America's Most Valuable Oppressor: The Media

The media is constantly brainwashing us and making us buy objects we do not need. In addition, the media is a tool used to dictate women to think and behave a certain way. The images portrayed through television depict a false reality that forces people to look like what is being depicted.

Women, for example, subconsciously grow to idealize female fashion models in today's society. These women are the standardized representation society’s perfect woman. Their glamour, and stunning physical appearance, often modified with filters, makes women desire what these models are wearing. In addition, they also want to look like them, and since the models are mainly fair skinned women with golden hair, tall and skinny, most women will be more likely to work towards getting at least one of this characteristics.

Models are not in a better situation than ordinary women because just like ordinary women, female models are emotionally conflicted with the idea that their body should be a certain way. For example, women that wish to enter the modeling industry must be within the range of size 0 to 4. They do not have the will to present themselves with a weight other than that, or else they will not be hired.  Therefore, ladies that aspire to work as models, begin to submit to strict diets to lose weight. Even if they are skinny, they do not feel they are skinny enough for the job.

Today, it is common to notice the effect the media has on teenage girls and women based on the way they portray themselves through the social media. They like to have filters on their "selfies" to make them look shades lighter because that is how they look better according to what is portrayed through the media.

It is not only what women see through media that affect their identity, but also what they hear should be the way they should behave. Take for example Selena Gomez’s song “Come & Get It”, in this song there is a female voice that is speaking to a male audience demanding that whenever he is ready to come and get it. Then the song goes on saying You ain't gotta worry, it's an open invitation/I'll be sittin' right here, real patient/All day, all night, I'll be waitin' standby, clearly, the female voice is stating that she will wait until he is ready for “it”, in fact she will be waiting patiently for him. This song, often played on the radio, contributes to the constant reminder that women have to wait for their prince to come. Of course they will wait forever if necessary because women must not go looking for a man because that is wrong.

Women are not the only ones being targeted by the media, everyone is. However, it should not be that way because we are the ones who should be defining and shaping our identity. Pictures, movies, songs, and texts get publicized to make other women embody a surreal personality that dictates that light skin, colored eyes, silky hair, and a slim curvy body is how one should look. In the long run, media is taking advantage of people’s vulnerability of being rejected by society to oppress people. The media is a false image of reality and we should not let it interfere with our identity.

Misconceptions of Muslims Mistreating Their Women

As many may believe, Islam is a religion based on violence and extremist who degrade and harm women. The truth about the Islamic religion is being misjudged by ignorant people who believe Middle Eastern countries which are Muslim countries promote violence. 

Islam is a peaceful religion where it teaches nothing but positivity like no violence, stealing, raping, and jealousy. The religion is based off the 5 pillars that all Muslims believe, which is Shahadah to believe that God is the greatest and he is almighty and there is no one but god and his messengers who are prophets, Zakat giving to the poor, Salah to simply pray 5 times a day thanking God for what we have, Sawm to fast the month of Ramadan, and Hajj to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Islam does not perform any type of violence toward any living thing. It has been said many times that the Islamic religion degrades and harms their women. 

This is completely untrue due to the fact that muslim men treat their women like queens. Women in Islam are very sacred and meant to not be touched or harmed. Although it may seem like women don’t have power or a voice they actually do. Muslim men go to their wife for advice, comfort, and support in life. It is believed that men would do the outside work which is also known as the dirty work and women stay home and raise their children. Many believe this because it is shown that children more than often listen to their mother more than their father.

The idea that women in Islam are mistreated has been so widely accepted that it has become a reality in our lives.. There is this generalization going on which claims that Islam promotes violence. Islam itself is a religion and does not promote neither peace or violence it is what you as an individual decide to do with that religion that makes a violent or a peaceful one. Moreover, nowadays when you bring up the topic of women alongside Islam, the word “abusive or violent” jumps in mind right away. But the truth of the matter is these are all misrepresented ideas. In a reality Islam’s teachings gave women rights and made sure that men respected and valued them. Some people who claim to be muslims mistreat their women and thereby result in the idea of muslims mistreating their women. Some "haters" decide to paint brush the whole religion based on the few who commit mistakes and do not really follow the true principles of islam.

There are about 1.5 billion muslims in the world and not everyone is a true muslim. You see this in every religion. When talking about christianity a lot of people claim to be christians, but not many really commit to the religions traditions and prayers. Some christians mistreat and even abuse their women, does that mean that the whole christian population does so? Similarly most third world countries like Southern Africa ones mistreat their women, a shocking 90% of the woman are mistreat or abused. And what is even more shocking is that these countries are not Muslims.The point is a few muslims mistreating their women does not make the whole muslim population an abusive one.

It's Handled

Scandal

ABC’s new hit series called Scandal is about a character named Olivia Pope, a cunning, intelligent, and powerful African American woman, who was a former White House Communications Director but started her own crisis management firm. Shonda Rhimes, who is also an African American woman and creator of the show, stepped out of the social norms of media where black women were subjected to the “invisible roles” of society.

Teresa Graves

Diahann Carroll

Scandal may actually be the first show to have a black woman as the lead role on a primetime network drama series since Diahann Carroll in “Julia” (1968) and Teresa Graves in “Get Christie Love!” in the early 70s. Times have definitely changed since this show came out in 2012. However, a majority of shows in Hollywood portray the protagonist as both male and white whereas, black women were featured as the most demeaning and stereotypical way possible through shows like Basketball Wives, Bad Girls, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta. These shows focused on ex-wives, ex-girlfriends of NBA players, and “baby mamas” with endless scenes of trash-talking followed by hair-pulling, and man-stealing showdowns. These women are hindered from showing the other aspects of themselves that features them as business owners, entrepreneurs, and simply a successful black woman.

Throughout the whole show, Olivia Pope is seen as powerful, fearless, and a political asset because she can fix anything and get rid of any evidence possible. However, the major issue that one might not realize is that no matter how intelligent, fearless, or powerful she may be, in reality, she suddenly becomes weak and powerless when the President seduces her. She is also labeled as the President’s mistress because she is aware of the fact that he is married with children and yet she cannot resist him. The President has promised her many times that they will soon go away from all of the problems and obstacles that are being thrown at them but nothing has happened. She is still just his mistress and  Bottom line is, sexual attraction is not equivalent to love. In addition, Rhimes may have hinted race and gender concerns through that episode because a black woman’s flesh is simply an object to be desired sexually whereas, a white woman’s flesh (The President’s wife) is desirable and acceptable in every other aspect.

Furthermore, Olivia Pope is seen as the ultimate “fixer” of problems and she knows this because everyone seeks for her help since she is very good at what she does. However, throughout the whole series, we do not know much about Olivia Pope’s characteristics as much as The President’s or anyone else. We have very little information about her personal life, passions, education history, and so on. It is also possible that she may be just an embellishment for someone else (The President and the American Political System). The answer to that may require deeper thinking or more episodes to analyze.   

The idea of creating Scandal was brilliant and definitely one for the books. Rhimes did an excellent job of including hidden messages that require deep thinking. It is great to see something different from the social norms of Hollywood media especially if a positive message and representation is being spread. The fact that it took almost 50 years for a black woman to become a leading role in a television show is just surprising. Scandal somewhat also reveals a positive aspect of black women in the media.

Men Through The Eyes Of Media

Men are portrayed very highly compared to women on television. Men are mostly shown to be strong, intelligent, and more dominate than women. Television is very powerful to many people’s mind. By television showing this message and portraying men to be higher than women this will have people thinking it has to be that way.

In the movie 300 there were many wars going on and only the men were shown as the strong warriors. The men were the ones to fight. Men are mostly shown as the “protecters”. What I mean by that is that men protect their families. Men are suppose to keep their familes out of family and they have to fight for them in any way they can. “A more recent study found similar patterns in how male characters were portrayed in children's television around the world: boys are portrayed as tough, powerful and either as a loner or leader, while girls were most often shown as depending on boys to lead them and being most interested in romance.” This can make women shown more as objects than human beings. The media also makes men look masculant to show their strength. Strength is very important to men because if men aren’t as strong they are considered weak and that is what women are considered as.

In the show George Lopez, George Lopez is a working husband. He is a manager at a factory and his wife Angie is a stay at home wife. The media shows many men in television shows as the working spouse. While the men are at work the women have to stay home and watch the children. This concept is very similar to today. A lot of men rather have their wives stay home to clean,cook, and watch their children instead of working, while the men are working and are providing for their families. Men are the more dominate ones in the relationship.

In the Big Bang theory, there are four main characters that are scientists. They are all men and they are also all very smart. Meanwhile there is one character that is a women that is portrayed to be a “blonde”. Meaning she is very attractive but isn’t that intelligent. To many people in today’s society women are looked at as they aren’t as smart as men. Men are shown to be much smarter than women in a lot of different ways. In this show these men aren’t as strong but they are very smart and with that they become more successful then then woman in this show. While they are scientists with great jobs, she is only working at The Cheesecake Factory not even making half of the money that they are making. This is very relatable to the actual workforce because most lawyers,docters, CEO’s, President’s and other high roles are men. Very few women ever have these roles.

This is an emormous issue that isn’t really questioned. This can make men feel the need to have to reach these roles as men. Men can’t be emotional and if so it’s a problem. And women can’t be any higher than a man in a relationship or else the man really isn’t the “man”. This issue also makes women look as if they are not as important compared to men. By this continuing to happen this can make workforces want more men instead on women as well, men might get paid more, and men will be more respected.

Men and women are suppose to be equal. There is no reason for men to be higher than women. We need to pay more attention to the media and the messages they try to show and not allow it to manipulate our minds.  

Invisable Narrartives in Cosmopolitan Magazine Degrading Women

In general, media (newspaper, commercials, some books, magazines, and etc.) has brainwashed women. We are set to believe that by dressing a certain way, wearing the kind of brands, and etc. is “cool, wrong, good, or bad.” When it comes to reading a magazine, it is quite entertaining plus they are pretty much sold everywhere now a days. Magazines contains all kinds of articles, illustrations, and often covering a specific subject of interest. For an example, Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for woman. Cosmopolitan has been around since 1866 and is very popular until this day. In its early days, Cosmopolitan used to include articles about home, family, cooking, and fashion, and art, but it definitely has changed over time. Cosmopolitan magazine now includes fashion, sex advice, dating, and celeb gossip, fancy cocktail drinks, and etc., it is obviously targeting female audiences. How has Cosmopolitan magazine influence and change the way woman think? This particular magazine is a GRIP, women subscribe and love to read this magazine because it is made up of diverse people (usually includes people from different countries and cultures), makeup tips, fashion tips, relationship/sex advices, and etc. All these topics keeps a woman engaged ad want to further read more but recently, I noticed how the multiple invisible narratives behind this magazine are shaping the way women think.

 17-year-old Dakota Fanning on the Jan. 2012 Cover (Image from NYmag.com)

This magazine emphasis on how woman should be towards men. Inside the Cosmopolitan magazine consists of how to be more attractive, desirable, and successful through advertisements, images, and manipulative articles. Appearance is a very big and important deal in the magazine, women are photo shopped, perky boobs, exposing breast and legs. When the magazine talks about health, it basically meant weight loss=fitness=sex appeal. The invisible narrative here is that everything in this magazine is saying we must look like this, do this, drink this kind of cocktail, think like this, etc. to be considered an “untouchable woman” that all men would fall for. This magazine creates unrealistic beauty ideals and studies shows women are constantly overestimating men’s’ preference for thin bodies. These kind of invisible narratives make women feel like they will be better because it is very persuasive. Small key words and phrases go a long way, an example would be, “you are capable of much more than being looked at than eye candy.” This kind of statements make readers think deeper and question how they can make that statement true. Whether it is an advice or product for sale, women will tend to think that by following the advice or buying the product, it will make us much more feminine, sexy, and desirable. 

Women are starting to believe that we have to continuously fix our flaws to be happy, healthy, and successful. The message in this is, by losing weight, changing hair color, getting tanned, lightening skins, and etc. is what will make you worthy and desirable. Instead, the magazine is implying that if you don’t look like the models on the images, then you are a complete rejection. It is wrong to be brainwashed to thinking we MUST strive to reach the standards of beauty and fashion. We are supposed to believe that being happy means to live, be free, and love yourself. Cosmopolitan magazines may be a good read for entertainment but bottom line, many women are starting to take context/phrases heavily and internalizing it causing lower self-esteem and other risky behaviors.

Men Prefer Curves, not skinny. (Photo from Skinny2hunk.com)

One of the big issue I noticed is that the Cosmopolitan magazine has an impact on women’s sexual attitude. They have a whole section about sex and relationship tips, and the constant focus is being able to please your man or changing your body to attract a man. An experiment was conducted by California State University and the results showed that when women read a sexual script in Cosmopolitan magazine, women are more likely to strive for sexual desires and have a higher control/power for their own sakes. The invisible narrative behind this is that it’s saying we must do this to make yourself resistible, act a certain way towards the man, use a specific sex position to please the man, and it goes on. Everything then becomes an excuse for bad sex if you’re not following the sex tips. When we think about this logically, imagine the people who had great sex without needing to even read these trash articles that are supposedly going to “benefit” you and your partner. Another invisible narrative behind these articles is everything revolves around men, and we should submit to men, some of the example headlines are: “What Guys Secretly Think of Your Hair & Makeup. Truth Revealed!”, “20 Dress He Will Love”, “78 Ways to Turn Him On.”, “How To Be a Total Magnet.” Even though, these might be catchy and attract readers, but consider this, when did the purpose of life become attracting a guy? 

 

Cosmo Magazine: The Best-Seller That Sells Women Short (Photo from: http://www.beautyredefined.net)

Cosmopolitan magazines only offer narrow minded images of women, fashion, and attitudes to their subscribers. Everything in the magazine is only for advertisement and profits. It’s interesting to see how Cosmopolitan magazines shifted how women think about themselves and their definition of beauty. Cosmopolitan magazines should be more open-minded, feminine friendly, and promote that it is OK to not have to live up to these unrealistic standards of beauty. Because these little phrases, headlines, keywords mean a lot, and it does degrade women on many levels especially when they are being objectified. I suggest other topics should be promoted in this magazine to help women feel more empowering in other ways than sexually.

Do Disney Princesses help internalize gender roles?

Disney’s Female Characters

From the moment you take your first breath society, and you're parents had already set gender roles for you. We are automatically dressed in pink if we are girls or in blue for boys. But, why do these roles internalize in our minds? How can we decide on our own when society has enforces certain ideas for us to follow?

The idea of following this so called norms of women being submissive to men is insane. And what is more insane is that we see it everywhere. Many little girls get the message at a very young age. The ideas are seen in movies, but exclusively in more popular movies, Disney princess movies that attract little girls. But, why? Well every girl is told or compared to a princess, and every little boy to a prince. And to be honest what girl doesn't like to be treated like a princess, pshhh I know I sure do.

Disney’s Male Characters

But, should we let men have the power just to wear the crown? Absolutely NOT!!!! That is no reason why we should under estimate are ability to do things on our own. The sense of having the crown is not going to give us power, but the ability to be able to be dependent women, and reach our goals.

When little girls see gender roles in movies they are more likely to have the same expectations. However, do these movies really convey gender roles? Do most little girls who grow up watching Cinderella, The Little Mermaid or any princess movie, become submissive to men?

I think they do, every princess in most movies has to be saved by a handsome prince. We become submissive and willing to give it all up for them.

Elsa being independant

However let’s talk about submissive women. In every Disney movie the princess needs to wait for prince charming, all for the exception of Frozen. Now let’s see, in the story of Snow White she had to be brought back to life by a man. The Little Mermaid gave all she had to be with her prince, but Elsa from Frozen she knew you couldn’t just marry a man you just met.

Now, they all fall deeply in love with this handsome, perfect guy who is worth giving everything up. But, why is it that they follow orders from a man they don’t really know? I don’t know if we will ever know this, but what I do know is that Disney sure does not want us to see it this way. They want us to focus in the love portion of the story, and its happy endings.

Disney’s Evil Female Characters

In reality they are internalizing that women should wait for men, and if women take action (ex. Ursula, Anastasia and Drizella) they are seen as evil witches. Often being isolated and excluded.

Now, what if society did not set certain gender rules? Do you think we would be able to have equal pay, or equal opportunities? Or would women still be seen as evil, ugly witches?

So why can’t we be more like Elsa from Disney's most recent movie Frozen, who didn’t need a men to have a happy ending. Women shouldn't sit around and wait for Prince Charming, we should be independent and take care of ourselves.

In reality I don't believe that we can forget gender roles, and expect to get equal treatment. However, I think we can change the expectations for women and men by changing our norms. Changing the idea of men having the power to be possessive, demanding, and controlling. For woman, we should set more expectations. Expectations for ourselves in order to be more independent and less submissive.