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Our staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in The Negative Effects of Media on Women, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your The Negative Effects of Media on Women paper at affordable prices ! Imagine this a young girl, about fifteen years old, very pretty, and a good height for modeling. In fact, two top modeling agencies are desperately trying to get her to work for them. Now imagine this fifteen year-old, at 5 7, she weighs only 8 pounds. This girl is one of Londons Rhodes Farm Clinics sickest patients. She is classified as a severe anorexic. And both modeling agencies still want her. This has become a serious issue in the last twenty years. The fashion industry has been attacked for years for using models such as Twiggy, and now more recently Kate Moss, whose figures emphasize extreme thinness and encourage women in society to hate their own bodies, and to extremes, develop anorexia or bulimia. I feel it is too extreme to say that the media causes eating disorders, but I feel that it certainly creates a climate in which they can develop, and something needs to be done about it. In fact, media is degrading to women in many ways, including emotionally. And the most common way that media can do this to women is through advertising.We are exposed to at least 1500 ads every day (Lazarus). Its no wonder we see so many--advertising is the life-blood of the mass media. It is an industry that reaps over $1 billion each year. And almost every ad surrounds us with the image of ideal female beauty. These days, the average number of hours a child spends in front of the television per week is twenty-two. So its no wonder that girls learn at a young age that in order to be beautiful, they must spend lots of time, energy, and most of all, money (Kilbourne). And they also learn that in order to be accepted they must be painfully, unnaturally thin. In fact, todays average model actually weighs % less than the average female. But girls arent taught this. They arent taught that only a shocking five percent of American women have the body of a model. Models are born into a certain body type. They are naturally tall, genetically thin, and they are narrow-hipped and long-legged. And again, only five percent of American women are born into that body type.Although models are naturally thin, they must diet and exercise profusely, and many of them develop eating disorders. This is because advertisings ultimate goal is complete flawlessness, which is impossible. Not even models are actually as flawless as they appear in ads (Kilbourne). There are many high-tech editing tools that help to give models that flawless look. Airbrushing is one example of this. Computers are also used often in re-touching. With the use of computers, editors can lengthen a nose, whiten eyes, and remove birth marks. Mirabella magazine even went so far as to create a cover girl that didnt even exist in real life. They copied the facial features of other beautiful women, put them all together, and created a new cover model (Kilbourne). This happens in many commercials and television shows too. Instead of seeing only one women (as you think you are) you are actually seeing four or five women, all combined. Youre seeing one womans hair, another womans face, and yet another womans body, etc. This happened in the movie Pretty Woman. A body double was used in place of Julia Roberts on the main video cover, as well as in scenes of the movie when Julia was partially undressed.Often times womens bodies are dismembered in ads. Its no longer a woman were seeing, its only one part of a woman--the perfect part, whether its the legs, back, midsection, or behind. This causes women to be seen as objects, and that is the most dehumanizing thing that can be done to a woman (Kilbourne).
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The whole arena of advertising is degrading to women, not only when parts of her body are focused on, which causes serious body image problems, starting young. Research shows that when a girl reaches adolescence her self-esteem plummets. This does not apply to boys. In fact, boys have a lot to say about what they think of girls who are overweight. Fourth-grade boys were making comments like, Fat girls arent like regular girls, they arent attractive (Ward 0). So is it any wonder that the number-one wish of teenage girls, ages eleven to seventeen, is to lose weight? But where do fourth-grade boys get this attitude from? And why do girls feel so obligated to reinforce it?I know the popular thing for parents to do nowadays is to restrict the amount of television their child watches. So if kids are supposed to be watching less television, how are these images of fat-free bodies still being imbedded in childrens minds? Take a look at what many parents are turning to instead of regular television programs. Parents dont want their kids watching TV so instead they pop in a Disney movie. Now dont get me wrong, Disney is a wonderful corporation, and they have major talent in recreating old fairy tales and classics. But if one watches the images and subconscious messages these movies tell children, one might be a little more discriminatory about what is being viewed by ones child. Take for example the movie Pocahontas. In the end of the movie, the younger, prettier, and shapelier sister gets the man, while the dumpier sister falls by the wayside. This is the same with Cinderella. That movie tells girls that if they dont have beautiful clothes, and have to do housework, they dont have a chance to get a gorgeous, well to-do man to want to marry them. Take a look also at what toys girls are playing with. Barbie is one of the biggest sellers around. Shes tall, gorgeous, has a fabulous figure, and shes always smiling. I remember hearing a few years back about a new doll that was supposed to be on the market. Her name was something like Happy to be Me doll. She was to be a take-off of Barbie, except a more realistic version of her. She was to have flat feet, shorter legs, wider hips, and smaller breasts. This would be an improvement by far, because the woman who was advocating this doll took Barbies dimensions and turned them into a real womans dimensions and they were so disproportional that if a real woman had had Barbies chest size in combination with the rest of Barbies tiny frame, the woman would have fallen over forwards with the weight of her breasts. And yet, Barbie is the most played-with doll on the market. In fact, most women could never have Barbies shape. Most women are pear-shaped, but thats not acceptable (Kilbourne).Jane Pratt, author of For Real The Uncensored Truth About Americas Teenagers feels that body image is a huge problem for girls (Olson 1). And Mary Pipher states in her book Reviving Ophelia Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls that girls are in trouble and that the suffering is universal and extreme (Leland ). Piphers book was published three and a half years ago, yet it is still a number-one best seller, which goes to prove what a problem girls self-esteem has become. The way ads are presented (to mask odor and hide imperfections) leads to low levels of self-esteem in the way it makes girls and women believe that they are ugly and need to be fixed (Ward 5). Women are made to feel that attractive women are more feminine. And the best way to become attractive is to become thin, and the best way to become thin is to diet, or to extremes, starve.Womens magazines confuse women and aggravate depression over their bodies by contradicting themselves. On the cover they may advertise in big letters 85 Ways to Lose Weight! but the picture on the cover is advertising a delectable ten-minute ice cream pie recipe (Kilbourne). Food can be a great way to get peoples attention, and it fits in well with advertising for women because womens bodies are often thought of directly as food. They are called pieces of meat, peaches, and watermelons, just to name a few.The American food industry spends $6 billion each year on advertisements. But the way food is advertised can be harmful to womens ideas of food. One ad for Haagen Dazs ice cream used it as a drug Maybe Im a bit of a perfectionist. My CDs are in alphabetical order. I can always find my keys. Yet every time I have Haagen Dazs I seem to lose control. Today it was Chocolate ice cream. I lost myself completely. Each creamy spoonful was a moment suspended in time. I would have stopped before I finished the whole pint. Only problem was, I couldnt find the lid (Kilbourne). This ad is very dangerous because it normalizes bingeing. It tells women that its okay to lose control with their food. Advertising does this in many ways. Women are encouraged to use food to meet their emotional needs and feel better about disappointments. Heres an ad for the ice cream by Frusen Gladje He never called. So Ben (her dog) and I went out for a walk to pick up a pint of Frusen Gladje. Bens better looking anyway.Advertising also has a way of using food to represent sex. Women are often seen having a near-orgasm over a spoonful of ice cream or a nibble of a chocolate bar. So if food is sex, then the good girl becomes someone who doesnt eat. The good girl is thin because she keeps all her appetites under control. Girls have been proven to be ashamed of having appetites for food. Often they wont eat in front of men, or they pick at their food. Then they usually binge later (Kilbourne).Food becomes the enemy, but the diet product becomes the ally. If regular food is considered a temptation, diet food is the salvation. Suddenly eating becomes a moral issue. Weight Watchers advertises a food product and the ad says simply, Pizza without Guilt. Why should women feel guilty about eating? It should be a source of pleasure, as well as a source of nourishment. Over seventy-five percent of normal weight women believe they are overweight. Fifty percent of American adult women diet. And its no wonder they do; they are surrounded by products that promise them new bodies in a matter of days or weeks. The diet industry is a $ billion per year business. The sad fact is, however, that ninety-eight percent of dieters regain any weight they may have lost--and then some. Diuretics and laxatives are commonly abused to lose weight. What women dont realize is that its normal for weight to fluctuate daily because of water gain. But diuretics have been advertised as a weight-stabilizer. Cigarette ads double as diet reinforcers. A Virginia Slims ad shows a woman saying, If I ran the world, calories wouldnt count. This ad is reinforcing that calories do count, and so instead of eating girls and women should smoke (Kilbourne). When asked, many women and girls will admit that theyre afraid to quit smoking because theyre afraid of gaining weight.Dieting is not the way to go about losing weight. A complete change of lifestyle is the only effective way to do this, and that means eating healthy and exercising regularly. Dieting can be very harmful to girls who do it. Dieting young is a major way to get osteoporosis when older because the bones dont get the proper nutrients they need to develop. Dieting at a young age also does irreversible damage to the body in terms of metabolism, not to mention the girls spirits. Some ads will admit that dieting isnt healthy, but they never suggest quitting dieting. Instead they only suggest taking something else to undo some of the damage (Kilbourne).Ads dont only sell products, they sell values and ideas such as romance, success, and normalcy (Lazarus). Ads depict a fantasy world, one in which everyone is young and beautiful, everyone is heterosexual, and everyone lives in a nuclear family. Eighty percent of all women in television commercials are under forty years old, and the only thing women know how to talk about is different products. The majority of a magazines income comes from advertisers, which is why they rarely turn one down (Olson 1).But its not fair to blame advertising; its not solely to blame, but it is the most persuasive form. There are few psychologists that will directly blame fashion spreads as being the cause of eating disorders, for example. However, they do feel that the images portrayed in the media create a climate that can lead to anorexia or bulimia (Leland 1).Some advertisers do have defenses for themselves and what they portray in their images. Some advertisers claim they are just reflecting changes in society, so therefore they are not responsible for the outcomes of their reflections (Ward ). Some photographers defend the images their photographs display by saying its all in fun. Fashion photographer Raymond Meier says, Its not a dogma where were telling people, This is the way you should be (Olson 1). Other photographers simply say theres never been a proven connection between advertising and eating disorders or low self-esteem.One study showed that of the girls studied, ages twelve to eighteen, only four percent or less were actually overweight according to charts based on height and age, yet forty percent of the same girls believed they were overweight (Ward 4). One in ten young women in America has a serious eating disorder. Of college women, 11.% has bulimia. And eighty percent of ten year-old girls are on diets. Young girls arent taught the difference between thin and healthy. They think thin is what they need to be, thus the beginnings of starvation (Ward 1). There is also a difference between cultural ideals and cultural standards, and personal goals. This difference needs to be exposed. Education about the diseases of anorexia nervosa and bulimia needs to begun at a young age and continued throughout adolescence, better yet in conjunction with education on how advertising can portray unrealistic ideals (Ward 48). It also needs to be begun at a young age that girls are raised with strong senses of self-esteem and confidence so that they will not be influenced by the media to conform to the ideal they portray. Its possible that if young girls are educated about how the media enforces societal pressures to have the ideal shape, they will feel empowered to take action against advertisers, whether this take the form of writing letters, or even boycotting products. But at the same time we need to be careful about portraying girls as being victims. Its just as unsafe to continue promoting girls as being victims as it is to promote them as objects. If they hear time and again that they are victims it in a twisted way glorifies them. Theyre a way to get on the cover of a magazine, warns psychologist Michael Levine of Kenyon College (Leland ).The way advertising is degrading to women has become a major public health problem. We must change the environment, not just treat individual cases. We must speak out against advertisers. Chic Jeans has a wonderful new ad out that helps change the flawless ideal forced upon women. It begins by saying, Beautiful women come in all shapes and sizes. We need more advertising companies to recognize this. One way to help get more ads like this out on the market is to have more women picking the models and settings and messages that create the ads. This means making a stronger push towards getting women hired to top-executive positions in companies and agencies (Ward 7).Women also need to start supporting each other and stop saying, You look great--have you lost weight? We need to work on total wellness, not weight loss. The object of losing weight needs to become being healthy, not looking smaller (Kilbourne). Also we need to get some models in the spotlight that arent of anorexic proportions. Even though the voluptuous look is supposedly now in, this just means the models are getting breast implants. The body type that models are born with (tall and thin) doesnt come with large breasts. A good clue as to how to tell that a model or woman on television has fake breasts is that if she runs and they dont move, theyre fake, or if she lays down and they dont flatten out even the slightest, theyre not real. There needs to be real models in ads and on television. Gabrielle Reece is a 6 17-pound volleyball professional and model who is helping to replace waifs like Kate Moss as well as models that have had so much surgery its hard to tell where the plastic starts and the skin begins. But the new fitness craze shouldnt be a new form of oppression that makes girls think they have to spend their lives on a Stair Master. All in all, advertising can be a very damaging thing to young girls, even as they grow in to women, but there are steps to take to help curb this phenomenon and start raising healthy and happy girls and women. Please note that this sample paper on The Negative Effects of Media on Women is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on The Negative Effects of Media on Women, we are here to assist you. Your persuasive essay on The Negative Effects of Media on Women will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
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