MissRepresentation

This past week in my critical thinking class we watched a film called MissRepresentation. It talked about how women are constantly sexualized in the media and in life. One topic they focused on was how men think they are allowed to treat women how they want to. Going back to one of my previous media blogs, I talked about the Gillette commercial. In this commercial, it spoke on the topic of men and how they think they are allowed to treat women however they want. I think this commercial relates a lot to the film we watched. It displayed how men think they can say whatever they want whenever they want and its effect on women. 

In comparison to the past, since 2000 to 2010, the rates of depression in women have doubled. Once girls reach the age of seventeen, there is an increase of unhappiness, reaching 78%. Studies show 65% of women have eating disorders and 17% cut themselves or self injure. Over half, 53%, of thirteen year old girls are unhappy with their body. American women spend $12,000 to $15,000 on beauty products and salon services in a year. Cosmetic surgeries have tripled in girls under the age of nineteen. One in four women are involved in abusive or violent relationships. Although this film was made a while ago, I do believe that these numbers have increased since then. In the movie they also talked about how men and women feel emotionally. They said that men think empowered women are a threat to them because they think they are attacking men specifically, but all these women are trying to do is gain more power and respect. Since girls are born, they get the message that the only thing that is important about them is the way they look. Media causes females to feel like they need to be someone they are not. Self objectification has become a national problem. Women are stereotyped as being more emotional than men but since the beginning of a male’s life they are taught to be emotionally constipated. Almost everything we know in the world today, comes from a male perspective. After reading over my notes once again, this genuinely makes me feel awful. I cannot believe how much these statistics have increased in such a short amount of time. Imagine the future where media and technology will take over our whole lives and theres no such thing as paper anymore, what will we do then? How much will these numbers rise with such a large influence of technology around us daily? How will we help our fellow women to be who they want to be and stop being objectified by men? What will you do?