Gender & Media

Media reflects and simultaneously shapes our culture. What the media presents as normal, we then believe those things are normal. Advertisements are especially effective at promoting our culture's values and norms. At first glance, they seem to just be images and words trying to sell a product. However, they sell much more than that. They sell us ideas of how we should act, what a woman should be like, what a man should be like and other cultural values. If all we are presented with is pictures of rail-thin women and jacked, buff men, we start to think that we should fit that image. This is an unconscious thought process. We come to associate certain appearances with success or failure, and we try to fit the successful ones.

I have studied media extensively in my time at college. I have frequently studied the specific issue of women in advertising, and I still don't catch myself before I make that unconscious self-judgment. I'm relatively happy with my body, but it is nearly impossible not to feel somewhat inadequate when flipping through a women's magazine or watching tv. Our readings told us we are slapped with roughly 3,000 advertisements a day. I thought this seemed like a high number, but when I think about my daily activities (Facebook, tv, etc.) and all the advertising that is attached to everything, it definitely looks possible. When reading the article about Ms. magazine and their advertising issues, I was shocked to see how purposeful and intricate the advertising world is. Technology companies wouldn't advertise in their magazine because women were not their demographic. This is ridiculous because everyone buys and uses technology. No matter how much I study media, I still find new things that shock me.

The implication of all this targeted advertising is that we come to feel like we're not good enough. People are therefore always striving to be better - which of course means prettier, thinner, richer. Society tells us through media that we are not good enough. We're left to always chase a more glamourous life, which by extension will make us happy. It makes me wonder how we have been able to tell ourselves things like "Beauty lies within" and "The best things in life are free" when we obviously don't believe them. I guess they're just little catch phrases to make us think we haven't been so affected by the media. The crazy thing? We are the media. We mirror the media and the media reflects us. How do we change what the media presents to us? Must we first change ourselves?