Miss Representation Summary

First, throughout society, men, women, and children view millions of advertisements daily. In those advertisements, there is one common factor---a woman. However, this is not just an average woman you see every day but a schema of what the perfect woman is. Because this ideal image of beauty is so heavily pushed through media and ads, young girls are being taught that this is what they should strive for. Activists and educators such as Jean Kilbourne, explains how this is deteriorating the confidence and self-worth of young women and girls. Throughout the documentary, we learn that the term “Miss

Representation” exemplifies how the media profiles women into many different categories and bases their success on different levels, such as beauty, weight, body image and

Also, since only one animated movie had a female protagonist that wasn’t revolved around finding romance, it teaches girls that their ultimate goal is to either be fall in love, get married and get pregnant. Traditional gender messages can also be very powerful. The documentary discusses how the more power women gain, the more backlash they tend to receive and women are usually the toughest critics.

Also the media plays a large role when it comes to power because it is defined by men and this tends to lead to bad situations for women because it threatens the “status-quo”. Nevertheless, the media boldly disrespects our female politicians and leaders only diminishing their self-worth and questions their efficacy in society. How is this affecting the young women girls now who would like to be a part of politics or leadership roles? A young woman named Davanshi Patel was featured in the documentary and it explained her aspirations of a career in public service. In every organization she runs for, she runs for the top role, however what she sees is that women are more subjected to sexism which