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It’s astonishing on how much we as people, are getting sucked into this every day without even trying to acknowledging it. Just last semester, I took a class in Diversity and Social Justice. We had to watch a video called “Killing us Softly 4. ” That video was such an eye opener for women and is very powerful. The speaker named Jean Kilojoules lectures in the video on how women in today’s society are being portrayed. After forty years of doing research on this, she has said it has actually gotten worse, ads more than products. Advertisers surround us with ideal female beauty.
We earn at an early age that we must spend hours on end doing our make-up and trying to look like that exact women on the cover of the magazine, and if we don’t somewhat achieve that look then we as women feel like we have failed. She also argues that advertisements in the today’s media degrade women and reinforce stereotypes. Every women would love to look like the gorgeous woman on the cover of the magazine, I mean who wouldn’t? If you really look, the woman on the magazine is always flawless, she doesn’t have any wrinkles, she has no scars or blemishes.
The funny thing is, no one can actually achieve this look. It’s amazing how much Photos can transform someone into something they are not. Mainstream women’s magazine boosts tons of subscribers every year and they tend to always have some kind of message on how women need to improve themselves and that the ideal body type and ideal look is the only type that is acceptable or want to be known as “beautiful. ” You can see that in today’s society, women’s body are being portrayed as objects. You will see more and more women showing off their skin to catch the eye of the consumers.
For example, a women’s body can be a bottle of Bud Light or a women’s body could be a part of a video game. Of course this will reflect on a women’s self-esteem. More than 100% of the women on the advertisements are usually very thin. It puts pressure on you to try to keep that ideal weight. You wouldn’t believe that it could be possible for a women to become thinner than she already is, but it has happened. Majority of women usually go through anorexia because they feel being 1 00 pounds is still being considered “fat. ” Advertising has diminished the self-confidence and self-worth of young women.
Modern media uses methods that concentrate on sex and the stereotypical images and ideas of the parts men and women. Most ads are products that are being sold to women but yet advertisers think that showing some skin will help sell the product. These days you will see a woman just modeling off their shoes. These bodies serve as attention grabbers. They try and suck you in by selling just the look of the shoe. Women will spend hundreds of dollars on unnecessary things that are being advertised because that object will always be there when you seem to need it.
Back in the sass women were automatically assumed to be a stay at home house wife. She is supposed to cook, clean and take care of the kids. Now times have changed, not only are women being portrayed as “sex symbols” in advertisements, so are men. Men in advertising are always supposed to be a macho and a built guy, so they say. If you watch commercials you always see men eating pizza, chicken wings and sandwiches. Could you be any more stereotypical? We barely see a man being sensitive, because if they are then they are considered being weak.
For men in advertisements, you mostly see advertisers choosing men celebrities as their main objective. I believe men have their own ancestries just as much as women do, even though women strive to be the thinnest omen out there, men strive to be the most built man there is around. Advertisers try to promise you that these products will do wonders for you, but will it? They say that if you buy these pair of jeans that it will make you feel as if you were a new woman. Mind you that the one pair of jeans already cost around almost $100.
People that are working minimum wage jobs, how are they going to be willing to afford something like that, that is the question. Advertising is claimed by its practitioners to be largely responsible for the good things in life and is criticized by its unpleasant things by its consumers. It saddens me how we choose to accept these certain things, I myself would have to say that I am a part of this generation who is so sucked into this certain life style where you are constantly trying to keep up with the latest trend.
Everyone wants to have the newest phone, the newest clothing brand, or the newest tablet adjusts came out. It just blows my mind on how some people will wake up at the crack of dawn just for a pair of $180 Cordon sneakers but yet they sleeping on one mattress on the floor. It seems to me that people these days are having their priorities being mixed up just so they an be fit into the “in” crowd. At the end of the day, who are we to blame for all of this nonsense? The media? This generation? Who personally knows?
It’s easy to pin point fingers at the next person but to actually take some part of the blame is not so easy. Nobody wants to be criticized for something that everyone has a harsh opinion on. I just hope that one day women will start to feel comfortable in their own skin. It shouldn’t matter what size or color you are, you are considered beautiful no matter what it is. After researching this topic, it made me realize that I am also one of the many that has trudged to be thin. After having two kids, its hard to get back into that shape you were before.
Being a parent scares me now that I do have a daughter. I wouldn’t want her to feel the need to try to object herself to be the next top model in order to feel beautiful. Sometimes I do also feel the pressure from society, to try to keep up with the newest things, but objects shouldn’t make you feel like you need then. We tend to forget the difference between needing something and wanting something. That $1000 Louis Button purse, you don’t need that but that house you are trying to buy is such a better goal to have.