Media Shaping Women Essay

The media has clouded womens perceptions in their body image by demonstrating the ideal bodies on TV and magazines through print and carry advertising, increasing the pressure for women and little girls to be thin, further leading to a more complex issue of Eating Disorders. Women who do not wait up to societies expectations, and argon suffocated with the phoney concept of the ideal argon treated with disregard and discrimination. For instance, Adrian Furnham and Nicola Greaves (1994) argue that the core of body image dissatisfaction is a variation among a persons perceived body and their ideal.They further argue that a failure to match the ideal leads to ego- criticism, guilt and lowered self worth. This effect is stronger for women than for men due to the cultural pressures on women to conform to an idealised body make ar more powerful and more wide afford than those on men. Psychologists have suggested that the media can affect womens body esteem by becoming a reference p oint against which unfavourable body shape comparisons argon made (Grogan 1999).These visions are then propagated through popular culture via television reality make over shows of re formative the body, if films of body transition provide the vision that inspires women to re- make their bodies, the cosmetic and aesthetic medicine industry sell them the equipment (Fox-Kales, 2011, p. 74. ) Women are objectified by an unrealistic expectation of beauty, put forward by models and actresses who do not reflect the average appearance of women in society. Print advertising, in particular, provides a not only unrealistic, but unhealthy ideal of what it representation to be physically attractive.By these false images being presented, the media has created an ideology of attractiveness. Images have powerful effects on their readers, serving to maintain a cult of muliebrity and supplying definitions of what it means to be a woman. Marjorie Ferguson (1985) investigated womens magazines from a sociological perspective. She argued that womens magazines contribute to the wider cultural process, which helps to shape a womans view of herself, and societies views of her.The media is littered with mages of females who fulfill these unrealistic standards, making it seem as if it is normal for women to live up to this ideal. Dittmar and Howard (2004) made this statement regarding the prevalence of unrealistic media images Ultra-thin models are so prominent that exposure to them becomes unavoidable and chronic, constantly reinforcing a discrepancy for most women and girls between their actual size and the ideal body (p. 478). explore has repeatedly shown that constant exposure to thin models and actresses fosters body image concerns and disordered eating in many females.Eating Disorders are a direct takings from the medias influence to look thin. Eating disorders theorists and feminist scholars have long indicated fashion magazines, movies, television, and advertising for the ir advocacy of disordered eating (Levine & Smolak, 1998). Media images of women make it difficult for individuals to clench an internalized ideal body that is realistic and attainable. With exposure to repeated images of ultra thin women, an individuals internalized ideal body often becomes much thinner.This increases the gap between what a person feels their physical appearance is, and what it should be. Researchers have show that women who have an internalized ideal body that closely resembles the socially represented ideal body are at a particularly high risk to develop body image disturbance and disordered eating patterns (Sands & Wardle, 2003). Naomi Wolf argues that our culture disempowers women by keeping them prisoner to an unattainable beauty ideal (Wolf, 1990).The epidemic proportions of drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and unsafe weight control methods among women have led theorists to posit the existence of mechanisms that are capable of reaching a large numb er of women (Levine & Smolak, 1998). Todays expectations reveal that looks matter more than personality and intelligence as seen on divers(a) dating shows. It is universally agreed upon that people on these shows usually pick the best looking counterpart out of the group of contestants. Both men and women are concerned with appearance than personality on these types of programs.This phenomenon is transferred into the job market, where people are now more prone to hire the more attractive candidate. Research has found that more attractive workers even receive higher compensation than unattractive counterparts even where they perform the same work and have similar levels of work experience. The media targets young women drilling thinness and having no flaws as the height of being beautiful. Now, with the common use of plastic surgery you can change your overall appearance. Plastic surgery has become a more than 8 billion a year industry (Hess Biber, 200596). Women feel they need to have the perfect nose, and cheek bones to admit in to the medias criteria, in order to appear more attractive to the opposite sex. Therefore, it is evident that the media has played a significant role in shaping womens bodies to suit societies expectations by showcasing the recurring idea to be thin. These ideas are brought upon through various television shows and magazines, which further stimulate eating disorders.