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Media Affect the Self-Image of Women

 

             Distorted and unattainable sexist mass images are the inevitable consequences of a social system in which those who are thin and big breasted benefit most. We as a society have created an environment so image obsessed that those with power give approval for being thin and disapproval for being fat, creating a generation of women so self conscious about their body image, that it is affecting their health. In this essay I plan to discuss the inexcusable methods in which the mass media encourages young women to disfigure and mutilate their bodies.
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             When obsessive media targets and forces young women to hate their bodies it makes them more vulnerable to emulating media stereotypes and prone to compulsive dieting. Media purveyors promote the message that unrealistic thinness equals sexiness and popularity, which equals beauty, success and all the "good" things in life. Yet, recent interviews have revealed that even glamorous and successful supermodels are afraid of getting fat and what it might do to their careers. In many cases the media has constructed faulty images that suggest that the influence of gender in terms of "human nature" compel people in the eyes of the media to behave and act in certain stereotypical ways, in turn causing young impressionable women to be wrongfully misled.
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             People aren't born hating their bodies; however when they grow up they learn that fat is bad; and thinness will bring you happiness. These images are being taken to extremes throughout the fashion industry, often displayed by the waif look of hollow cheeks and skeletal bodies. It has been proven that media images do have a powerful effect on young women today due to the extensive reinforcement on our everyday lives. Everywhere we look we see unattainable images swarming around us, it seems as though it is a fad we can not get away from.
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             Women are all too often described in terms of what they look like, rather than what they think or what they do.


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