When we look at this ad we laugh because these are all things we expect women to say/think about themselves. My friend and I had just changed into our swim suits before heading out to the pool to do a few laps when my friend, looking at her reflection in the mirror, asked me, “Oh gosh! Is that how I really look?” It’s the same trap of “Does this dress make me look fat?” No one wants to answer the question at all for fear they might say the wrong thing. Yet instead of trying to figure out how we should answer, we should be considering why a woman is even asking these questions at all. Why do so many women feel insecure about their own bodies? Why the obsession with looking perfect?
The truth is, there are many factors that contribute to women’s obsession with perfection, but all of it boils down to one thing: our culture. We live in a culture where thin is “in” and fat is anything but “phat”; a culture where the media constantly reinforces the unattainable ideal woman as the standard of beauty. This creates many problems for women and girls such as unhealthy dieting, eating disorders, and plastic surgery. The media also perpetuates the notion that women should be seen as sexual objects, offering a limited, hypersexualized view of how women should look which impacts girls and women as well as boys and men, and may just be responsible for the sexual activity of teens. This essay will explore all of this in more detail.
When a woman is feeling bad about her body she may buy a new outfit, or perhaps some new makeup to see if that helps. But many of them, like Miranda from Sex and the City in the episode “Cover Girl” (shown below), will go on a diet.
According to an article by the Media Awareness Network, “women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new clothes, and diet aids” in hopes that one of these products will make them feel good about the way they look (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Some women will go to even greater lengths to alter their weight. Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc., an American research group, says that “one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control – including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Though these methods may begin as a way to lose weight in a short period of time, many of these habits can escalate into eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. According to Real magazine, “more than 10 million females suffer from eating disorders” compared to 1 million males (Real). 95% of people with anorexia are female, 80% of people with bulimia are female, and 60% of those who binge eat are female (Real). Surprise, surprise: women are more greatly impacted by eating disorders. According to Barker, “slenderness is a contemporary ideal for female attractiveness so […] girls and women are culturally more prone to eating disorders than […] men” (Barker 310). But this is not even the most disturbing part.
What is even more disturbing than all these statistics is that this need to be thin in order to be perfect is pervading the minds of younger and younger girls. The Canadian Women’s Health Network says that “weight control measures are now being taken by girls as young as 5 and 6” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). 5- and 6-year-olds! The 2006 study “Appearance Culture in Nine- to 12-Year-Old Girls: Media and Peer Influences on Body Dissatisfaction” shows that “nearly half of all preadolescent girls wish to be thinner, and as a result have engaged in a diet or are aware of the concept of dieting” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). A similar study conducted by Teen magazine in 2003 found that “50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Now these children could be learning about diets and weight control from their mothers who may be dieting, or perhaps they’ve learned from their friends or older siblings or cousins, but where did those girls and women learn this from?
While many factors are involved in shaping women’s perceptions of their own bodies, none is more prevalent than the media. Everywhere you go, billboards, magazines, movies, commercials, and television shows boast images of western culture’s ideal woman. According to the GDIGM study on gender stereotypes in popular films between 1990 and 2006, “females were nearly three times as likely as males […] to be shown with a thin figure” (Smith). I argue that similar statistics exist within television. Take a look at these women:
Our culture’s ideal woman is tall, thin, curvy (but not too curvy), and most of the time, if the ad or photo is in print, she is not real, or at least not entirely. Her face has been airbrushed so she has no visible pores, her neck has been lengthened, her waist has been made two sizes smaller, and if she did not already have breast implants, she has them now thanks to the wonders of technology. Remember this photo?
Kiera Knightly made some noise about the digital enhancement in this photo a few years back. Though she has naturally smaller breasts, the people in charge of promotion for the film decided that a chestier Kiera Knightly would draw in more viewers. (Click here to see for yourself how drastically a photo can be altered.)
Real or not, though, these images of the ideal woman have some serious consequences for us real women. After television (more specifically western television) was introduced to people in Fiji, a “sharp rise in indicators of disordered eating, such as induced vomiting,” occurred among teenage Fijian girls (Reynolds). Fijians have historically “preferred robust body shapes, reflecting the importance placed on generous feeding and voracious eating,” but things have changed since western television was introduced in the 1990s (Reynolds). Girls saw the slim bodies of actresses and models on television and wanted their “bodies to become like that,” so they began using different methods to lose weight (Reynolds). Little do they realize the tortures they will now endure in their quest for the “perfect” body. They’ll never realize how good they had it not being exposed to western media culture until it is too late.
For those of us who have lived all our lives with this western media culture, we are so immersed in these media images that many of us do not even notice it. But “research indicates that exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating habits in women and girls” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). In 2002, Australian researchers found that girls who were exposed to such images “lost self-confidence and became more dissatisfied with their own bodies. Girls who spent the most time and effort on their appearance suffered the greatest loss in confidence” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Because the images of women presented by the media offer a very rigid and unattainable idea of beauty, only a small percentage of women can fit within that mold (and even then it is an unnatural fit helped along by extreme dieting and plastic surgery). This means that the large majority of women are already being set up to fail in their attempts to attain perfection.
This is exactly what media advertisers want. They want women who will feel bad enough about their bodies to want to change them by purchasing products, but they don’t want women to stop buying products. No, they want the continued revenue. So while any normal person would say “how awful!” upon hearing that “90% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance in some way,” the fashion and beauty industries think about all the potential buyers (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Forget social responsibility. It’s all about the profit.
Diets (healthy or unhealthy) are not the only way women try to alter their appearance to match that of our culture’s ideal woman. In recent years, plastic surgery has become the new quick fix. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, “since 1997, there has been over 162 percent increase in the total number of cosmetic procedures” (ASAPS Statistics). 681,000 cosmetic procedures were done in 1989, compared to 10 million procedures last year (Bordo 1100; ASAPS Statistics). In 2008, “women had over 9.3 million cosmetic procedures, almost 92% percent of the total” (ASAPS Statistics).
Among cosmetic procedures, breast augmentation is the most popular of the surgical procedures according to ASAPS (ASAPS Statistics). Samantha from Sex and the City considered it herself in the episode “The Ick Factor” (shown below).
But plastic surgery has its own array of scary consequences. According to the Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, women with breast implants, for example, experience “pain, permanently deformed skin if [the] implant[s] [are] removed, loss of sensation in [their] breast[s], [and] interference with [the] early detection of a tumor” (What’s the Problem? project citing stuff). There is also a potential link between breast implants and serious auto-immune disorders (What’s the Problem?). However, even with all these potential risks, according to the ASAPS, breast augmentation is the most popular surgical cosmetic procedure for women as a whole, and it is also the most popular surgical cosmetic procedure among those aged 19-34; a total of 355,671 breast augmentation surgeries were performed in 2008 ( ASAPS Statistics).
As if that weren’t shocking enough, research also shows that large numbers of teens are also going in for plastic surgery. According to newswecanuse.org, “all plastic surgeries among teens increased by almost 50% from 1996-1998” (What’s the Problem?). While more recent ASAPS statistics show only slight increases or decreases in cosmetic procedures among teens, there were 160,283 cosmetic procedures performed on teens (18 and younger) in 2008 (ASAPS Statistics). Even though the FDA recommends that cosmetic breast augmentation be restricted to women age 18 and older, 4,108 breast augmentation procedures were performed on women 18 and under, and 50.3% of these were performed for purely cosmetic reasons (ASAPS Statistics). I’ve even heard of girls who for their sweet 16 or their 18th birthday go to get new boobs instead of getting a car. What sort of a culture do we live in if parents will buy their daughters new boobs? A culture obsessed with the ideal woman with Barbie-like proportions, or so it would seem.
Our culture’s ideal woman is not just thin and big breasted, but hypersexual. In fact you would be hard pressed to find an image of a woman that was not sexualized in some way. The GDIGM analysis of popular films found that “females were over five times as likely as males to be shown in sexually revealing clothing, which was defined as attire that enhances, exaggerates, or calls attention to any part of the body from neck to knees” (Smith). In this same study, “two types of females […] frequent[ed] film[s]: the traditional and the hypersexual” (Smith). According to Barker, such “representations of gender in advertising, which depict women as housewives or sexy bodies alone, reduce [women] to those categories” (Barker 10). This Desperate Housewives image attempts to do both:
Each day women and girls are bombarded with hypersexual images of what society dictates as the norm. According to the Media Awareness Network, “the pressure put on women through ads, television, film, and new media to be sexually attractive – and sexually active – is profound” (Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Though the television series Sex and the City seems to be all about promoting women’s sexuality and encouraging women to be sexually active, it still makes commentary on the fact that women are so sexualized by the media. In the opening clip from the episode “Cover Girl” (below), Carrie talks with the publishers for her book. Though the book is about sex, the cover mock-up with Carrie, naked, hailing a taxi on a busy city street is not the kind of image she wants to portray of herself, even if it is the way the publishers (the media) want to portray her (“Sex sells!”).
“Sex sells” is one of the scary truths about the media today, but it isn’t restricted to adult women. Young girls are no longer just cute and innocent little girls who like to have fun; they’re being eroticized and sexualized by the media – especially in advertisements, in which girls’ “vulnerable poses mimic the visual images common in pornographic media” ( Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). “This is a disturbing trend given that these stereotypes make up most of the representations of [girls] which girls […] see in the media” ( Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Such a limiting assortment of images leaves girls with one vision of themselves, and it is not beneficial. The American Psychological Association’s report on the Sexualization of Girls lists a number of cognitive, emotional, mental, and physical consequences for girls exposed to sexualized images. According to the report, “sexualization and objectification undermine confidence in and comfort with one’s own body, leading to a host of negative emotional consequences, such as shame, anxiety, and even self-disgust” ( Report of the APA Task Force p.3). Evidence from the report also “links sexualization with three of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression or depressed mood” (Report of the APA Task Force p.3). This ad, humorous and disturbing, is trying to combat the hypersexualization of young girls and sexual abuse:
The proliferation of images of the ideal woman has an effect on men and boys as well. As stated by Michael Levine and Hara Estroff Marano in their article “Why I Hate Beauty,” the contrast effect (whereby one person/thing will appear more or less attractive based on the people/things surrounding it) is making love life difficult for men. “Exposure to extreme beauty [in the media] is ruining [men’s] capacity to love the ordinarily beautiful women of the real world, women who are more likely to meet [men’s] needs for deep connection and partnership of the soul” (Levine ). When men are presented with the media’s image of the ideal woman over and over again, men become dissatisfied with the real women they are with (or could be with). This can lead to some serious relationship issues.
Many times these sexual images of women also depict women in vulnerable poses. Occasionally their makeup is done in a way that mimics injuries from abuse, making the woman the victim of violence, as in this ad:
The copy for this ad reads: “Apply generously to your neck so he can smell the scent as you shake your head ‘no,’” implying, as Jean Kilbourne puts it, “he’ll understand that you don’t really mean it and he can respond to the scent like any other animal” ( Media Portrayals of Girls and Women). Not only does this tell women that it is “okay” if not “normal” to be victimized and sexually consumed like commodities, but it also tells men that this is what is expected of them. This tells men that violence toward women is “okay” and “normal,” not a crime.
This same idea applies to the media’s “directions” for women about how to catch and keep a man. Every magazine has an article about it; movies, television, and books have plots that circle around it. You want to know why women are obsessed with their looks? Well one big influence is boys, boys, boys. The media tells women that if they are pretty enough, men will flock to them. We can see this being reinforced when Miranda finally loses that baby weight from the episode “Cover Girl” and is able to fit into her skinny jeans once again in the episode “The Post-it Always Sticks Twice” (below).
As you can see, it is only once Miranda loses weight and fits into those skinny jeans that she attracts the male gaze (and on multiple occasions throughout the episode). Though she likely draws this attention to herself because she feels more confident than she did before, this is bypassed in the episode. After all, if not for those skinny jeans she would not have had that confidence.
Media’s insistence that women need to catch and please their man may be responsible for the increase in sexually active teens. Television shows, and even the commercial previews for these shows, have more sexual content today than ever before. According to the Girls, Women + Media Project, “teens themselves say that TV, as well as movies and other media, are some of their leading sources of information about sex and sexuality” (What’s the Problem?). Could television and movies be responsible for encouraging teens to become sexually active? According to Sex on TV 4, yes. The study says that parents and teens agree that “sexual content on TV influences the sexual behavior of young people” (Sex on TV 4). Going beyond personal opinion, a longitudinal study conducted by the RAND Corporation “found that those [teens] who were heavy viewers of sexual content were twice as likely to initiate sexual intercourse over the subsequent year as those who saw the least amount of sexual content” ( Sex on TV 4). One thing is for sure, if teens are watching Sex and the City frequently enough, they are certainly getting an eye-full and an ear-full of information about sex! Not to mention infidelity, having multiple sexual partners…and very rarely is anything about safe sex or even the risk of STDs mentioned (though the occasional girl does get pregnant).
As much as one might wish to, there are few options for escaping the effects of the media in the world we live in today. The media permeates our lives. But the media is merely a reflection of our culture. Even if we could escape the media, we could not escape all its detriment effects entrenched in our culture. Before our culture’s ideal woman gains a few pounds, before she covers up her cleavage and takes off her air-brushed makeup, our culture needs to change. As a society we need to find a voice that supports the right to positive body-images for all, and demands the media give us that right. Only then can the ideal woman be the attainable real woman.
Works Cited
ASAPS Statistics. 2009. 16 Dec., 2009.
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications Ltd., 2008.
Bordo, Susan. “‘Material girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture.” Cultural Studies. (class handout – pdf).
Levine, Michael and Hara Marano. “Why I Hate Beauty.” Reproductive Justice and Gender. 8 Aug., 2008. 16 Dec., 2009.
“Media Portrayals of Girls and Women.” Media Awareness Network. 2009. 16 Dec., 2009.
Real. Nov. 2009. 16 Dec., 2009 < http://www.csun.edu/counseling/real/>.
Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls: Executive Summary. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2007. retrieved 16 Dec., 2009.
Reynolds, Tom. “Sharp Rise in Disordered Eating in Fiji Follows Arrival of Western TV.” Focus. 28 May, 1999. 16 Dec., 2009
Sex on TV 4: Executive Summary 2005. 16 Dec., 2009.
Smith, Dr. Lacy L., Crystal A. Cook. “GDIGM Major Findings Overview based on Gender Stereotypes: An Analysis of Popular Films and TV.” The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. 16 Dec., 2009.
“What’s the problem? Facts about girls, women + media.” Girls, Women + Media Project. 16 Dec., 2009. < http://www.mediaandwomen.org/problem.html>.
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