People Have Opinions and I Don't Like Them
I've lived all of my life being surrounded by images, videos, ideas, values that tell me I'm not good enough. On a related note, I've also lived my whole life thinking I'm not good enough. Consequentially, I've lived my whole life trying to be good enough. Now if you stop and think about that for a second, that is a scary amount of wasted time. We all waste time thinking we're not good enough and the media is to blame for startling portion of that time.
As a woman growing up in a society where there are only a few set archetypes for how an acceptable female should be. Body types alone are a huge example of female misrepresentation in the media. Did you know that media would have it that every girl is barbie thin, tan, big boobed, and has effortlessly gorgeous hair that someone definitely spent 24 hours doing. Not only does this create criteria that females don't feel they meet, it creates expectations that men begin to hold them to. All of a sudden, not only are you not good enough in your eyes, you're not good enough for anyone else either. That's a problem. A big one.
There are people who have begun to take steps to counter this and bring the issue to light. I think these people are doing a good thing and have the right idea when they say, "the media needs to stop representing only one type of a doctored female image over and over again so that female consumers don't feel shitty about themselves 24/7." I am completely in support of this statement. And then. . . some people who state this view will say something like, "and also stop showing them in slutty clothing because that make girls think that objectifying themselves is okay." Let me preface by saying, there are a lot of things wrong with that statement. First of, how can you equate dressing in a certain way to objectifying yourself as a sex toy. That's not how that works at all. There is a difference between expressing your sexuality and proclaiming yourself as an object simply there for the pleasure of others. This a completely different opinion that could not be more opposite from misrepresentation in the media.
What these people are saying makes no sense whatsoever. They want to uncensor the media so that girls are exposed to real life female figures and not doctored ones. That sounds great. But they also want to censor the media to shape how a girl views her own femininity in a way that stigmatizes sexuality. Because that makes sense.
Article that presents the view that I was just talking about (written by two men and one woman--I'm just making an inference based on the names but i could be wrong): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0361684317743019
As a woman growing up in a society where there are only a few set archetypes for how an acceptable female should be. Body types alone are a huge example of female misrepresentation in the media. Did you know that media would have it that every girl is barbie thin, tan, big boobed, and has effortlessly gorgeous hair that someone definitely spent 24 hours doing. Not only does this create criteria that females don't feel they meet, it creates expectations that men begin to hold them to. All of a sudden, not only are you not good enough in your eyes, you're not good enough for anyone else either. That's a problem. A big one.
There are people who have begun to take steps to counter this and bring the issue to light. I think these people are doing a good thing and have the right idea when they say, "the media needs to stop representing only one type of a doctored female image over and over again so that female consumers don't feel shitty about themselves 24/7." I am completely in support of this statement. And then. . . some people who state this view will say something like, "and also stop showing them in slutty clothing because that make girls think that objectifying themselves is okay." Let me preface by saying, there are a lot of things wrong with that statement. First of, how can you equate dressing in a certain way to objectifying yourself as a sex toy. That's not how that works at all. There is a difference between expressing your sexuality and proclaiming yourself as an object simply there for the pleasure of others. This a completely different opinion that could not be more opposite from misrepresentation in the media.
What these people are saying makes no sense whatsoever. They want to uncensor the media so that girls are exposed to real life female figures and not doctored ones. That sounds great. But they also want to censor the media to shape how a girl views her own femininity in a way that stigmatizes sexuality. Because that makes sense.
Article that presents the view that I was just talking about (written by two men and one woman--I'm just making an inference based on the names but i could be wrong): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0361684317743019
I agree with everything you said in this. I feel like the people who want to change the way women are represented in media have good intentions, but like you said, their goals are sort of counterproductive. If media wasn't so widespread and influential to young people these days, we wouldn't have this problem.
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