to Rosalind Gill, “we live in an era of 360 degree branding” (75). There are various types of media from television to the newspaper. Advertisements are used in every type of media. Advertisements are found on televisions, radios, newspapers, internet, cars, magazines, buildings, and etc... Gill also said that she “was concerned with the ‘currency’ of adverts- the way in which they permit the meaning of one thing to be expressed in terms of another,” because it suggested a direct correlation between someone’s worth as a person and that of owning a specific prod...
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Overall, I believe that the media has degraded women by creating false images of how women should be. If this continues then women will no longer have identity which in time could lead to dehumanization.
Bibliography work cited
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used against Women. New York: Harper Collins, 2002. Print.
Killing Us Softly. Dir. Jhally, Sut. Perf. Jean Kilbourne. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 2010. DVD.
Raymond, Diane Christine. Sexual Politics and Popular Culture. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1990. Print.
Gill, Rosalind. Gender and the Media. Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. Print.
Murray, Samantha. “(Un/Be)Coming Out? Rethinking Fat Politics.” Social Semiotics 15.2 (2005):154-155. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Feb 2011.
Firstly, Newsom provided a handful of statistics that show how the media has affect women negatively. Girls are exposed to the idea of having the “perfect body” at a very young age due to television. This causes them to become unhappy with their bodies. According to “Miss Representation,” fifty three percent of thirteen year old are unsatisfied by the look of their bodies and as they reach the age of seventeen, that percentage increases to seventy eight percent. This causes eating disorders because women are taught to look a certain way. The characters on tv shows and
Instead, women are being discriminated and treated as inferior due to the stereotypes that are portrayed in the media. The media creates and reproduces ways of seeing that at a minimum reflect and shape our culture. We can look at the media to understand more about a culture’s values and norms, if we realize the limitations of looking at the media. For example, one may ask, does the news based in the United Sates represent what the American culture is like, or only what stands out from everyday American culture? The answer to that is no. Instead, the media represents what it thinks it will be able to sell and is supported by advertisements. This includes violent acts, the sensationally and inappropriate. Jhally reminds us that “it is this male, heterosexual, pornographic imagination based on the degradation and control of women that has colonized commercial culture in general, although it is more clearly articulated in music videos” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “media content is a symbolic rather than a literal representation of society and that to be represented in the media is in itself a form of power—social groups that are powerless can be relatively easily ignored, allowing the media to focus on the social groups that ‘really matter’” (Gerbner,
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. New York: William Morrow, 1991.
Serder, Kasey. (2005). Female body image and the Mass Media. Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard. Retrieved from https://www.westminstercollege.edu/myriad/index.cfm?parent=2514&detail=4475&content=4795
In our media, women are objectified, hypersexualized, or shamed, which both reflects and conditionalized the prevailing hegemony and standards of our society. It exists to be seen by men, or subordinate women, continuing the existence of a mindset which many believe, or would like to believe, has dissipated through out the years to no longer be socially relevant, but on the contrary, has become the basis of media and the perception of our society today. Various archetypes of the portrayals of females include patriarchal subordination, the deadly “female fatal”, and stereotypical ethnic representations. These portrayals have dealt a great deal of damage to both men and women in society, where today, we are faced with how to address and transcend
Media is the largest and most influential resource in the world. People learn more from media than any other resource. However media can be very dangerous. Media often degrades and misrepresents women. Girls get the message from early on that what is most important is how they look. No matter what a woman accomplishes, her self-worth and value will always rely on appearance. Media devalues women through music, video games, television/film, even women in politics are undermined. Most of the time, women are stereotyped into being perfect people with silky hair, perfect teeth, incredibly skinny bodies, etc. Media tends to reinforce these stereotypes as that is not a true representation of actual women.
In the society we live in, we are all looking for acceptance, whether we like to admit it or not. We turn to the media to see what other people are doing. The media plays a large role on the way we, a society as a whole, are influenced and think about responsibilities and roles of genders. As young children, we are still not sure of who we are and how we should act about certain topics. In order to ‘find ourselves,’ as young children, we look at things that are available to us. The television is found in every home and thus makes it one of the easiest ways for children to be influenced. This is not to say that the adult female population is not influenced as well. Adult females are seeking more information on how they should be as a person in order to be accepted in society as an acceptable woman.
Wolf, Naomi, Ed. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House, 1991.Web. 28 March. 2014.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. New York:
Throughout society, men and women have been expected to live by guidelines consisting of media generated ideas and ways of living out life. Both men and women’s thinking process are being altered the negative effects of society’s mass media. For both sexes, this repeating negative exposure causes a constant downfall in self-image and creates media influenced decisions that lead to unhealthy lifestyles. The media effects the thinking process of both men and women in negative ways therefore media needs to be heavily regulated.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. NY: Basic Books, 2000.
For example, In 2011, the Commission of the image of women in the media(Commission sur l’image des femmes dans les medias) in France, published an annual report. The commission was organized in 2009, in the social context that the women are not well represented in the media. The report tried to figure out the percentage of female ‘experts’ in the media including radio and TV. According to the report, 80% of the experts who appeared in the media were male. Considering the fact that the casting process is totally dependent on the decision of the production and their idea of ‘who is more likely to appear as serious and trustful person’, the result is quite shocking. It shows that the image of female in the media is rather a testifier or a victim, than an expert. The social position of women has been significantly improved in last hundred years, but how media treat them has not been pulled out from the traditional-patriarchal view point. This could be very dangerous because mass-media is accessible for people of all social classes and age groups, and for the most of t...
As a result it can be concluded that the general effect of the illustrations of women in the media to strengthen rather than condense injustice and stereotypes. The mass media in the United States has not made sufficient efforts to argue serious issues regarding women and arrange the women to play their correct and equivalent role in society. To alter this situation, it is required to observe the media and point out the qualities and faults constantly.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991. Print
The media and television broadcasting of women is not all negative. But current culture is constantly taking the easy way out. It refuses to explore different ways in which women can be represented. That is why for years to come women will still be seen as motherly, passive and innocent, sex objects, or they are overlooked or seen as unimportant entities. Whether it’s motherly birds on kids TV shows or scantily clad dancers on Monday Night Football, the portrayal of women has yet to catch up with what real life women are like. There are single women, obese women, and smart women. Women who are single mom’s, lesbians, or don’t have any children at all. Women are able to do the same type of work as men without being manly. The day that women are treated as equals on television will whole new level of success for feminism.