Media and Gender Roles

When you think about women in magazine ads or other advertisements, how do you think of them? Are they sophisticated, professional, or hardworking women? Most of the time, women are not advertised in this way. Many ads picture women in little clothing, and are usually not professional looking at all. The way our society has constructed this view of women is damaging the view that young girls have of themselves. These ads devalue women in some ways, making them look like pieces of art we can use for whatever we want in advertising. However, this doesn't just happen with women, there are many different ways that the media can alter our view of where certain genders and races stand in society. When a little girl and boy are featured in a picture together, the boy is always taller, and tends to look tough, while the girl is shorter and is generally smiling or looking innocent. When it comes to race, many times the media makes it seem as if white is superior to black, and other races.
This type of advertisement is degrading to women, and can cause damaging thoughts to young girls as they grow up. Every advertisement with a female model in it is flawless, and we are made to think that the way the model looks is the way that everyone should look, otherwise we are ugly. This is not true, but the media twists it to make us think like this. What many don't know, however, is how much work goes into making these pictures look perfect. These models don't actually look how they do in the picture. The media is the reason why so many women perfect their bodies through plastice surgery and other types of unnatural enhancements. They see the models and pictures in the media and believe that since they don't look like that, they need to fix their bodies to look like the picture. When young girls see these pictures and don't think of themselves as that, they may feel ugly. These girls will try to make themselves "prettier and more appealing" by buying clothes that are more revealing or look "sexier". If they don't feel as pretty as these models look in the media, they may also have lower self esteem because they feel ugly or inferior.
Men, on the other hand, are not usually targeted in this way as much in the media. Although the media does feature men in magazines and advertisements, they are not targeted as much as women. Men are usually featured as tough, masculine, and superior to women. If they are pictured with a woman, they may be trying to seduce the woman, or take control of her, in which the woman looks like she is falling for it. Again, this devalues women and makes them seem inferior. It seems as though the media is stuck in the past, as though they think it is still a time when men did all the work and women were there to clean the house and look beautiful for their husband.
I think that there are better ways to advertise women than half naked or as being seduced by a man, or as these beautifully fake models. The media is tarnishing self-image, twisting it so that we think we need to better ourselves through other methods, instead of just accepting who we are. You don't see very many advertisements with women looking professional or hard at work at their job. In today's advertising, women are generally depicted as the people in our society that stand still, be quiet, and look pretty. Although this is not true for every advertisement, it is true for a lot of them. If advertisement changed their view of women versus men, I think a lot of other people's views of gender roles would also change.