Barbie Girl Research Paper

Present day technology has become more advanced which means that people evolve to depending on looking into media for their everyday lives. Many women look to sources like social media, television, magazines and film for validation. We often let these sources dictate how we should live our lives. Since I was younger I have always noticed how popular mainstream media has had an influence on girls and myself personally. Before I started watching television, I played with Barbie dolls. Barbie was the most perfect woman in my eyes. She had the ideal body, appearance, clothes and everything you could think of. This affected how I felt about myself. I wanted to be a Barbie girl in a Barbie world as I used to say, and realistically this was not a goal that every girl should have not wanted to accomplish. This idea of the goal of beauty expectation is unhealthy. As times has passed television and film has more influence on a women's body image. Media portrayal affects me as a woman and how I even look at myself in comparison to what society tells me is a beauty standard. The media plays a role in the way people determine things like how they should appear, dress, and behave.

It is important that people are more aware and paying attention to the repercussions behind negative portrayals of women because this destroys a woman’s confidence and their standards. Aubrey (2006) studied how the total exposure of sexually objectifying images in television and magazines impacts young girls. Aubrey found that the exposure to the media predicted levels of self-objectification (defined as the attributes applied to one's physical self-concept) a year later, especially in women with low self-esteem. Women are frequently pressured to look better. The mainstream media attacks young girls with the message that something is wrong with the way they