Female Health Issues Created by Media Capitalism - Assignment Example

? Female Health Issues Created by the Patriarchal Media Capitalism Resulting in Sexploitation of Women INTRODUCTION More and more young girls and women are daily becoming victims of serious health issues like eating disorders and clinical depression as a result of the sexualization of women in media. This issue is as old as the mass media itself and so are the consequent health issues. There are more than ten million women in the USA alone that are facing eating disorders like Bulimia nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa and a countless number more who experience clinical depression (Disorders, 2012). The sexualization of women in media is a major cause behind these health issues. The need to address this problem is dire. THE NEED TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE When young girls see teenage popstars and models, they idolize them and try to imitate them. This imitation takes a dangerous take when these girls try to achieve the same body figures as the models they see in ads. What better example to cite then our very own Barbie doll. When this is topped up by the bombardment of sexual portrayals of women in ads, even those which promote exclusively male products, the poor girls just can’t help it. Any amount of awareness won’t do much unless the problem is nipped in the bud. We need to directly target the big media organizations that earn big bucks and, because of their vested interests, drown most voices of protest. According to the study of the American Psychological Association (Girls) on this issue, the sexploitation like this has negative impacts on the “cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, and health sexual development” of girls. Cognitive functioning implies self-image problems and confidence in one’s own appearance. Research indicates that girls usually fail to build a health sexual image of them as a result of the influence of sexploitation. PERPETUATERS OF THE PROBLEM The issue has been raised before too, but the situation has become worse instead of improving. This proves that the source that is perpetuating the problem hasn’t been affected. This doesn’t indicate that we don’t realize what the source is; it’s just that our efforts are drowned in the midst of such huge corporations and media houses propagating their vested interests. These are the people, who objectify women because at the end of the day they really are just objects of exploitation for them. This overwhelming corporate greed cannot be taken care of once and for all, but that should never discourage us from taking initiative. Billboards are full of women in few clothes with digitally edited faces and bodies impossible to have in the real world, music videos and movies highly glamourize and sexualize the image of women, even the newscasters seem to be getter sexier by the day. This has become a national and international epidemic. EPMC-MY ACTIVIST GROUP EPMC-End Patriarchal Media Capitalism is an activist organization that we have built to fight the menace of corporate media and force them to stop the objectification of women in such a way that it ends up affecting the health of women. We have chalked out a 5 year strategy to achieve our target of minimizing and eventually eradicating the sexualization of women in media. This mission is to be achieved through the following important steps: Creating support for the project through publications, web presence, workshops and seminars, awareness programs, celebrities and other possible means. Meeting with celebrities and stars that hold influence over our target audience i.e. young girls, and taking these celebrities on board with us in our mission. Taking help from other activist organizations in digging up technical support. Talking to politically active people to help us campaign for national and international recognition. We would be requiring this recognition to fulfill the most important step. That step is the ultimate creation of a regulatory body that can give out penalties to any corporation or company etc. The regulatory body will have set standards through which most media would be scrutinized and if the content is such that it uses sexualization, then strict action would be taken. At the end of the 5 ear period, we hope to eradicate this problem to as much of an extent as we can. FUNDING The funding of the group is an important issue. A single way to fund it cannot be adopted so we will be doing the funding through several channels: Organizing fund raising activities like hosting art shows in schools and colleges with the theme of sexualization of women in media. Asking health and social welfare organizations to chip in. Asking the families of girls who had experienced such health issues to help create awareness in their areas and raise funds in their locality. Motivating the activists to do volunteer work so that salary costs could be cut down. Taking the help of medical institutes for raising funds by creating awareness of the seriousness of the diseases and ailments mentioned in the introduction. Asking for donations from established feminist activist groups and celebrities, offering them free publicity in bargain. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN This is a cause for which women of all age groups will join hands. Patients as young as 7 to 9 years have been reported to suffer eating disorders and low self-esteem as young girls obsess over their physical appearances. So in general we hope that all age groups and genders will help us in our mission but in specific we want the government of the United States to be o board with us on this issue. That will be achieved by activating the dynamic youth of this great nation. Nothing is impossible; the word impossible itself says I M Possible. The issue that I have discussed is very real and very important; most of us have seen it around us in one way or another. Some might have experienced it themselves. We all have to speak up and make our voiced heard in protest against the sexploitation of women in media. EPMC is a forum that would provide the platform to raise the voice against this issue, it’s time we woke up from our slumber regarding this issue and did something. References Disorders, F. S. (2012, 4 5). http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org. Retrieved from http://loveyourbody.nowfoundation.org/factsheet_2.html Girls, S. o. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx Harmful, S. O. (n.d.). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com. Retrieved from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/63514.php http://android.progimax.com/app/com.progimax.candle.free http://lchilds20.wordpress.com/ Read More