Gender & Media

 

 

 

Our society's perspective on how a girl and boy should act, what to wear, and how to feel about something are all, in my opinion, affected by the media. Even though our parents and friends so affect how we see things as well, I feel that the media has a greater impact. Boys are protrayed to be tough, a gentleman, and sexy where as girls are portrayed to be sweet, innocent, and neat. The only trait that is the same between guys and girls is to be sexy and this is because the media enforces that you must be sexy, no matter if you're are male or female.

 

 

In class, we had a discussion on whether or not the government should regulate or make a law to protect the false media being put out to public. The majority was on "it's the person's choice" side but I chose to be on the government regulation side. I feel that the media and advertisements now a days send such a strong message to our society on who we should be and what we must look like in order to be attractive. Photos from advertisements are not the regular shot, it's an extremely photo shopped photo that creates such a false image. This false image is looked at by millions of people and in fact they compare this perfect person to themselves, which leads to a desire of becoming this nonexistent figure. For this reason, eating disorders and other disorders as well have increased year round. The opposition stated that the people should choose whether or not they decide to believe this and that people should know that it's fake and not compare themselves to it. This I believe is not being socially mindful of your surroundings because you believe that what you think, others must think as well which is a bad assumption. Not everyone is intelligent enough to look at these images and know that they are false and that they should not believe what they see. I know that before high school I thought everything in the media was real. I never knew the models were so photo shopped to such an extreme. I would look at a magazine and see the model posing and I would think that that was really her and in a way i would be jealous because she was so pretty. This is why the government should regulate media to eliminate false advertising because kids look at these magazines and compare themselves to the models and develop a desire to become them, therefore, eating disorders start to increase and other habits as well to what is being shown in the magazine and how the models  look like. I think that this is such a huge problem because media is sending a false message. Many years ago we were not even able to Photoshop pictures and now that technology has improved we are able to make miracles with this program. Technology is going to keep improving and to top it off media is everywhere, where ever you look there is a poster, a TV, or a billboard. Will this problem worsen as a result of technological improvement? I think that the government and people should take a stand now instead of later when it will be too late.