The Blazer is a woman who does not rely on her body to get by, or to obtain her goals in life. She knows that she can rely on more than just the way her body looks to be able to achieve success. She is self-motivated and self-directed, is work oriented, and is a woman who is both fancy and classy, making her attire appropriate both for work and a night out. She is the kind of person to be at the top of her class, because she knows what she wants out of life and is willing to work hard to acquire it. She knows that even when she is faced with obstacles, she will be able to adapt to the situation and overcome them. Her main goal in life is to be a successful woman in the work place, but she is able to balance this with her social and personal life. Although she is very focused on establishing and maintaining a career, she knows how to carry herself in a way that is appealing to potential employers as well as to acquaintances. The Blazer is always determined, devoted, and enthusiastic about new jobs and challenges. Since she is focused on her goals, these challenges appeal to her, and she persists even when they prove to be difficult. Even though she relies on her inner abilities to succeed, she knows that it is necessary to portray herself in a professional way in order to succeed. This is why she is called the blazer. With her practical clothes and her fashionable style, she presents these traits to those around her. She represents the working class female in a way that is a positive influence for younger women who also strive for a life in which they can stand on their own two feet. The Blazer knows that for school and work it is important to be able to show others that they are serious about where they are headed in lif... ... middle of paper ... ...f any obstacles that they might face along the way. By showing that she can have the brains as well as the looks, she encourages young women to try harder to attend high class schools and to understand that with a little bit of extra work they can make it to the top of their area of work. Many women can see this as a trend that can help them achieve anything that they put their minds to. She can increase the amount of women applying for universities and jobs by inspiring them to do more than stay at home as housewives. And though the targeted audience knows that looks aren’t everything, they also know that the image they portray is extremely important in the work environment. Everyone knows that when you look good, you feel good, and having a positive state of mind is always helpful to better your chances of finding a healthy balance in all areas of your life.
The flapper was the harbinger of radical change in American culture. She was a product of social and political forces that assembled after the First World War. Modernization adjusted the American life. Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz analyzes the people who created the image of the flapper.
Some women of the 1920s rebelled against being traditional. These women became known as flappers and impacted the post-war society. People in the 1920’s couldn’t make up their minds about flappers. Some were against them and some were with them. Therefore, some people in the 1920’s loved and idolized flappers, I on the other hand, believed that they were a disgrace to society. These women broke many rules leading young women to rebel against their families.
Being a curvaceous young woman is hard enough. Especially when you’re trying to find love, you’re seeking approval and anticipating a better future for yourself. The film Real Women Have Curves stresses how important higher education is to a Mexican-American teenager and the wrath she endures from her mother because of her weight and aspiration. Mark Twain stated that, “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great” (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/keepaway_from_those_who_try_to_belittleyour/215215.html). I believe I can personally relate to Real Women Have Curves, the reason being is because I’m a daughter, I’m overweight, and I’m seeking a post-secondary education. This is a synopsis of Real Women Have Curves; I’ll reveal why the film is so inspiring to me, I’ll give feedback from movie reviews, and I’ll use documents from my course’s textbook, to fully develop my ideas.
The once male dominated, corporate, "white collar" America has seen a phenomenal influx of women within the last thirty years. Although a female lawyer, physician, or CEO is no longer considered a rarity in our times, women still face quite a deal of oppression in comparison to their male counterparts. In retrospect, some professions have always been controlled by women, and men have not made a noticeable advance in these fields. In 1970, finding a female lawyer to represent you would be a difficult task, since less than five percent of the profession were women. Today, that number has risen to almost thirty percent. The percentage of female doctors has almost tripled in the course of thirty years. African Americans have not made such a conspicuous progression within the last fifty years, while women have made a tremendous impact on the corporate world. One may wonder, how did women make these extraordinary advances? For the most part, it is due to the education they receive. At the present time young girls are encouraged to enroll in classes dealing with math and science, rather than home economics and typing. As pointed out by Nanette Asimov, in her essay "Fewer Teen Girls Enrolling in Technology Classes", school officials are advocating the necessity of advanced placement, and honor classes for teenage girls, in both the arts and sciences. This support and reassurance than carries over onto college, and finds a permanent fixture in a woman’s life. While women are continuing their success in once exclusively male oriented professions, they are still lacking the respect and equality from their peers, coworkers, and society. The average male lawyer, and doctor make twenty-five percent more money than their female equivalent. Women have always lived with the reputation of being intellectually inferior to, and physically submissive to men. This medieval, ignorant notion is far fetched from the truth. In 1999, high school men and women posted similar SAT scores, being separated by a only a few points. In addition to posting similar scores on the SAT, the average males score was a mere two-tenths of a point higher than an average females score on the ACT. Even though a woman maybe as qualified as a male for a certain occupation , women receive unwanted harassment, and are under strict scrutiny. A good illustration of this would be the women represented in "Two Women Cadets Leave the Citadel.
As progressive era reforms advanced from the 1880s to t 1920s, women took on a significant role in political change with specific regard to the ratification of the 19th amendment and social conditions with emphasis on women’s reproductive rights and restraint from alcohol.
In the early twentieth century, women were expected to dress modestly at all times and were predestined to be housewives. Once men were drafted into World War I, women needed a distraction such as working and providing for themselves and a way to show that they are just as strong alone and don’t need men to make decisions for them. Eventually a new breed of women emerged from society. Women that wore bobbed hair, short skirts, flamboyant dresses and had an enjoyment of jazz were considered to be “flapper”. The flapper was an in-between of adulthood and pure immaturity (NYU) . Flappers were daring, empowering and courageous. This group of women were determined to let society know that they were on a mission to steer society from the cultural norm. They believed women were just as powerful as men were and would use their voice, actions and even appearance to prove this theory. The Flapper went from being just a look to the beginning of a feminist awakening.
...the images of women are presented through technology. Women can easily access negative images through technological aspects. Advertisements, the internet, celebrities and other technology present women in sexualized and demeaning manners. Showing women in positive manners can shift the negative image of women and empower their role in society.
Barbara White, author of Women’s Career Development, gives an opportunity for successful women to give advice to other women wanting to pursue a career in the workforce. First, they explained that women need to be single-minded today. They must make their own choices and know what they want. If a woman hopes to achieve her goal of an ‘American Dream’ and live up to it, then she should be persistent and keep working at achieving her objectives. The best advice given in White’s book is that a woman should not underestimate herself (227-229). A woman today can be whatever she pleases. It takes work, dedication and persistence to achieve goals in general, not just in the career aspect of life. As seen through Joan Crawford and Dawn Steel’s stories, a ‘business woman’ has a bright future now and for years to come. Women’s roles have drastically changed throughout the past century along with the actual number of women now working. It is phenomenal to see such an increase in women’s participation, and hopefully this course will continue even higher into the twenty-first century.
The documentary Miss Representation describes the struggle of female leadership. It is based on the way the women look, the way they carry themselves, and the way they brutalize themselves to fit in with others. This documentation allow different women to tell their ways that the media have slashed them, and allow others to stand up for women. Women portray themselves to fit as the image that has been altered with to get it to look that way. Margaret Cho explains that her show All American Girl was cancelled because she had problems with the network who aired the show because they constantly said was not thin enough. That is a prime example of today's problems with pursuing your dreams as an actor or pursuing your dreams as a model. You have to change your physical features to fit in, and if you do not you won’t get in.
Women of the 1920's Women during the 1920's lifestyle, fashion, and morals were very different than women before the 1920's. Flappers became the new big thing after the 19th amendment was passed. Women's morals were loosened, clothing and haircuts got shorter, and fashion had a huge role in these young women. Women before the 1920's were very different from the women of the Roarin' 20's. Gwen Hoerr Jordan stated that the ladies before the 1920's wore dresses that covered up most of their skin, had pinned up long hair, were very modest, had chaperones and had men make all of their decisions (1).
In today’s culture, depending on the person, beauty can be depicted as a positive influence or as a negative influence. Alyssa Giacobbe outlines beauty in her article, “Youth, Beauty, and An Obsession with Looks.” Giacobbe swings towards a more negative viewpoint.
It only leads them to another types of level of sexism as Cudd and Jones refer to it as “Institutional sexism”. When a women wants to get a job, the standards for them are set pretty high. For example if a women wants to get a job as model, then they must be a size 0 in order to achieve that type of job. As simple as if a women wants a job at hooters, then they have to meet a certain criteria of what a “hooters waitress” looks like. For a while the restraunt would even base their final decision on the appreance of the women applying for Hooters. It is unfair that a women is judged on their appearance and not on their performance. Although sexism doesn’t seem like it it’s going on anymore, it really is. Women are pressured by society to learn and act a certain way, and even if they don’t really want to they do it anyways because they would rather “fit in”, than being a
The way they are portrayed has a major effect on the self-esteem of Women and young girls. Women compared to Men are not represented equally in media, this is shown in many ways. How Genders Work: Producing the J. CREW Catalog by Paul Muhlhauser and Kelly Bradbury represents how both Women and Men are portrayed in their magazines. What was found that the font used to describe the models clothing was significantly different between Men and Women. A skinny small font was used for the Women and a big and bold font was used for the Men. This was meant to emphasize that it should be kept skinny for Women and not to emphasize curves or shape in body type whereas the Men’s font was used to represent the work that men do, implying they do some sort of physical labor (Muhlhauser and Bradbury). The way that Men and Women models pose and are photographed also has a significant difference. Women are posing to appear fragile and off balance as if they need a prosthetic or Man to rely on. The Men however are posing with their bodies posing strong and stable (Muhlhauser and Bradbury). Women often should be photographed with other girls to represent how “women are social beings who work at being dreams or developing playful girl-friendships”. Also women are photographed sometimes not showing their faces or only showing fragments of their bodies to “Emphasize how fragmented Women’s lives are without Men” (Muhlhauser and Bradbury). The differences between how Men and Women are photographed set a very disempowering feeling to Women. A commercial starring talk show host Kelly Ripa sets am example on how Women are being portrayed. This commercial is for kitchen appliances and it shows her running around the house cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her children. In a certain part of the commercial she says how the appliances help her “be the charming co-host” implying that her husband is
Negativity and discrimination against women on both reality and fictional television continues to change the way women see themselves. When watching television, one will notice that most of the famous, liked, and spotlighted ladies are skinny or what society sees as beautiful. These women also dressed impeccably and tend to their partners’ desires. Natalie Imbruglia states, “You’re either too fat or too thin, just can’t win.” Her quotation truly explains how society, especially through television, makes the average woman feel as if she is not enough. Average women are taught to believe they will never be successful or even loved because of how they look.
I would like to begin with the fact that women have always been known to dedicate their time to beauty. Those who are devoted to their appearance most often believe that beauty brings power, popularity, and success. Women believe this, because they grow up reading magazines that picture beautiful women in successful environments; not to mention they are popular models and world famous individuals. Beautiful women are no longer just a priority for most advertising, but we have become a walking target for the working class employers. It is documented that better-looking attorneys earn more than others after five years of practice, which was an effect that grew with experience (Biddle, 172). We cannot overlook the fact that it is always the most popular and most beautiful girl who becomes homecoming-queen or prom-queen. While these are possible positive effects of the "beauty myth," the negative results of female devotion to beauty undercut this value. These effects are that it costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time, and in the long run, it costs a lot of pain.