Sexualization Of Girls Essay

As a wise man once said, “To love yourself is to understand you don't need to be perfect to be good.” However young girls have so much pressure put on them to look in a way that is not only unrealistic but also unhealthy. As a result of this, young girls have a very negative body image and self-confidence.The problem is the unrealistic body standards that media and society have set for girls. According to SSCC, the average American woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds. There is a clear problem when the media is only advertising women that are 5’11 and 117 pounds, which is the average American model. Even though the body of a model is very rare and uncommon,girls are expected to look like they do. However, by promoting a positive body campaign, stopping the portrayal of fake and photoshopped models in the media, and expanding the diversity of models, we could lift unrealistic body standards and start accepting everybody as beautiful.

In the quest to look beautiful just like the heroines in the Disney princesses' franchise, many girls indulge themselves in the products that made for the grown-ups. Hanes proves this with a statistic from the marketing group, NPD Fashionworld, who reported that a total of 1.6 million dollars is spent annually on thong underwear for children between 7-12 years (510). These facts do not even begin to cover what is really happening to young girls nowadays. In addition, young girls are engaging themselves with the makeup at a young age that may be harmful to them because they are chemicals. Young children who feel that they are fat and want to become slender may even go to the extent of starving themselves to obtain the body shape and size that they want. There have even been cases where parents have allowed or encouraged their children to undergo the surgeries and other procedures to "enhance" their beauty. As a result, these girls end up getting the health problems and depression. Hanes supports this fact with the statistics from an APA research, which linked stress, depression, health problems, and eating disorders to sexualization

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

In the American culture today, women are becoming more sexualized at a younger age due to the influences of the corporate media. Corporate media and society form the perfect idealistic body that women should have and is constantly being promoted making younger girls start to compare themselves to them at a young age. Certain shows and movies, such as Disney, influence young children and teenagers through their characters as to how a woman is supposed to be accepted. The way the corporate media and society make this body image they want women to have starts in a very early stage in a woman's life without them knowing. There are these childhood movies, such as Disney, Barbie and Ken dolls, programs such as Netflix, teen

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

In a recent survey done by the National institute on Media and the Family, fifth graders, ten year old boys and girls told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show “Friends.”(4) If this isn’t shocking enough, the research group reported that at the age of thirteen, fifty-three percent of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to seventy-eight percent by the time the girls reach seventeen. Also, eating disorders are beginning to start at an alarming young age. Statistics show that girls are developing eating disorders at the age of six.(1) Young girls that are exposed to appearance focused television programs, and magazine shows feel that they need to look like the models that they see. Most of these girls are not even have fully developed bodies yet and are already trying to perfect themselves. One girl had even shared how one of her best friends discovered that her fifth grade cousin was bulimic. Girls at that age should not even be concerned with their bodies yet and eating disorders being developed is a harsh wake up call as to how young girls everywhere are being effected by the media each and everyday.

For as long as media has been around, women have been sexualized in order to sell products. It’s a known fact by brands and consumers alike: sex sells. No one can deny this fact, it’s everywhere. Turn on your radio, you’ll hear songs describing women as nothing more than pieces of meat, objects to look at. Turn on your televison and you’ll see advertisements for inherentlyunsexual products like beer or a burger, but it will accompanied by a half naked woman. Walk into any convenience store, and you will find half a dozen magazine with airbrushed models in bikinis, some of these models so young that they cannot even drive. At what age does it become okay to start sexualizing women, or is it never okay? Some would say the age of legality, which is eighteen, but young Hollywood starlets such as Kylie Jenner and Ariel Winter were victims of the media’s obsession with sexualization before they even turned sixteen. It is an understatement to say that the media has gone too far in many instances. It’s as if as soon as girls reach the age of puberty, they fair game to the media as objects of scrutiny and sexualization. It has gone from bad to worse. The way the media sexualizes women, especially famous teenage girls, is wrong and has

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

The culture of media has now taken a large affect on young girls and their body images. Young girls are feeling dissatisfied with their bodies because of the way society views women. The media tells us what to look like, what clothes to wear, make-up, what cars to drive, and sometimes what to eat. Media is changing people constantly through advertising and by showing us the looks and fashions of celebrities. Advertising has negative effects on the formation of oneself as seen through the nature of the promotion of its’ products. This effect is particularly prevalent among young adolescent girls. Young girls feel the need to join dietary plans or result to eating disorders Advertising in society results in negative effects on girls through self-image that leads to harmful consequences. The media is the biggest factor contributing to girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies, causing eating disorders.

Who is to blame for how young girls are being portrayed on television and in music videos? Has it come to society putting more emphasis on money instead of protecting girls from being exploited in today’s new culture? This seems to be a growing problem across the United States that has caused some concern as to how it is affecting girl’s psychological well-being as well as their health. (Hatch, L., 2011) Girls are no longer interested in playing with dolls. Parents do not take their little girls to have play dates with their friends at a park, instead parents

The sexualization of young girls and women in society is a prevalent theme in mass media. Presently, the sexualization of females is commonly seen in various consumer items like clothes, dolls, and even in Disney movies, according to “The Sexualization of Girls Is Harmful” article. The author says that sexualization occurs when “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified- made into a thing for others’ sexual use; and sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person (AboutKidsHealth).” Furthermore, the author provides statistics on how girls are being sexualized by the products they see and use

As a middle school student, I was oblivious to the unrealistic portrayals in the media, but I was not able to escape its harmful grasp. It seemed every girl at the school suffered with body image issues because their perception of beauty is what they had been taught by society. Anorexia and bulimia were far too common, while self-esteem and confidence were very hard to find. Not only were the girls trying to become “beautiful,” they were also trying to act older than they were. Starting at the extreme, drugs, alcohol, and sex seemed normal; far less extreme were the excessive amounts of makeup, skimpy outfits, and usage of the proper slang. These girls were merely doing what the media had taught them; they were being, or trying to be,

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

Our sex saturated media is also generating conflict in young girls’ development. The portrayal of women as sexual objects is discussed in the article “The sexualization of Girls is Harmful” by Olivia Ferguson and Hayley Mitchell Haugen. The article cites statistics of “prime-time television shows popular among children” remarking that “12% of sexual comments involved sexual objectification toward women” and “23% of sexual behaviors involved leering, ogling or catcalling at female characters”.(par 6) The feature provides www.aboutkidshealth.ca/ as an “online resource for information about areas of children’s health and family life”. (Par 1) This web site states “depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders” as consequences for media sexualizing women. (Par 2) The research defines “the objectification theory as a psychological theory explaining the