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The influence of social media on body image
Gender stereotypes negatively impact women's self-esteem
Gender stereotypes
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What is a slut? "A woman who is promiscuous with loose morals" or so the definition says. Simple enough, but what is the male equivalent? What is a B*tch? "A female dog and a term commonly used towards women." So, what's the male equivalent? "A son of a b*tch." So the male equivalent doesn't directly insult the man, just his mother whom is most likely completely innocent. K, shifting over. You're at a beach, shirtless dudes everywhere. No problem. You take off your shirt, you're stared at, catcalled and/or accused of being, guess what, a slut. Men and women have boobs. The only reason women's boobs are different is because they're for feeding our offspring. If boobs were truly nasty and disgusting, then would you directly feed babies with …show more content…
Women are taught to hate themselves and their bodies while feeling guilty for doing the exact same things men do and go unnoticed. There are a plethora of words intended to demonize and hurt women but barely any to hurt men. Women can't even wear certain clothes without being slut-shamed and cat called. If women were to cat call a men they'd get called "thirsty". In a society that's supposed to be about love and peace we mistreat people based off of their gender. No one can help what they were born as. It's not like a menu comes up in the womb with a list of things we can select to be. I'm not the girliest of most, admittedly. But i love who i am. I do wear makeup. Not for anyone's approval other than my own.I love everyone, but i don't need everyone to love me to feel appreciative of what i am. I want to feel confident in myself, plus i love makeup. I'm a cosmetologist people lol. There's plenty of cases where my clients will ask things like "Do you think this would look nice, i like it but.." They'll like something but settle for something else out of fear of someone else's …show more content…
Is that really what we want to feed and cater to. Something my mother used to always say, "They don't pay my bills so i don't answer to them." Speaking of various people in various situations, and she was right. You don't care to build me up but you suspect your criticisms to mean
It’s insulting to be defined by two very simple, vastly different categories. For example, Amber Rose said, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called a slut. From the time I was a young girl—even before I was sexually active—it was a label that was placed on me. As soon as I came into the public eye, I was immediately criticized for everything from my behavior to how I chose to dress. It was undoubtedly hurtful, and getting used to the harsh words I hear so often is still something I struggle with. The term ‘slut’ never seemed to go away—in fact, I began to realize that I’d be called a slut whether I behaved according to other people's standards or not” (Rose). No matter what Rose does, society tries to find flaws and this can impact self-esteem. If everything you heard was just tearing you down, how would you feel? Discouraged. Pessimistic. Even suicidal. Moreover, on the other side of the coin is the word “frumpy.” Whether a women dresses this way because she likes to or she feels like she needs to, its unfair to stick anyone in a box. Women in or around the media are often scrutinized for looking too frumpy. However, any women in the science field feel like they cannot dress feminine because it makes them look like they are obsessed with money or less
After a girl has been called a prude for so long, they may develop a sense of being different and want to dress and act more provocatively. They start to think that they need to act a certain way and become like everyone else. A “good” slut is a girl who might dress in short shorts and a spaghetti t-shirt and everyone judges her based on that, and not because the weather is hot outside. It is unfortunate, but it does happen that people are quick to judge others based on the clothing preference such as short shorts. However, when I read about a “bad” slut, I feel like these are the girls who actively make a to effort to go out and participate in promiscuous behavior on purpose. “Sometimes they are too wild or behave out of the confines of appropriate behavior” (Tanenbaum, 2015 p.184). Personally, this reminds me a lot of my middle school days. Although I went to a private school where wearing uniform was required, many of the girls made it an effort to define it. I remember how I had a friend who had a bigger butt than the rest of the girls in the class and so she would use that excuse to roll up her skirt and make it shorter than the 2 inch about the knee rule. She would go out of her way to try and get around the uniform rules and the guys in the class would love it, whereas the girls would always call her a slut. Nonetheless, like mentioned before, she loved the “slut” and saw it as a
Visualize a teenage girl watching television, surfing the internet, and reading magazines. She sees beautiful women everywhere she turns. She is looking in her bedroom mirror wondering why she does not have similar beauty. She begins to feel self-aware because she reads and hears criticizing comments about the females who are just like her. She says to herself, “Am I not considered beautiful because my skin is not as clear as Angelina Jolie? Do I not fit in the category “pretty” because I do not dress like Beyoncé? Or am I not referred to as “cute” because my hair is not as straight and silky as Taraji P. Henson?” Now imagine yourself being that teenage girl. How would you feel if you were consistently exposed to a judgmental society that does not accept you? You would want to be considered beautiful because you are unique, you are an individual, and you are a person made with both inner and outer beauty.
Women in today’s society seem to be having a very difficult time expressing themselves without dealing with lots of criticism. Common values are standing in the way of women’s drive toward molding themselves into whatever they desire. Our culture has made standards about how should women look, act, and conduct themselves that greatly limits what they can do, and still gain respect. Martin S. Fiebert and Mark W. Meyer state that, “[there are] more negative [gender] stereotypes for men than for women.” This idea doesn’t seem to have a great amount of validity in our present society. Society set certain standards that men are supposed to live up to such as strength and confidence, which are more behavioral characteristics. Women seem to be more trapped than men by societies standards because they are supposed to live up to standards dealing with beauty and size, which are more physical characteristics These specific guidelines have been set by society that are sometimes unattainable for a majority of women. The women that follow the specific criteria are greatly respected, and the ones that try and be innovative usually are criticized if not disliked.
Slut bashing can impact a girl in a positive or negative way; it strengthens some girls by giving them a sense of perspective while others crumble and become self-destructive.
I was flipping through some channels on the television set one day and came across a woman's talk show, "The View." It caught my attention when one of the hostesses asked the audience of mostly women to raise their hand if they thought they were truly beautiful. Much to my surprise the audience did not respond with very many show of hands. The hostess then introduced a study done by Dove, the makers of the body soap. Dove polled over 6,000 women from all over the country and only two percent of the women polled said they feel beautiful. Women are surrounded by images screaming physical beauty is more important than their talents and accomplishments. Women are deriving their self worth from an ideal of how they think they should look and how they think everyone else wants them to look instead of focusing on their sense of who they are, what they know, and where they are going in life. In "Help or Hindrance?: Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little But Fear, Failure," Mary Kay Blakely states, "Instead of encouraging women to grow beyond childish myths and adapt to the changes of life, women's magazines have readers running in place, exhausted." She goes on to say, "This is a world we have 'made up' for women, and it is a perilous place to exist." One of the biggest culprits feeding women's insecurities are the popular women's magazine that line the book shelves of grocery stores, gas stations, and waiting rooms. They supply readers and the occasional innocent passerby with unrealistic images of what women should be instead of showing diverse age groups and women with natural beauty. Reading through a couple of magazines, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Shape, I found nothing but hidden agendas and...
Gender is such a controversial subject. There are some people who see it as what you are born as whereas other people see it as a choice to be whatever you want. There are people who judge whatever gender you are, no matter the choices you make. Paul Theroux wrote about how restrictive masculinity is in his article “Being a Man.” There are so many more restrictions on being feminine. Theroux’s idea of masculinity being restrictive is being challenged on the account that being feminine is seen as bad, and weak.
I could really relate to the article, like Susie Orbach wrote about, most women in our society occupy themselves with making themselves fit into a image that society, men and the media find attractive and beautiful. “The women’s body is not satisfactory as it is. It must be thin, free of “unwanted hair”, deodorized, perfumed and clothed” (Orbach, 451). Even if we don’t realize the effect of advertisement and media has on our image it still has its way of creeping into your subconscious. Flipping thru magazines I constantly think, “Geez, I wish I looked like that.” Women constantly compare themselves to others especially those in the limelight. I started this fight at age eleven to reach this glorified image the media constantly throws at our face. I was a healthy average size pre-teen but I viewed myself as HUGE and that I needed to lose weight. I turned to magazines like seventeen that are full of...
What girl would not and does not want to look like Barbie, or one of those models you see on at fashion shows, or even a famous actress? They have this body that every girl wants and will do anything to get; tall and thin. These models are everywhere; they surround us in magazines, posters, advertisements, television shows, music industry, and at shopping centers. This perfect women figure is surrounding us, making us, women, believe that that is the only figure accepted in this world. Those women who do not look like that are laughed at, and picked on. Women will do whatever is on their hands in order to get the body everyone considers accepting. A few will go to the extremes and cut down on the amount of meals they are eating, they’ll increase the time exercising, and some will even get plastic surgery done. All this for the “pe...
The ethics behind this way of thinking was best elaborated by Nigerian novelist and writer, Chimamanda Adichie. Her persuasive and intellectual speech, “The Dangers Of A Single Story,” opened my eyes towards what I’ve been experiencing for a large portion of my life. This new understanding that Adichie helped me discover about people who neglect to take in mind the history that each person holds, allowed me to cope with these issues. However, it is important to know that other people who’ve suffered the same consequences of people’s ignorance, often don’t have the same levels of confidence or understanding to just get up and move on from the situation. There are people like me who decide not to pay attention to people who don’t bother seeing more to me, or there are those who let their lack of knowledge affect them and basically let other people tell them what kind of person they are. I encourage all of you to be your own person. I encourage you all to be the biggest person you can possibly be and truly make your colors show. I discourage labels and I believe that anyone can rip labels off of themselves as easy as they could place them
In the past twenty years the way society looks at the word “gender” is a totally different perception than what they did years ago, according to the Webster’s dictionary, the word “gender” is the state of being male or female. The word gender use to mean male or female, but now it has become this word that people are taking “offensive”. For example, at schools all around there having to make things gender neutral because a group of people are taking things and twisting them to where it can seem offensive. Society is accepting to anything that’s different and not “how it’s supposed to be” because that equals more publicity. Everyone wants to make everything equal to whatever you want to
Us girls feel personally attacked by the dress code policies simply because even if so much as a centimeter of skin from under our jeans, or a portion of my bra strap is showing we get sent to the office and we are given the lecture of needing to keep a better image of ourselves, and being more conservative about our bodies. Well from coming from a girl's perspective, we feel like we have to bow down to the boys just because they think inappropriate thoughts if any part of a girls skin is showing. Well, we have society and adults to thank for this simply because when boys are caught doing something they aren't supposed to do or watch something they are not supposed to be watching, adults simply say, “Oh boys will be boys.”. Now adults have conditioned boys to think that thinking these thoughts is a way of life and that it is okay to think them just because they are boys. God made us girls the way we are for a reason, why are we letting guys discriminate us women in such a way that we basically have to dress like a boy in order to keep them from thinking these sinful
Individuals who do not know what gender role they are disliked and shamed by society because they are not what society calls “normal”. The definition of normal is conforming to a standard or conforming to the expected. Society should not have the power to make an individual conform to anything. Does a person have to be born female to be female? The answer is simply no. Jenna Talackova is a prime example of this because she was born a man but knew he was a female from the beginning. These people who were born with a specific genetic gender have no control over their chemical make-up, but they do control what gender role they decide to be and no one should tell them to pick one that fits the normal standards of society. Judith Butler writes about gender is her book and how it should not be a preconceived notion. People who have non-normative gender roles struggle daily with the fact that they cannot express who they are because the public would disgrace them and society would not accept them, which are problems that can be solved by a simple lesson of not judging a book by its cover.
Gender plays a role in the way that people are viewed. It works hand in hand with other factors such as race, sexuality, class, and age and helps to construct the roles that people are confined within. These roles are limiting, no matter what group of characteristics an individual has. All of these aspects work together to create a system of privilege. Certain truths are inescapable when it comes to privilege: men are better off than women, heterosexuality is viewed as the norm, and white people have more privilege than any other race. The previous groups and the people who are in them are regarded as the default. This means that anything different is viewed as other, such as bisexuality or homosexuality. Furthermore,
Compliments on personality may come later, but they’re never first. That reinforces things such as make up and cute clothes on girls. Another thing that I have been working on is judging other girls for the sex life. If I heard a girl had slept with a few dudes, I would consider her a slut. However, if a guy had slept with the same amount or more, I wouldn’t call him a name or judge him. That is something I have gotten a lot better of not doing and encouraging others to not do it. Society as a whole have taught me those gender stereotypes and made me more judgmental. Influence come from family, friends, and media. Because that influence is coming from so many places, it is hard to not judge someone if they are not following what is “normal” for their gender. Personally, I think the media has taught me most of this. My parents obviously showed some stereotyping, but they would till buy me Barbies and racecars to play with. Therefore, I don’t think they influenced me to have those gender stereotypes as much as the media