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Chiagozie Harry Okeke Psych 236-02: Psychology of Women Prof. Edna Pressler, Ph.D. Report 1 October 6, 2016 “Get involved 2.4 “Media Advertisement and Double Standard of Aging” Ageing is something that everyone will eventually experience if they are fortunate to live a long life. The process of ageing comes with various negative and positive outlooks. In western culture, ageing for both genders is particularly condemned. In the media in particular, the process of ageing for men and women vary greatly. Where, women are condemned for ageing more than men are. Media greatly highlights on the stereotypical notion of ageing especially in the aspect of portraying men and women and their social roles through advertisement. I will be discussing Women who are older tend to be ignored or portrayed as very undesirable, not feminine looking and sometimes the media goes to the extremes by subliminally telling women not to age. The men are portrayed as very attractive as they age, and heights of the achievements in life are emphasized. These biases are really unfair especially to ageing women but because the media has made it a stigma whereby the minds of the public are molded and conditioned to think that way. The media shows the public by giving them the bias that ageing men are more acceptable than aging women. Women and men are similarly not the same on the media advertisement. Therefore, in real life ageing women seem to be getting the negative impacts with their looks when it comes to aging, whereas, in real sense, aging is inevitable and is something that everyone will experience at some point in their She said that our media climate mostly provides a very misleading mirror of our lives and of our gender, therefore, she emphasized there must be a change to that. Examples, of the media companies she highlighted are; television, radio, publishing, games, and so on. She said, they use a very stiff segmentation approach in order to understand their audiences. Which is an old school demographics, and end up coming up with these very restraining labels to define the public. In addition to that, is the media companies trust that if you fall within a certain demographic category then you are likely in certain ways, as well as having certain taste, and like certain things. (Blakely, September 29,
In "Where the girls are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media," Susan Douglas analyses the effects of mass media on women of the nineteen fifties, and more importantly on the teenage girls of the baby boom era. Douglas explains why women have been torn in conflicting directions and are still struggling today to identify themselves and their roles. Douglas recounts and dissects the ambiguous messages imprinted on the feminine psyche via the media. Douglas maintains that feminism is a direct result of the realization that mass media is a deliberate and calculated aggression against women. While the media seemingly begins to acknowledge the power of women, it purposely sets out to redefine women and the qualities by which they should define themselves. The contradictory messages received by women leave women not only in a love/hate relationship with the media, but also in a love/hate relationship with themselves.
She states “This repugnant man's guide to casual office sex gave men techniques on what game works best on what kind of female employee. It even went as far as labeling the different types of women in the work office as "the aging executive" "the prudish H.R. dame," "the puppyish intern," "the girl next cubicle" and "the siren secretary." Now as disrespectful and insulting these terminology can be to women in the workplace, her connection to this being why women don't suceeed i dont agree with. I would agree our media does have some input . Honestly, it provides a reflection depending on the author’s voice but I don't solely blame this is the reason why things happen the way that the do. The negative impacts of media are deeper than that. The platform sometimes make consumers overly paranoid to certain behaviors and makes the world seem of a peril of inappropriateness. Furthermore, it has now created another focus playground . Instead of doing something productive we know choose to read , watch or listen to others method productivity. Going further than that, that playground has now become another dimension , or opportunity for further display of
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
How can someone in 2017 understand what was going on inside the body of an aging woman in 1972? By reading Susan Sontag’s, “The Double Standard of Aging,” an individual can comprehend what the author portrays the women of her day to be, self-conscious and apparently uncomfortable with their appearance. It is true, that women are looked at, and often treated differently than men are. For example, if a woman were to wear a dress that reveals her thigh, it would be considered, by many, to be an act of sexual behavior. However, if a man were to wear an equivalent piece of clothing (for example, shorts), no one would say anything, the simple thought one would think is that it is hot outside. Most of society would not judge the man, but
In the last decade, a number of social scientists have investigated the ways in which informal agents of socialization provide or support current stereotypes and attitudes held toward the elderly. A review of previous studies in the area indicates that researchers have examined aging in jokes (Davies, 1977; Palmore, 1971; Richman, 1977), birthday greeting cards (Demos and Jache, 1980), television drama (Harris and Feinberg, 1978), poetry (Clark, 1980; Sohngen and Smith, 1978), newspapers (Bochholz and Bynum, 1982) and literature (Janelli, 1988; Loughman, 1977; Sohngen, 1977). Of particular interest and importance to this study is the recent work of Cohen and Kruschwitz, (1990) which examines printed sheet music from 1830 to 1980 for impressions of aging and old age. While their search for popular sheet music is admittedly "nonsystematic" and their selection of image categories was "inductive," the authors have, in our view, made a significant contribution to the popular culture analysis of aging and the elderly.Research to date suggests that the elderly have been portrayed in contradictory ways with some images being negative and passive and others positive and active (Buchholz and Bynum, 1982). The question still remains as to what cumulative picture of aging and the elderly is painted by American music.
According to ALFA ageism is the discrimination of a person based on their age and it robs seniors of their independence (website at bottom). Not only are these stereotypes negative to the elderly, but it may also shorten their lives.(dittman) In Levy’s research she found that older adults who had a more positive perception of themselves lived 7.5 years longer than those with a negative perception. (dittman) Carl was perceived as a grumpy old widower and a menses to the community because of his seclusion and unwilliness for change. Because of this the judge decided he would be best off in a retirement home. It’s that assumption and attitude that Carl was too old to continue to take care of his home and be a productive citizen that creates this stereotyping. (paper) It can be assumed that Carl quit his job willingly to retire with Ellie so they could travel to South America, but unfortunately she passed. It is likely if Carl wanted to return to work that he would be turned away due to age. Okinawan people believed that retiring early made for an early death and even to this day they don’t have a word for retirement 75(book). Even young Russell displays ageism in UP, when he specifically chooses Carl to achieve his assisting an elderly badge because he assumes that because Carl is a senior that he in fact needs help. Russell would soon realize that Carl has more spunk and push in him than he first
This advertisement illustrates ageism by saying a “younger, hotter airline” is better. So in order for something to be better than something else it has to be “younger and hotter?” This advertisement might make older people feel bad about being the age they are, and it might lower their self-image. Self-image, especially for women, is really focused on. Some advertisements like http://www.realbodystory.com/img_client/ageist_ex1.jpg and http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/ageism/pics/ageism2.jpg show that wrinkles are not okay and it also not okay to look like one’s mother. Again, ageism is portrayed here by showing that wrinkles should be eliminated and that someone has to keep up with how they look in order to not look like their mother.
While there are some examples of movies portraying aging in a positive light, more often movies and the media portray aging as negative. The movie ‘The Intern’ is an example of this. In the movie a company creates an intern position for a senior citizen, which they hope will assist with their company image. The company hires a 70-year-old male. There are many negative stereotypes and points where aging is viewed negatively within the movie, including the technology gap, where the intern cannot use emails or create a facebook account, the intern carries an old 70s style briefcase
When the focus is on television programming for the public the pictures of older people change
Women over forty are constantly being either ignored or belittled in the media. There are countless women in their twenties and early thirties all over television and the movies. In magazines, the models tend to be much younger. Many are under twenty.
Some of the many common mistaken views of aging would involve our society seeing aging as something that will be a big problem for us and bring about burden. Other issues to consider are that aging is for everyone, not just the elderly. In many people’s minds, you say “aging” and the first thing that comes to mind is an elderly lady or man, retired, grey hair, and no longer full of life. However, children, young adults, and older adults are aging every day. As mentioned in Aging Concepts and Controversies page 91, “…half a million people over age 60 are studying on college campuses.” It also mentions how military officials are retiring in between 40 and 50, and grandmothers are appearing as early as their 30’s. For myself, I noticed that this discrimination was
The article “What is Successful Aging”, thoroughly explained the author’s thoughts on what aging successfully actually means. I think it is extremely vital to try our best to be content with our lives and what we have done at a later age. Integrity versus despair, as we learned in class kept coming to mind while reading the article. It is important that when one reaches this age he or she doesn’t feel like there is more to look back on than to look forward to. I agreed with the author’s views on self-efficacy and different opportunities in aging successfully.
Theories concerned with ageing are constructed in an attempt to objectively satisfy the inquiries that arise after studying ageing and to provide evidence based clarifications. In the context of this essay, they allow troubleshooting regarding issues around the type of support would be expected to be needed by Betty and her son. Bengtson et al, (1999) accepts the potential pragmatism of the theories nevertheless he argues that they can be generalised and unimaginative. The controversy regarding theorising ageing becomes especially relevant when they are applied in isolation failing to address that “the science and positivism are severely limiting… for understanding aspects of ageing.” Bengtson et al (1999)
In fact, there was a lecture where (Joshi, 2017b) provided an example of a negative stereotype of an older adult that was illustrated with toddler like features in a comic book. This example itself demonstrates how society makes fun of older adults, which relates to the cultural differences between the western society and their values compared to the teachings and values of the east. I could relate to stereotyping older adults stemming from differences in society because eastern society for example, places more emphasis on respecting elders while being more conservative because of their knowledge and experience in life, whereas some parts of the west may be more open to each other while communicating and allowing older adults to be the comedians of society for entertainment purposes which may not be the most considerate idea. Another good example that would debunk the fact that stereotypes should not be generalized across a group of people would be in the lecture where (Joshi, 2016c) explained that many older adults return to their hobbies or activities that they used to enjoy doing when they were younger which is an example of what the continuity theory would suggest. In short, I have changed my perspective on how I use my judgment when it comes to evaluating what the media or other sources put out for their audience such as
The relation between culture and age has often been the subject of discourse in recent gerontological studies. It is argued that there is an inherent relation between the two. The difference marked by age or our perception of old age, in particular, is a cultural and social construction. Consequently, the meanings and value assigned to old age are also socially constructed. This in turn leads to a reshaping of identity or what Holstein and Gubrium term as ‘self-construction’(Randall and McKim 235). However, what we need to consider is whether it is only this construct that is solely responsible for determining our response to aging. Does our environment have complete agency in shaping our attitude or is it also dependent on how we, as