How the Media has a Negative Influence of the Women in
Today's Society
The media can affect a wide variety of
groups, but have the most influence on women. The way media portrays women in
television, movies, and advertisements cause negative effects on women
physically, and mentally.
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The Media Influences Women in many ways,One by creating an "ideal"
Beauty for women
“Findings suggest that
adolescent girls, and college women’s impressions of their own bodies are
influenced by the mass media portrayals of “ideal” body type.”
(Bissell,K.,2002)
It is easy to see that through advertisements and the use of
perfect models, the media is portraying an "ideal" body type. Therefore,
adolescent girls' perceptions of their own bodies are influenced by the
perfection of these models. In 1998, there was a study done by the Journal of
American College Health that found the media to be a mass marketer of the female
body image. It has been proven that it is a strong force in creating the
stereotype of the tall and thin women as the "ideal" beauty type.
(Rabak-Wagener, 1998)
The Stereotype of the “ideal” woman is created by the extremely thin and
beautiful models. Companies use this look to represent their products in
advertisements. In our society women and girls tend to compare themselves to
the models seen in the media.
The Media creates an unattainable ideal of
thinness
“As female models have become thinner, women in society have tried to
follow the trend. The Media is likely to be among the most influential
promoters of the thin ideal for women” (Silverstein & Colleagues,
1986)
“The studies presume that the media promotes a body shape standard for
women that is unrealistically thin. Furthermore as the body shape for women in
the media has progressively become thinner, the correlation between thin body
shape and perception of attractiveness has increased.” (Wiseman 1990)
There seems to be a trend between the thinness of models, and
the desired thinness of today's society of women. The thinner models get, the
thinner women think they have to be. This shows that the media is setting a
standard that women believe they have to follow in order to be
attractive.
By using such tall, thin, and beautiful models, the media is
sending out a message that in order to be beautiful, you have to be tall, thin
and look like those models. Jean Kilbourne, a popular advocate for the
prevention of negative portrayals of women in the media, says that many females
spend time, energy, and money trying to look just like the perfect images of
women that they see in the media. It is almost impossible to look completely
flawless like they do. (Kilbourne, 1999)
The Media's Portrayal of this "ideal" thinness can
create Disorder eating Amoung young girls
This "ideal" thinness that the media has defined causes
eating disorders in females.As a result of the media's definition of beauty,
most women try to mimic this "ideal" thinness even though it may be
impossible.
When the unnatural thinness became attractive in the media,
girls then did unnatural things to become thin. (Pipher,
1994)
Women are often marketed as Sexual objects in the
media
We can see this by examples in advertisements in the
Media
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