US
advertisers spent $235.6 billion in 2009
80% of the countries in the world
have GDP less than that!
Today most advertisers,
big brands and media target their focus to talk and communicate with Millennials
and pop culture (teenagers to early 30s). There is nothing wrong with that. What’s
wrong is the way mainstream media contributes to the distortion of women seeking positions of power and influence without embodying any sexual appearances to achieve their desired success .
What you see in
broadcast TV today is that most female characters are in their 20s and 30s. However,
the reality is far from that. Women in
their teens, 20’s and 30’s are 39% of the American population, yet are 71% of
women on TV. Women in 40s and older are 47% of the population, yet are only 26%
of women on TV. Do you know what does that mean? It’s like telling women who
reaches the age 39-40 that they need to go away! It means that there is
something fundamentally wrong with the media; something that makes it so hard
and complicated for women to attain leadership positions and for the average
woman or girl to feel powerful herself.
Although I’m a
big fan of Media and Hollywood movies, I have to admit that Hollywood plays a
big role in this misrepresentation to reality about women and thus skews and
twists people’s perceptions.
When you look
at Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, the Kardashians and more (trust me,
the list never ends) as powerful, it’s all because of the hyper sexuality-
their physical features and extreme appearances, not of who they really are. If
you go a little with your memory to those powerful characters in Hollywood like
Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), Catwoman (Hally Berry), Elektra (Jennifer Garner)
or the invisible woman (Jessica Alba), their role was nothing more than the
powerful ‘fuck toy’. Even if they appear as being tough and do things on their
own terms, they were all still very much objectified and exist for the male
viewer.
There are many powerful
women out there that few- if none- know they exist. Do you know that the CEOs
of Pepsico, Xerox or Avon are all women? Of course few will know or remember
their names; maybe because they forgot to show some skin and sexual appearances
of themselves- that’s the key to fame, who cares what they do, right!
Lots of skin,
sweats and barely dressed bodies! Yes, today, it’s the sex that sells most, not
the story. We all see it every single day, in the internet, in commercials, in TV
shows or billboards. Creepy, to say the least! The way media portrays women
makes their lives more complicated. Many women are obsessed with their
looks than their achievements. Because they know no matter how smart they are, the
media will not recognize them if they don't look 'sexy'.
This research gives a much clearer idea to what I’m trying to talk about:
US women spend
$12,000 to $15,000 a year on beauty products and salon services. The number of
cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth under age 19 more than tripled
from 1997 to 2007. The average
face lift costs $11,429. This amount of money is enough to pay for:
-
5 years at a
community college
-
2 years at a
state university
-
1 year at the
University of California
As a citizen of the globe, who is
trying to seek and build a core identity for myself through who I am as a person-
not how I look, I find the hyper-sexuality that is happening to be toxic, disturbing
and it makes me very uncomfortable. Not
because I think that the world should be more ‘traditional’ or that sexuality
is something that should be concealed and never brought up to community, NO! It
makes me uncomfortable because it cheapens and brings down the genuine meaning
of sexuality, which is something beautiful, personal, romantic, powerful and important
to the people involved and it upsets me to see it being used in this cheap way
by media!
Nafissa Assed
-----
References
Women’s
Leadership, Leadership Development And Media Advocacy
Gender Representation
In The Media, And Sexualization
Media
Consumption, Media Literacy And Media Advocacy
Nafissa, I think you bring up really great points here that continue to be an ongoing issue for woman all across the world. The media is so focused on what people like the Kardashians are doing, wearing, saying, naming their children..etc. that woman become drawn in and it's easy to lose focus on what's really important important in life. The problem is that so many people are interested in this type of "news" that the viewership and advertising on programs like this are so high that the media continues to expose women and push the limits.
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