Gender Issues In Miss Representation

Miss Representation, the 2011 documentary directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Kimberlee Acquaro, is a bold and eye-opening montage of images, facts, figures and clips that clearly depicts the media’s attempts to sexualize, degrade and objectify women while intentionally showing a lack of representation of women in power. According to the film, on average “teens spend 10 hours and 45 minutes each day” on media consumptions which includes watching television and movies, listening to music, reading magazines, and surfing the internet. The media as a tool serve both as “the message and the messenger” and as such is in position to greatly influence society’s thoughts and actions, as well as the value and belief systems. The message being sent to women and girls states that the only value and worth they hold lays with their looks regardless of what they have accomplished; simultaneously, the message sent to men is that the only thing important about women is how they look.
Jean Kilbourne, Senior Scholar at Wellesly Centers for Women describes how photos of women in print today are digitized to the point of creating “The idea image of
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Beauty that is extreme and even more impossible to achieve than ever before.” This stereotypical portrayal of women speaks to the media’s indifference to the negative and dangerously infectious consequences they are bombarding women with daily.

The documentary explains how women and girls are more susceptible to peer pressure which leads to feelings of inadequacies, lower ambition and lower self-worth; in addition, they are more vulnerable to attacks leaving them as prey to men who judge them more harshly as a result of media propaganda. All of these issues combined often results in sever and often lifelong medical issues such as eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression and self-injurious

behaviors.
The media puts women into boxes that limits their intellect, creativity and worth resulting in women’s roles in society and positions of power being underemphasized to the point of rendering them voiceless. Jennifer Lawless, Associate Professor of Government at American University, claims that “Without women in politics we do not have democratic legitimacy.” The documentary backs this claim with the fact that women make up 51% of the American population but only represent 17% of Congress. Women that do step into the political mine field are not judged on their qualifications or political viewpoints but instead are criticized on their body, clothing, and personal life. The film show how both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are mocked by the media for their ambitions and feminine power; Clinton dubbed the “bitch” and Palin dubbed the “ditz.” Both women are stripped of their ambitions, intellect, qualifications and accomplishments and are casted in demeaning roles by the media that objectified them based on their clothing, hair styles and looks.
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Alice Walker put it well with her statement “The most common way people give their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” The American media has saturated the market with an overwhelming claim that it is ok to objectify and dehumanize women in our society resulting in the loss of their power, purpose and leadership potential. It is time for women to take a stand and make themselves heard and as Mahatma Gandhi put it “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”