Sexism in the Media and in Society

Pearl Vermilyea

Research from Harise Interactive, in a survey that included about 1000 girls, in a span of 6 years, the percentage of girls who believe that they have to be thin to be popular, rose from 48% to 60%. When I was in 7th grade, we were playing floor hockey in PE, and when we were split into our teams, it was an uneven number. And a boy came up to the teacher complaining about this, and while I and many other girls were standing right there, the male PE teacher said, oh don’t worry you have more boys.”  Women in the media and women in society are treated unfairly, and we need to change this to empower girls to love their bodies and believe they can achieve anything they want to achieve, as well as stop sexism in the media because it affects girls perception of beautiful, it limits girls and women's beliefs on what they can and cannot achieve, and women are treated unfairly in society because of the gender pay gap. For the longest time, women in the media have been what the stereotypical women in America is. Tall, skinny, big breasts, small waists, really cares about the way they look, and the one to take care of the family, stay at home, and clean. Now ads mostly show photo-shopped images of women who are very skinny and “beautiful”. For a long peroiod of time, and expessially now, women are at a very young age engraved with this perception that men are better, smarter, and stronger then men. For example, for past years, PEOPLE magazine has, every year, produced an issue that names the sexiest/ most beautiful woman of the year. When looking this up, all of these women have been the medias perceptiojn of beautful. Skinny, lots of makeup, etc. This is basically telling people that to be beautiful and sexy, you must be skinny. The media has created a perception of girls and women that just cannot be reached. According to West Virginia Dept of Education, “An average US woman is 5’4” tall weighing 140 pounds; the average US model is 5’11” weighing 117 pounds – West Virginia Dept of Education.” The women in the media creates a picture that girls aspire to be, and many are convinced that they need to look like this just to be beautiful. Another problem with women in the media is that the women and girls in advertisment roles are mainly the steriotypical women. They are mostly the ones that are spokespeople for cleaning products, and kitchen ads. For example, in an recent commercial that I saw for a specific kind of mop, at the end, the man who was trying to sell the product was surrounded by women, not a single male. Mostly, when women are ads, they are selling something like burgers, but the women are eating it in slow motion, in laugeray, and in slow motion. Why in the world would this make you want to eat a burger. Nobody looks like that when they eat a burger. Have you ever noticed that the women in video games are always extremly skiny, and wearing skimpy outfitts? They see these women, and how they are portrayed, and that is the image that sticks in their mind. As famous comedian Margaret Cho puts it, “The media treats women like sh**”. How are we going to change this,who's going to do this, and what is it going to take?

Through the media, women and girls are given the wrong perception of how to be beautiful, and how to look. According to National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “69% of girls in 5th – 12th grades reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape.” According to RaderProgram.com, “80% of women who answered a People magazine survey responded that images of women on television and in the movies make them feel insecure.” A few years ago, Anne Becker decided to do research in Fiji, about how the media affects girls perception of body image. Anne is an expert on eating disorders. The country of Fiji did not have the access to television until 1995. Before this year, there had not been any reported cases of eating disorders, or bulimia (throwing up to lose weight). 3 years after T.V was introduced in this country, according to one small survey, it was reported that one in every 10 girls vomited to lose weight. 9 years after this, it was reported that every four out of 10 girls purged to lose weight. I would like you to remember the last time that you saw a “plus-sized model in an ad or in T.V. If you are thinking like me, you would not have been able to remember. All of the women in the media right now are what the world deterred “beautiful”. Skinny, big breasts, small waist, ext. Women are constantly dehumanized, and seen as just objects that care about there body. You can’t say that the media does not affect girls perception of how to look, because of the evidence I have about Fiji. There was not cases of eating disorders, there was also no television. (Also, in Fiji, it was praised to be a bit more plus sized.) As soon as television was introduced, there was immediate cases of eating disorders, and that number is still growing to this day. Americans spend 31 hours a week watching T.V, and on T.V they see these women, and how they are portrayed, and that is the image that sticks in their mind. They aspire to be like this, and some will go through extreme extents to achieve this look. There have been multiple surveys put just like the ones I provided, and all have a high percentage of girls who believe that the media changes their perception of their body, as well as makes them feel insecure. This matters because the image of women in the media is causing girls to believe that they have to look like them to be beautiful, and some are hurting themselves, or becoming depressed because they can’t reach this belief. According to National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.” We need to stop creating the perception of what girls should look like, because we know that it is nearly impossible to reach.

In the media, it is not only how the women look, but also how the women are acting or how they are portrayed. If girls are only watching movies where the boy is the hero and saves the world, and the girl is just the romance on the side, they are going to start believing that they are not as strong as men. For example, in almost everyday Disney movie, the guy saves the girl. For the longest time, Disney princesses have been portrayed with very unrealistic body images. Very, very small waist, skinny, ext. But also what roles they have in the movies. According to newsweek, there is only one female character to every male character in family movies. Also, according to a study by Stacy Smith and Marc Choueiti, in mostly family films, there is only about 29% of female characters; one in 25 to female characters. At the same time as this, the majority of these female characters are wearing skimpy clothing, and as one author says, this leaves little room for the womb, or any other internal organs. When you watch a movie, we tend to observe and see who looks like us, or who we can relate to. If all girls are seeing in these movies that they watch at a young age is that women are just a sexy object off  to the side that needs saving by a boy, they are going to feel so limited to who they can be, and how they can act. For example, when night when I was babysitting an 8 year old girl, she was playing Minecraft and said that she always choose the boys to be her partner for games. This means that she has this thought that men are stonger then women.  For me, I really enjoy watching sports, and I’m not aginst male sports, but the mere fact that we have mens proffesional sports, and not womens really annoys me. Also, as I watch these sports, you never see a female coach or speaker! You look at talks after the game were they analize the game, men. Umpires, men. Players, men. We are only just starting to encorpurate women in mens sports, like the first full time paid choach of the San Antoinio Spurs. The majority of time I see women at a sports meet is the cheerleaders in skimpy outfitts. I am not saying get rid of male sports, because I do really enjoy them, but it really brings down my confidence that I can play sports. This also appears in ads. Females are mainly the ones to star in cooking commercials, and cleaning commercials. Also, women in commercials are expressed in lingerie, and skimpy cloths. Carl’s Junior is a disgustingly fantastic example of this, with ads that feature women naked or in bikinis biting into burgers in slow motion. What are you trying to sell Carl’s Jr, burgers, or sex?  All this evidence shows is that women need more opportunity, and to be treated with the same respect as everyone else. We need to teach kids and girls that women are strong, smart, and can be sexy and confident in their own skin.

Women are not treated fairly in our society, and are not equal to others, because there is a huge gender pay gap today in the United States. According to American Association of University Women, in 2014, women who were working at a full time job got paid only 79% of what men were being paid full time. That means that for every dollar a man makes, a women gets 79%. This makes me really angry. For Obama to have been in office for close to 8 years now, and to not have broken this nonsensical law that makes women literally less than men, being paid less than men, is infuriating. What message are you sending to your daughters, and the 51% of women in America? As a society, and a country, allowing this to happen is extremely unfair, and needs to be changed. I get that this problem may not seem as big as problems like war or refugees, but I think that it would be “simple” to change this, because I think we would be inspiring many women are girls, and teaching them that men are women are equal, and are equally important.

Even though it has been recorded that there is indeed a difference in what men make compared to what women make for the same job, some believe that this is only do to the choices that women make. For example, in an article by Ashe Schow called “Harvard Prof. Takes Down Gender Wage Gap Myth”, where the author talks about the difference between a gender pay gap and a gender earnings gap, she states, “That the gap is due mostly to choices men and women make in their careers and not discrimination.” She also explains, “That "something else," is choice — in the careers that women take, the hours they work and the time off they take.” In the evidence she does say that in some cases, women are paid less for the same job, but she is saying that the main reason is because they choose to take off more days, and have less hours. I understand that some may think think this, but we are talking about the gender pay gap, where women get paid less than men do for the same job. There are a ton of reasons that women may get paid less than others, some including taking more vacations or having less hours, Bu thtere is evidence that women are paid less then men for the same jobs. If there are women being paid less than men, and this is a problem, we need to change this. If the president says this, which he does say. (According to washington Examiner)

Women in the media and women in society are treated unfairly, and we need to change this to empower girls to love their bodies and believe they can achieve anything they want to achieve, as well as stop sexism in the media because it affects girls perception of beautiful, it limits girls and women's beliefs on what they can and cannot achieve, and women are treated unfairly in society because of the gender pay gap. I want you to raise your hand if you have ever felt like the media and social media has altered (changed) your perception of being beautiful. This problem is affecting women around the world, in the U.S, in San Francisco, and in our schools. We should be teaching women to be proud and accepting of their body, instead of forcing them to change it because if you want to look beautiful, this is what you have to do. A Couple of months ago, Sports Illustrated came up with a magazine that had a women in a bikini who was a plus sized model. Even though this is great and is a huge step for women, to me she looked just like a regular women who you would see on the street. ( Her size) It is unfortunate that this is such a big shock to everybody. In my interview with 7th grade english teacher, when asked how she feels women are portrayed in the media, she states, “When I think about how women are portrayed in the media, I become upset because of the willingness of an influential structure such as media to perpetuate the ideas that women are only valuable if they are simple-minded, naked, and submissive to men.” It is people and us who are allowing this to happen, and because of this, we are the ones that are in charge of stopping it. Some things that we could do are create new emojis. Always came out with an ad about emojis. If you haven't already noticed, like me before watching the add, all the athletic emojis are portrayed by men, and no girls. I think we could change this because then women would metaphorically be getting the opportunity to do equal things. Us women, and allies need to not let the media affect us, and change what it means to be beautiful. I hope that this is just a small step for women to change the face of media to reflect how beautiful women look in real life, this is the 21st century, and we need to change this.