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Austin Nielsen English 1010 Mrs. Anna Black Casual Argument Research Assignment THE EFFECT OF MEDIA ON A YOUNG WOMAN’S SELF-IMAGE Today’s Media plays a large role in dictating what a true woman should look like, talk like and who they should be friends with. Bye in large. The media has had an overwhelmingly negative impact on a woman’s self of steam and her feeling of self-worth. The media has portrayed the ideal woman as tall, slender, tons of friends and a successful job. But what does that make all the rest of the “real” women?
It makes them feel inferior. Leading to poor eating habits, anorexia, and severe medical complications in a desperate attempt to gain the perfect womanly figure. This unrealistic portrayal is leading woman into lifestyle that is ultimately self-destructive and detrimental to their well-being. “A recent survey commissioned by a British magazine found that: 79% of the 2000 women surveyed thought that their social lives would improve if they were thinner. 83% thought that overweight celebrities led unhappy lives. 0% believed that overweight people were generally seen as less intelligent and less attractive. 88% of girls feel the need to “look perfect”. 60% say their appearance is their biggest concern in life. These kinds of statistics are appalling, yet go bye unnoticed by billions of people worldwide who have come to accept that getting skinny is the new norm and ultimate goal for every woman. Also the Media’s definition of the “perfect life” has become greatly distrted and completely beyond the means of the average woman. “If you are paid 100,000 a year to work part-time, have a house worth 1. million and an Aston Martin in the driveway, congratulations. In the view of many, you have the perfect life. “-Mail online news. This kind of image leads many woman to become completely dissatisfied with their “mediocre” jobs, and are convinced the place to be is 10 floors up telling someone else what to do. This can have an obvious negative impact on a women career and her overall work performance. A recent poll showed that of the women who weren’t satisfied with their lives, two thirds blamed the fact that they are unable to afford verything they want. Seventeen, a popular magazine among teenage girls in the United States, claims to “encourage independence” and help each reader “become this wonderful person that she dreams she will be. ” But in reality , “Seventeen only reinforces the cultural expectations that an adolescent woman should be more concerned with her appearance, her relations with other people and her ability to win approval from men than with her own ideas or her expectations for herself. ” –Kimberly Phillips of FAIR. By teaching young women that the most important things in a woman’s life should be her looks and her relationships to men, they only serve to reinforce the drop in self-esteem. ” We can easily assume that the Media’s unrealistic and disillusioned representation of the “ideal” woman is not effecting the way young women in our society are developing but the truth is it can have an overwhelmingly negative impact on their lives. “A standard Barbie doll is 11. 5 inches tall, so at a 1/6th scale, she would stand five feet nine inches.
Her chest would measure thirty-six inches, her waist, eighteen inches, and her hips would be thirty-three inches. According to the set of scales that came with Slumber Party Barbie, she weights one hundred and ten pounds. Therefore, Barbie at life-sized proportions is thirty-five pounds underweight, lacks the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for women to menstruate, and would suffer from back problems due to her not having enough strength to support her largely proportioned breasts. ” BreezySands, Wilmington, DE , These are not the aspirations young women should be developing. Works Cited Page
SALKELD, LUKE. “The ‘perfect Life’: A ? 100,000 Salary, a House worth ? 1. 6m and an Aston Martin | Mail Online. ” Home | Mail Online. Associated Newspapers Ltd. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www. dailymail. co. uk/news/article-1293930/The-perfect-life-A-100-000-salary-house-worth-1-6m-Aston-Martin. html>. Phillips, Kimberly. “How Seventeen Undermines Young Women. ” Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). Web. 26 Oct. 2011. <http://www. fair. org/index. php? page=1560>. BreezySands. “Mass Media Has a Negative Impact on Women. ” Teen Ink. 1 Jan. 2009. Web. 26 Oct. 2011.