Magazines offer many opportunities for teenagers to consider and investigate their sexuality. In particular, sexuality advices and stories in magazines enables teenagers to understand personal sexual issues or problems that they might be having in a healthier light. Post-feminism attitudes have become very popular in teenage magazines for both male and female readers, this is partly because prior to the feminism movement women were never seen as having much sexual desire for men and women generally didn’t feel comfortable expressing their sexual attributes or sexuality. I will be examining three studies in this essay all by the same author ‘Sue Jackson’ involving textual analyses of problem pages, interviews with magazine staff and focus groups with readers of the magazine (“Dear Girlfriend” 286). Each article examines letters written to the advice pages of an Australasian teen magazine Girlfriend in relation to sexual desire and sexual health problems. This essay will argue how teenage magazines express the post-feminism culture and thus can contribute to safe sex messages in advice pages/letters Over the years sex has become more noticeable amongst teenagers as there is a vast majority of different media use that provides some understanding of sex to the younger generation. Currie found that young women were drawn to the magazines by the desire to ‘know about themselves as teenagers and to solve everyday problems’ (154). The sexual information in magazines has changed over the years but still displays post feminism attitudes throughout. Most young teen magazines present an advice page in each monthly issue answering letters that girls, in particular, have sent in regarding their personal issues, problems and concerns that tee... ... middle of paper ... ...s men in society. Works Cited: Crooks, Robert L. Our sexuality. Cengage Learning, 2005. (look at reference again) Currie, Dawn.Girl talk: Adolescent magazines and their readers. University of Toronto Press, 1999. Jackson, Sue. “I’m 15 and Desperate for sex’:’Doing’ and ‘Undoing’ Desire in Letters to a Teenage Magazine.” Feminism & Psychology 15.3 (2005): 295-313. Jackson, Sue. “Dear Girlfriend…’: Constructions of Sexual Health Problems and Sexual Identities in Letters to a Teenage Magazine. “Sexualities 8.3 (2005): 282-305. Preston, Marilyn. “”veryvery Risky”: Sexuality Education Teachers’ Definition of Sexuality and Teaching and Learning Responsibilities.” American Journal of Sexuality Education 8.1-2 (2013): 18. Westrupp, Elizabeth, and Sue Jackson. “Sex, Postfeminist Popular Culture and the Pre-Teen Girl.” Sexualities 13.3 (2010): 357-76.
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.
This essay has compared and contrasted two magazines aimed at the female readership, and they are called Bitch Magazine and Cosmopolitan, with regards to their front pages, content and articles, their ideals of beauty, and feminism. Cosmopolitan is a magazine that gives harmful ideas to women about their sexuality, their health and happiness, and how it is supposedly dependent upon whether or not they fit into the unrealistic beauty standards that this magazine possesses. In divergence, Bitch Magazine teaches women to love themselves and to support each other no matter what. Bitch encourages women to understand that they are absolutely perfect just the way they are and that there is no need to change or suppress their given identities.
Erica Zhang Professor Nelson Intro to Mass Media & Communications 3/11/2013 Media Analysis Assignment In today’s media, the sexualisation of women has unfortunately also extended to young preteen girls, through a myriad of detrimental social constructs and internalized prejudices spanning centuries. The commodification of their sexuality is unnerving, as it encourages predators to project their fantasies onto unwilling participants that are too young to understand the nature of these harmful actions, and know how to escape or refuse them. In an attempt to shed light onto this issue as a concerned parent, Rachael Combe wrote the article Little Girls Gone Wild as a response to this sudden boom in increasingly sexualised behavior among and towards preteens. While her intentions remain sincere and her concerns as a mother legitimate, the article is flawed in the sense that she is not delving deeper into the causes behind this phenomenon, shaming the young girls for indulging in their outward appearances and for participating in a role that society has forced them into, instead of the predators that reinforce this sexualised image and make it something to be desired and aspired to.
Firminger examines the ways these magazines represent young males and females. She reveals that these magazines talks about the physical appearance of young girls but also their sexuality, emotions, and love life. The author informs how the advice given by the magazines is negative. The author also argues that these magazines focus more on their social life than how their academic performance
...n credit cards with men’s names. What is even more important is the reach of porn’s influence. The emerging generation that has grown up in the Internet age and most likely porn has been this generation’s first sexual experience. In most cases the habit sticks, about 70% of 18-24-year-olds visit porn sites each month. Porn has both massive ubiquity and ease of access; the average age when hardcore porn is first viewed is now only eight years old (Viewpoint , 2012). Children are necessarily looking for it but, these images and videos are shared on phones, advertise in magazines and found by innocent Googling. With porn so omnipresent and sex education budgets being slashed across Europe and the United States, porn has become de faco sex education (Viewpoint , 2012). As a result, a whole generation of kids is growing up with a distorted impression of human sexuality.
Watching television programs with a high level of sexual content can shape the patterns of sexual behavior of a teenager. According to Brown (Brown, Greenberg, & Buerkel-Rothfuss, 1993) many teenagers are not able to receive useful information about sex from their parents, this is the reason they usually use the alternative way to find this information through the media. A Kaiser Family research from 1996 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1996; 1998) shows that a quarter of all the young people have told that they have learned a lot about pregnancy from television shows and 40 percent of them have gotten ideas how to talk about sexual issues. In these modern times media is holding the power to influence the audience and most of all the youngest audience which is developing their view about sex.
Throughout the 21st century we have been immersed in a world in which is almost wholly dominated by the media. It is appropriate to say that many ideologies have been indeed challenged by the media, including the ideology of feminism, which I aim to focus on in this essay. Firstly, it is necessary to think about what the founding concepts of feminism actually are and how the ideologies of post feminism and antifeminism are using the contemporary media to question feminism. Texts such as Bridget Jones’ Diary and Desperate Housewives are fitting examples of how post feminism has penetrated through the media challenging feminism. Similarly elements of anti-feminism are evident when looking at films such as the new adaptation of Cinderella .
I can recall a time when the media was influencing my life and actions. The week after I graduated high school, my girlfriends and I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico, where the MTV beach house was located that summer. As I look back on the week of drunken partying and sexy guys, I can only wonder how I made it home alive. How could any young woman find this behavior acceptable? Every young woman there was flaunting their bodies to the young men around them. They were proud to be sexual objects. Where did they learn such debauchery? This is the kind of woman that is portrayed throughout MTV and various other aspects of the media. They have even coined the term “midriff”—the highly sexual character pitched at teenage girls that increasingly populates today’s television shows—in order to hook the teen customer. Teenage women increasingly look to the media to provide them with a ready-made identity predicated on today’s version of what’s “cool.” The media is always telling us that we are not thin enough, we’re not pretty enough, we don’t have the right friends, or we have the wrong friends… we’re losers unless we’re cool. We must follow their example and show as much skin as possible. The type of imagery depicted by MTV-- as well as people like Howard Stern, the famous “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and various Hip Hop songs—glorifies sex and the provocative woman.
this magazine is aimed at women in their late 20’s as the woman on the
Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass media is a key part of one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl.
Media has been filled with exaggerated scrutinies and trashed with unreasonable criticisms. It deserves a break. This is the generation of Information Technology. Danger is just around the corner, where a click from a mouse or a remote control and all sex-related garbage can pop out of the monitor. Truly, a vulnerable teenager can easily get lost to temptations. As an adolescent, I can empathize how these sweet girls feel about how horrible their body shapes are, how ugly their face is, and how brands in fashion seem to be worth more than anything in the world. Fashion labels, tiny bodies, and sexual activities are all characterized in Sex and the City. From th...
The survey was conducted to see what young Americans had to say about sex. Sex is something that teenagers are faced with everyday. Peer pressure and trying to fit in with the crowd; seems to be a major reason why teenagers are having sex today. The survey proved that today’s teenagers are more aware of the consequences of having sex, and it is not a game to play around with.
Peter, Jochen, and Patti Valkenburg. "Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects." Sex Roles 56.5/6 (2007): 381-395. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.Vaes, Jeroen, Paola Paladino, and Elisa Puvia.
“Sex sells.” This is a common phrase used very often in social media and entertainment industries. Today, the youth generation is highly exposed to social media and products of entertainment industries from music to movies on the big screen. Most of the products produced by these industries are sexually explicit, and they tend to send the wrong messages about sexual behavior. Adolescents almost spend the same amount of time watching television and engaging with social media as they do in an educational environment. Therefore, the best way to tackle the misconceptions of sex among adolescents is to provide sex education in school. Sex education should be taught in school in order to provide a mutual learning experience for adolescents among
“The media may be especially important for young people as they are developing their own sexual beliefs and patterns of behavior and as parents and schools remain reluctant to discuss sexual topics (p.26)”.