Media Influence On A Girl's Self-Esteem

Introduction

Media can influence people’s behaviors, thoughts, and development of self-criticism towards themselves and others. Thus, media’s depiction of female heroines affects girls’ self-esteem from ages five to thirteen. The terms: Associative Self-Esteem, Mirror Stage, Aural Self-Esteem, and Body Dissatisfaction, are key elements that built a girl’s self-esteem and are found to be affected by the influence that heroines have on girls. Superheroines’ femininity has been created with false stereotypes that defines their behavior and constructs a specific body image; thus, these stereotypes drive girls to self-judge their own persona according to heroines that are portrayed in media. Elizabeth Marhsall and Özlem Sensoy, authors of "The

Same Old Hocus-pocus: Pedagogies of Gender and Sexuality in Shrek 2," explain how media drives girls to relate to heroines. As a result, they introduce the term Culture Pedagogy, which is the idea that children learn by other sources and not only by school. For instance, children learn by film, literature, toys, and other social sites that children are expose to. This is an important argument that allows the reader to understand that children, boy and girls, are grasping the information and constructing points of view based on what media teaches them. This paper will focus on how girl’s develop an unhealthy self-esteem because of the stereotypical traits and overly sexualized female heroines that media has shown in film, comics and television. Although, majority of female characters have issues on body image, there are female heroines that represent intelligence, leadership, and independence; which are characteristics of empowerment that contributes to great confidence for a healthy self-esteem.
Girls’ identification with Heroines
Media has the power to influence girls and make them believe that feminine heroines stereotypes are associated with them.

First of all, majority of heroines stereotypes are common to what others think of women in general, such as: weak, venerable, victims, emotional, and powerless. This issue started when Marvel and Comincs DC created a large number of super heroines during the World War II, when women were taken a great part in helping during the war but were not actually being the heroes that were fighting against the U. S enemies. Thus, men created these comic’s characters and they wanted to create stereotypical feminine heroines that would differentiate themselves from male heroes. Having this in mind, in order to understand how girl’s self-esteem is being harm by the depictions of heroines through media, the reader must understand the power of the media as a source of influence in girls. Media has become a major outlet for information to communicate to children, in which they learn and retain that information. Marshall and Sensoy noted that a girl could identify with a character of a film, literature and television because of the Cultural Pedagogy. The articles states, “‘the media are a found and often misperceived source of cultural pedagogy: they contribute to educating us how to behave and what to think, feel, believe, fear, and desire—and what not to. The media are forms of pedagogy that teach us how to be men and women’” (Marshall, Sensoy 156). Therefore, through

media, girls are learning about what makes a super heroine. Because girls’ behavior and body image is influence by heroines, girls emulate heroines’ behavior and physical appearance. This influence taught by media will affect girls in their future. The article on “Gender Difference in Children’s Hero Attributions: Personal Hero Choice and Evaluations of Typical Male and Female Heroes,” notes that heroes are important in a child’s life because it gives out information on how a child will develop. According to a study on heroes, Holub, Tisak, and Mullins state: “heroes are not only beneficial to children as models, but that they also provide children with a way to understand their culture and place in society.” (Holub, Tisak, Mullins 567). Therefore, influence leads to behavior and though, and that will develop their self-esteem. Heroines are an immense influence for girls and that can cause positive or negative consequences.
One of the stereotypes that girls learn thought heroines is being emotional.

For instance, Susan Storm is a heroine that is a member of the Fantastic Four. She is known as the Invisible Woman and her superpower is invisibility and can, also, create an invisible force field. Although she is powerful, her emotions (a characteristics of being feminine) intervene with her greatness. According to Mainon and Ursini, “Invisible Woman turn[s] invisible when emotional, as if being switched off from communicating her deeper needs. Managing the balance of femininity versus masculinity, and passion versus repression, becomes the primary challenged of many female action characters” (Minon, Urini 17). Susan Storm is the only one from her team to be unable to control her emotions; hence, she literally becomes the invisible superhero compared to her other male colleagues. Consequently, the real heroes are the men. Stabile’s work on sexism and superheroes mentions that men are the “real” heroes because they are physically stronger. Stabile said, “to US culture in general, the someone in need of protection is invariably female or feminized (typically women and children, but sometimes the elderly and animals). The active roles of both protector and threat are masculinized— strength and power being the foundation of masculinity ” (Stabile 87). The inequality between heroines and heroes due to the description and meaning of “femininity,” separates the heroes and the vulnerable heroines. Because

girls are associated with heroines, girls and others learn that femininity is a sign of weakness. In accordance with cultural pedagogy, girls will learn this stereotype and believe that they are weak and emotional beings.