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Portrayal of gender roles in the media argument
Portrayal of gender roles in the media argument
Influences of popular culture
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Unrealistic Expectations of Women
I can’t tell you how many times I have opened up a fashion magazine, listened to adds on the radio, watched commercials on TV, or observed the stereotyping in today’s extremely judgmental society and seen the effects that our expectations have had on people, especially young women. There are so many instances throughout the course of everyday life, that I feel expected to live vicariously through the body of a Victoria’s Secret model. I can only wonder how many others feel this way as well.
I was recently leafing through the pages of the 2002 Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and within a matter of five minutes, I was majorly downing my body and my looks. I couldn’t help but compare my body to that of a woman who is 5’10” and weighs 105 pounds, when the average female is 5’6” and weighs 140 pounds. It’s no wonder there are so many cases of anorexia and bulimia when a model, comparable to the stick figures drawn by kindergartener's everywhere, is yet another symbol of what is considered to be beautiful.
Another article that caught my eye was in an old Cosmopolitan magazine I just had lying around. It was entitled, “Five Fixes That’ll Make Him Want You.” Now, my initial reaction was one of frustration. Why is there so much pressure to make the opposite sex want you. It’s a dreaded curse that is utterly inescapable. We will always be trying to impress the opposite sex. There is always going to be something about us that isn’t quite right, or one flaw that if we could just in some way fix, we’d be perfect. Girls, let me ask you something. Do you think those models are happy? They are constantly under an enormous amount of pressure to keep the body they have, to not eat, and to be absolutely flawless.
We hear sayings everyday such as “Looks don’t matter; beauty is only skin-deep”, yet we live in a decade that contradicts this very notion. If looks don’t matter, then why are so many women harming themselves because they are not satisfied with how they look? If looks don’t matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide any flaws that one has? This is because with the media establishing unattainable standards for body perfection, American Women have taken drastic measures to live up to these impractical societal expectations. “The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability” (Wykes 2). As portrayed throughout all aspects of our media, whether it is through the television, Internet, or social media, we are exploited to a look that we wish we could have; a toned body, long legs, and nicely delineated six-pack abs. Our society promotes a body image that is “beautiful” and a far cry from the average woman’s size 12, not 2. The effects are overwhelming and we need to make more suitable changes as a way to help women not feel the need to live up to these unrealistic standards that have been self-imposed throughout our society.
Gregor Samsa’s mother, whose name is never revealed, is a physically and constitutionally weak woman. She cares dearly for Gregor which is first shown by her distress as Gregor does not wake up at his usual time. It is evident that Gregor’s mother has the hardest time coping with his transformation. She can not bear to lay eyes upon Gregor. Though she has trouble adjusting, she doesn’t stop loving her only son. As Gregor’s mother and sister begin to move furniture out of his room, his mother stops to contemplate whether this is the right course of action. As Sheldon Goldfarb states in his critical essay, “When his mother and sister start removing his furniture, his mother's second thoughts provoke him to resist: he does not want to give up his human past and the possibility of returning to it” (Goldfarb). On the outside, Gregor’s mother reacts with repulsion at the sight of the bug, but on the inside still cares deeply about her son underneath. Gregor is able to see this and it gives him new hope.
In the Confessions, Augustine wrote about his struggle with understanding how evil exists in a world created by God. He questioned how it was possible and why God allows evil in his creations because God is supremely good. After delving into finding a solution, Augustine concluded that evil does not exist, and the things deemed as evil are caused by free will. This paper will argue that Augustine has successfully proven that evil does not exist by explaining his earlier explanation of the origin of evil taught by the Manicheans, explaining Augustine’s teachings, and finally, using the textual descriptions of Augustine’s unwillingness to convert as support for his conclusion.
Augustine’s Confessions is a biographic of the life of St. Augustine. The biopic chronicles the life of Augustine as he tries to navigate his way through life and find his path as it relates to the Christian faith. Augustine discusses many of his struggles and issues while on the path to find himself and his place in God. One of the main issues he covers in his biopic are the struggles had with reconciling the existence of evil with the goodness of God. He struggled with this issue in particular due to his participation in the belief of Manicheanism. Manicheanism is a heretical version of Christianity, that was first introduced by the self-proclaimed prophet Mani. Augustine claims he fell victim to this belief system when he was at a vulnerable point in his journey and was seeking answers for certain question he has pertaining to faith. He fell into Manicheanism when he tried to look at the scriptures himself and interrupt them but to a rhetoric like himself the scriptures made no sense at the time, so he turned from them and to the well-worded faith of Manicheanism. Augustine considers that decision one of the biggest mistakes of his life, attributing his great difficulties in reconciling the existence of evil with God’s goodness to his belief in Manicheanism. In this paper I aim to explore the reason behind why Augustine felt his belief in Manicheanism was such a grave mistake. I also hope to explain how he tried to reconcile his issues concerning evil and God’s goodness, and if he was successful in this attempt. In order to do this we must first look deeper at Manicheanism to examine what the core values and beliefs of the faith are, so that we can understand why Augustine had such a hard time dealing with the issue of evil and...
The media can impact people’s lives in many ways, whether it’s fashion, movies, literature, or hobbies. One of the impacts is how women view their bodies. Movie stars and models feel pressured to catch attention and to look good in order to have a good career in their respective field. People tend to judge how someone looks based on their body composition. The result of this “judgment” is that Hollywood is getting skinny. Since models and actresses serve as role models for people, people tend to want to look like them. The result of this seemingly harmless model of behavior is in an increase in eating disorders.
“Suddenly every vain hope became worthless to me, and with an incredible warmth of heart I yearned for an immortality of wisdom and began now to arise that I might return to thee” (Confessions, IV). He continued reading other works and Christian scriptures and began to wonder where evil came from. During this time of answer seeking, Augustine wanted to achieve personal victory over evil and sin in his life, so he explored the Manichean religion. “According to Manicheanism, there is a cosmic principle of darkness as well as a principle of light. What we experience in our lives is the warfare between the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness” (Matthews pg. 9). The Manichean belief was attractive to Augustine because of its clear, materialistic viewpoint and explanation of evil. However, “After nine years spent in the school of Manicheanism he owned that his mind had become so clogged by material images that he habitually thought of mind and God in terms of matter” (Darcy pg. 156). Although he was very involved in the Manichean teachings and faith, his faith was shaken during a time of deep depression following the the death of a close friend and son. Towards the end of his apprenticeship a famous Manichean Bishop, Faustus, visited the city. Augustine was eager to ask Bishop Faustus questions about the Manichean faith that had been eating at him for quite some time. But to
Although thin people seem to dominate society, the average size for a woman today is a size twelve. That puts the number of models on a smaller scale, and boosts the number of ordinary girls that make up most of society today. It’s not just about ordinary girls outnumbering models; it’s about the way that the media portrays these models. Slowly, the image of the “thin and beautiful” being the best is going down the drain. Larger models and actresses are taking the places of the “thin.” Hopefully, this will decrease the increasing numbers of anorexics in the United States as well as all over the world.
Stalins rise as a dictator over the USSR in 1929, was a struggle for power. It was set by Lenin, in his testament, that Stalin was not to takeover control as the party leader, and to be removed from his position as General Secretary, as Stalin in Lenins eyes had lack of loyalty, tolerance, and politeness. However, different factors, such as Lenins funeral, Stalins position as General Secretary and the rise of bureaucracy, and Stalins relationship to Kamenev and Zinoviev, made it possible for Stalin to become the undisputed leader over the USSR in 1929. This essay will discuss the methods and the conditions, which helped Joseph Stalin rise to power.
... effects of a corrupting entity, what then is Christ’s work? How can a physical sacrifice save the world from sliding into nonexistence? The answer comes from another adjustment; Christ comes to pull creation back towards the eternal God. Salvation through Christ is does not look like Him coming as a warrior to vanquish the evil forces, but Him coming as a loving servant to heal the corrupted beings (i.e. sinners) back to their original state of grace. Thus, the idea of there being a war between forces of God and Evil is not compatible with truth of the Gospel; rather that God designed the world in harmony and wishes it to return to this state. This proves that, in the end, Augustine’s answer to the problem of evil is correct in accordance to Christian Confession.
The most fashionable, sought after magazines in any local store are saturated with beautiful, thin women acting as a sexy ornament on the cover. Commercials on TV feature lean, tall women promoting unlimited things from new clothes to as simple as a toothbrush. The media presents an unrealistic body type for girls to look up to, not images we can relate to in everyday life. When walking around in the city, very few people look like the women in commercials, some thin, but nothing similar to the cat walk model. As often as we see these flawless images float across the TV screen or in magazines, it ...
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
Fashion models don’t need to be thin, they need to be diverse and healthy at whatever weight that is. Not everyone is supposed to be thin, some women are big boned and curvy, others are naturally slim and small boned, some are tall, others are short, some are light skinned and others are darker. So many diverse looks exist in the world today and the fashion industry need to change their perception of perfect. Body image in our society is out of control. We have young men and women comparing themselves to unrealistic models and images in the media and feeling bad about the way their own bodies look because they somehow don’t measure up. (Dunham, 2011) The struggle for models to be thin has led to models becoming anorexic or bulimic, untimely deaths, and inferiority complexes. Even worse is the fact that they influence a whole generation of young women who look up to these models and think “thin” is how they are supposed to be. They influence what we buy, how we eat and what we wear. Why has this specific group captured our attention so much? Why do we seem to be so fascinated in their lives, to the point where we try to look and act just like them? The media is largely to be blamed for this, many people believe the media has forced the notion that everything supermodels do is ideal. Others believe that the society is to be blamed because we have created a fascination with their lives. There are many opinions, and I agree with both of these specific opinions. We allow ourselves to be captivated by these people's lives, and the media portrayal of their lives seem to also enthrall us. (Customessaymeister, 2013) Despite the severe risks of forcing models to become too thin, designers, fashion editors, fashion brands and agencies still ...
A tall, glamorous runway model is every girl’s dream. Long beautiful legs, lean body, and beautiful shiny hair is what an average young woman views as an ideal image for a female. If you don’t resemble the images of those stunning Victoria Secret models and Fashion Week models, you suddenly become ashamed of your own body. It is a great life to have with the high pay, fame, drinking champagne on a yacht with famous celebrities and even being on the Vogue cover page. Fashion Modeling Industry has been the most influential source in our young women’s lives. Young girls and young women are seen eating as little as they can, even starving themselves at times to resemble those models. What they don’t realize is that they are contributing to the 2.7 percentage of 13- 18 year olds suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic said exposure to thin models is a great trigger in maintaining an eating disorder. When watching America’s Next Top Model or flipping through a Fashion magazine, these young women don’t apprehend that those models are either naturally slim or they are suffering from an eating disorder themselves, in other words, hostages in the dark hell hid behind those runway curtains. The growing number of young anorexia and bulimia patients, and the number of websites such as thinspiration, where girls put up pictures of their thin bodies clearly suggest that the fashion modeling industry do not at all bear any responsibility in providing healthy, realistic physical role models for young women.
Augustine attempted to answer a very large question in his writings, he attempts to define evil.
The media has promoted a dominant view of how people should perceive beauty, and what consists of perfection in beauty. According to Dr. Karin Jasper, the media have women encouraging them to be concerned with their outward appearance and how others perceive them by surrounding everyone with the ideal female beauty. (Jasper, 2000) Body image has become a particular concern for young girls and women, often females work diligently to attain the perfect body image advertised in mass media. (Gibbs, 2010) When women are not able to obtain their ideal body goal, many develop negative feelings and become self-conscious about their bodies. Conversely, it is not possible for someone to look like a model in ads, someone without blemishes, scars, or pours. Another study conducted in 2012 showed contemporary media and culture has defined a women’s social desirability in terms of their bodies. For females, this has often resulted in comparing themselves to bodies shown in advertisements, commercials, magazines, etc. however not all body