how the media views women.

How have media representations of women and women’s body/beauty? Have the changes been empowering to women? Why or why not?

Media objectives the woman’s body a lot more then it empowers it. In TV and movies women are often portrayed as sexual objects. It seems to me that a majority of TV and movies tend to star men and have women play the wife, assistant, secretary, or other second-hand characters. For example, on the show The Office the leading women are either a secretary, a girlfriend or a lower-level employee. The manager and assistant manager are both males, and the show is largely based upon their office in Scranton. Within the company that they all work for there is one higher up female manager, but her power is belittled when she dates Michael, the manager from Scranton. Shows like this are all over TV and because they are funny and entertaining the representation of women is ignored.
There are TV shows like Sex and the City which star women and their high profile lives. Shows like this help to empower women, but shows like Desperate Housewives which also star a cast of women tend to do the opposite. Desperate Housewives objectifies women by putting them in a subordinate role and creating a soap opera about sex, infidelity, and good looks. I think one of the only reasons the show is successful is because of how beautiful the leading ladies are. Their beauty entices both men and women to watch the show. The producers of Desperate Housewives realize this and use the star’s bodies as sexual objects to sell the show. This is not empowering to women. It also can create body image issues with the viewers. The leading ladies of the show are all very thin, beautiful, and not the public norm. Women watching the show may feel like they are inadequate judging by the cast. It creates a false sense of what a woman should look like.
Media objectifies the women’s body often through its various outlets. I think in our lifetime there have been more advances to fight objectifying women’s bodies and creating these extreme ideals, but I don’t think that we are there yet. Hopefully we will be in our future.

Manifesto

Why is it that women are viewed as prudes or sluts? Either you put out and are then a slut or you don’t and you’re a prude. For women there seems to be no in between. For a guy it is different. If he goes home with a woman for a night of fun, it is viewed as a good thing. He can tell his friends that he ‘scored’ last night. For a woman it is viewed oppositely, she is seen as a slut. And if a woman goes ‘all the way’ she is a huge slut. But why is it that the woman has to be the one to slow things down? Can’t women enjoy a night of fun too? Whether it’s in movies, TV, or real life you rarely here for a guy wanting to take things slow. It is almost like it’s the woman’s responsibility to say no to sex.
If women want to take things slow, then they are prude. They might be interested in more than one night of fun and want something more serious. But in this case, it’s usually the man who is trying to get more action and the women who has to suppress him. In order to create a relationship on more than just sex, the woman has to take things slow. She has to deny the man, you rarely here about it any other way. Does it all go back to the old myth that men like sex more than women? That men need sex; it’s all they can think about, and that for women it isn’t the same. Well I think it’s a load of crap. Women like sex too. It doesn’t make us sluts.