Thursday, October 21, 2010
Not Your Average Girl
I like that we addressed this issue of the impossibly achievable standard in our class this week because it opens people's eyes. In my media class, I'm learning about how media and society have made people view women as solely objects and nothing more. I also did my junior research paper on how media effects body image. We are judged, and criticized on our looks constantly. This forces us females to naturally compete with one another and always be a little insecure because of the expectations we are pressured to chase after. The message we get from media is that if we don't look like the idealistic girl they have created, then we need to fix that somehow. We should not have to live with this superficial burden over our heads. Guys will say they don't care about our looks, and yes they may accept us for who we are and won't break up with us if we get fat(though it could happen), our imperfections are still known. This has effected me and every other female all ages. I work at Hollister, so people tend to get judged a lot based upon their looks. I have been hearing talk about how all the males I work with have created this list with two categories. One is the hottest girls and one is the most datable girls. So yes, there are SOME good intentions there, but most of it is based off appearance, and then personality. Initial attraction is important, but shouldn't be the basis of judgement. We always think that no matter what, there's always someone prettier or skinnier, that we have to strive to become. This can get tiring. And what's sad, is that people are so used to it being such a natural part of our culture and society that they don't see anything wrong with it. We expect these models in advertisements to be perfect, otherwise they wouldn't be representing a product, right? It's hard to fathom how our society developed one type of girl that is dubbed as acceptable. This girl is tall, skinny, has big boobs, long hair, and other features we decided are satisfying to the eye. Also, most people don't know that nobody naturally looks like the people in the ads, ever! Without makeup, photo shop, and styling, we are all just normal people striving to be a fictional character.. it's ridiculous!!
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I totally agree, the media has minimized women and impressed upon us that we have to look a certain way in order to be accepted. It's psycho how the majority of people know that the models pictures are fictional, yet people still strive to look as "good" as them.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a good post! I also did my research paper on how the media affects body images and what I found was really disturbing. Girls strive so hard to be just like the models in the movies and magazines when in reality, those girls aren't even real!
ReplyDeleteYes - I agree with Julia, good post! I want to point out though, that "what is satisfying to the eye" is also a social construction - like you mentioned, a big bust in America today is considered beautiful, but in many other countries a bust is seen as a motherly thing, not a sexual thing. But we have constructed it differently here. And even here it changes over time - Marilyn Monroe was considered most beautiful in her time, but she was like a size 10! If all of this is a social construction, we can realize that and perhaps construct our own idea of what we want for ourselves and stop chasing this evolving and changing construction of beauty that we will not be able to catch.
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