Is there any such thing as protection of women from the media? Perhaps, a way in which they can be represented in a more positive way? It’s hard to say because society is used to the roles being given to them, without their ability to take it and redefine themselves. Women have continually been deconstructed and used for their body, ridiculed for their mind, and stripped of the possibility for individuality. John Berger discusses the origin of this male viewpoint through advertisers in Ways of Seeing. Jean Kilbourne talks more explicitly about the problem of bodily expectations through images in The More you Subtract, The More you Add and Beauty and the Beast of Advertising. Lastly, Naomi Wolf lets us into how a culture and ideal of beauty continues to be spread through the medium of magazines in Culture. All of these readings reflect how the expectations of advertisers and corporations affect the woman psyche. Unfortunately, it’s harder to contemplate a solution than to evaluate the issue at hand.
The problem I find is not that woman are unaware of how they are being represented through media sources, but that they have been willing (and for so long) to accept the images. Berger blatantly explains how media merged off of this idea of power in the male gaze and, ultimately, its judgment, “Paris awards the apple to the woman he finds most beautiful. Thus beauty becomes competitive…Those who are not judged beautiful are not beautiful. Those who are, are given the prize,” (52). A man’s presence is external, carries confidence, and shows that he automatically has the upper hand, whereas a woman’s presence is internal, self-reflective, and, therefore, submissive. From this idea, specific poses for women were placed in Renaissance paintings, where “nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display,” and “to be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself,” (54). In absolute truth, this is how women are taken apart in modern-day advertisements and worked with as objects like bear bottles, shoes, brooms and other props. In great detail, Berger presents the contrast between the surveyor and the surveyed- the male and the female. This point alone should be means for change, as the idea of constantly being watched and measured accordingly with others being watched is quite disturbing. Before Renaissance portraits, who said that men get to expect sex appeal and submissiveness from women?, “Often…she looks out of the picture towards the one who considers himself her true lover- the spectator-owner,” (56). All of the paintings that Berger refers to reveal the same voyeuristic quality and women’s bodies being used as tempting tools for men’s pleasure. But when did society decide that the male sex would be the stalker-like-predator and the female sex would be condemned as victims?
Younger and younger girls are now using the media as a source for news or safety from being the scapegoat of popular culture. This is why there needs to be more alternative media that opposes mainstream ideals in their greed for bigger pockets, and is inclusive of the same crowd mainstream advertisers are targeting. One major issue Kilbourne presents (that has forever been implied within media imagery) is the expectation of women to be “seen and not heard”, “In ad after ad girls are urged to be ‘barely there’—beautiful but silent,” (138). The continuous encouragement of women succumbing (as consumers) to beauty products and self-alteration is the reason for confusion among the youth. If women were to be exposed more to the truth behind what these advertisements imply, they'd be mortified. Basically, a "harmless" ad for perfume that reads "Classic is speaking your mind (without saying a word)," (138) can lead to girls growing up afraid to "use their voices to protect themselves from a variety of dangers," (139). What happens when a girl is confronted by a guy at a party who wants to "dub"? I see young girls dancing inappropriately at parties all the time, but when I ask them for their preference, most say they'd rather not rub their butt up against some dude on the dance floor. So, why do they? On a more serious note, what happens when the same guy wants to have sex later? Should women be forced to reestablish the way they think about rape, too? Kilbourne's straightforward evaluation of goals in the media is what should be better spread among people who deny themselves as feminist, "Advertising creates a mythical, WASP-oriented world in which no one is ever ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled," (Beauty and the Beast of Advertising, 122).
Young women often don’t know how to feel empowered without giving into consumerism and what advertisers continue to unravel for the potential customer. Wolf talks about the duality in magazines and how it makes women feel safe and involved in the world, but only limits them to trivial things like sex and cosmetics, "They blur the line between editorial freedom and the demands of the marketplace," (77). This degradation makes us feel hopeless as a social group, but we need a balance of more images that battle that in order to feel like there’s anything we can do to shift the poor and short sided expectations of women. Women continue to identify and measure their own physical beauty with that of other women, which only perpetuates the images of what beauty should be, "Women can tend to resent each other if they look too 'good' and dismiss one another if they look too 'bad'," (75). Wolf exerts the truth in that magazines targeted at women are meant to make them feel included in popular culture and included in an exclusive feminist group. This should not be comforting, when in fact these images and stories only help us understand that desirable rewards only go to the "beautiful", and the women with actual opinions are dismissed as "not beautiful", but...just smart?
(Ad- proof of gender roles once more...Is a woman's idea of pleasure bringing pleasure to a man?)
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