Media and Gender Issues - Research Paper Example

Media and Gender Within the modern era of information technology, the issue of women pushing for space in the media has brought about several changes mushrooming in the society, majority being health related issues. The modern woman has used the media as the main source of knowledge and information in the push to attain certain physical esthetic qualities considered fashionable in the society. For a long time, women have always remained silenced by men with the notion that a woman should stay away from information sources since it is the main information, which serve as a symbol of power. With the advent of media and information technology, sweeping changes has manifested itself on women. Today, women spend all their time and resources on media, and are willing to anything in order to be beautiful or change their natural outlooks. This clearly shows that women use media as a tool of educating themselves as a way of seeking freedom from the yoke of women folk, which has enslaved them for long (Joo, 2012). It is evidently clear that most of the media houses take considerable airtime to advertise what appropriate appearance a woman should have in the modern world. This includes the likes of “figure eight”, tall and slender and less body weight women. Some of these ideal desirable body structures are may not be attainable practically by some of the women. This creates a negative mindset of dissatisfaction from such women should they fail to attain such desirable qualities (In Carter et al, 2014). Therefore, they start a voyage of events that will see them modify their natural bodies in order to pose those deemed desirable by the society. The main problem associated to most of these processes and operations women have to go through may bring adverse lifelong damages in health of victims. The worst outcomes arise where the desired body appearance fails to happen, or the desired characteristics become abnormal, the likes of the various cases that have been documented. Several women are on record to have for instance, applied breast enlargement cream only for one of the breasts to be extremely larger than normal and fail to match with the other pair. The main problem is that, some of these outcomes remain unchanged forever and hence a permanent scar of psychological dissatisfaction rules the entire life of a woman in question. Scholars have cautioned on negative results of female objections in the media. It is not, therefore, miracles to find women in the society who are bed-ridden after suffering the negative images that are propagated by the media. Indeed, the media have shifted the actual dignity women play in the society to mere beauty toys as media houses seek for money derived from advertisement. Research has shown that a negative body evaluation or self-objection has a direct link to individuals as well as psychological impairment in life. This may also result into disorders like eating and dietary disorders. Individual women use what is being aired in the media houses as a reference point of physical beauty that they should strike whatsoever the cost. They, therefore, sacrifice their health at the expense of what has a perception of the best in the modern society. If the outcome in their quest for this beauty and reality is a wide gap, then this is the genesis of loss of personal confidence and self-esteem of an individual in the society. The media houses should carry the blame for polluting the women’s mindset with perceptions that may fail to be practically attainable at any given time, but end up ruining the morals and dignity of women in the society. Therefore, women should get the relevant education and guidance concerning the misleading advertisement by media that lures them to almost unattainable body models. Documented evidence exists, and it depicts the thirst women show by reading fashion newspapers and magazines to get vital techniques on fitness, beauty, and grooming. In this regards, initiating programs that shall dilute unethical, misleading adverts that have totally disoriented women in the society will be the only way of redeeming mislead women. There is several negative health implications of exposure to these .media have on women. The tendency of women worshiping media cannot be over-ruled. Most women who are fond of watching soap operas, for instance, have remained slaves to the lifestyles displayed by these programs that if applied to real life situation can lead to breakages of families. In addition, majority of women who have followed dietary programs geared towards weight loss as provided for in various popular media, are now nursing lifestyle diseases, which have crippled their competency in life. Sexual stereotyping is another menace that keeps on flourishing in the media as far as the issue female gender is concerned. Having discovered how women are more vulnerable to sexual related problems, the media have immensely exploited this opportunity for greedy financial gains. Some sexual and sensitive diseases that commonly affect women get a lot of exaggeration out of proportion by the media. Though the main objective could be treatment or simply medication, most of the advertisement aims at making the female gender rely on other peoples’ observation about their health and sexuality in making conclusive remarks about their destiny in life (Segall, 2013). Men and the media are always fond of putting more stress on the overt attributes and not the internal attributes possessed by women. This kind of sexual stereotyping may continuously lead to extreme health, problems on women like for instance, sexual malfunctioning and other bodily disorders. The main challenge is the manner in which the same women incline their ears to this vulgar stereotyping information from the media houses despite the untold shame associated with outcomes. It is, therefore, very imperative that, the way women are sexuality portrayed has yielded numerous negative outcomes. Women and even girls of young age consistently purchase cosmetics of all sorts, which get vibrant advertisement by the media. The issue of gender stereotyping comes out in the manner in which women are assuming as sex -toys without gender roles in the society. They owe the society some standards of beautify and, as a result, it is a requirement from them to have specific feminine attributes like a smooth face, thin or wiry body and a less body mass index. If a woman does not have or may not fulfill all these expectation on the society, they, therefore, get branding of irrelevance. The women, therefore, have to interact with the media in order to shop for these expectations in the society. The media are serving as a tool to manipulate the existence of women in the society (Pype, 2012). Women just like all the creations by God cannot and should not be manipulated whatsoever. There is, therefore, no need to put an effort to modify or influence the natural makeup of a woman with the use of any machinery. The women are always the victim of circumstances as far as the issue of gender stereotyping is concerned. It is always very rare to get wind of information of men being the target of such kind of advertisement in popular media houses. Most of those who have a say in designing these adverts are mainly the men. Therefore, this tells the manner in which women remain the target by media as the center of interest. This makes women to live a lifestyle that was not their wish would not have preferred. This is unethical as it directly violates the rights of women in the society by denying them breathing space. In this regards, most of the adverts majorly concentrates on certain parts of the body of a woman, which tell the reason for the disorders that affect women should they fail to attain their expectations. Social media is another channel through which communication pose a threat to the lifestyle of women in the globe. It is important to note that with the invention of various social networks, the self-esteem of women has greatly been influenced. Now days, women have been reduced to thin and media images. Women take most of their time posting funny image on their walls that attract comments based on the taste of how the society attaches beauty to certain images and slim body shapes .It is not always surprising to see very many positive comments if what was posted a nice picture as perceived in the community. Those female posts, which do not meet certain threshold usually, get less positive comments. The result is that, she will perceive herself as an outcast who does not attract any attention in the society, thus killing her morale completely in the society. Additionally some women have managed to enter into a relationship in the social media that has even led to marriage. This is exceptional for those whose beauties meet the threshold required in the society. This means, therefore, that; even the social media is serving as a sieve in determining somebody’s’ social space by either giving her a go ahead or by placing a barrier before them. Human body image is an issue that lies in personal concerns of that person’s perception as far as his or her outlook is concerned .The issue of body image tends to cause mental disturbance to all women of any age. The issue of body dissatisfaction continues to haunt women than men. Concern about beauty and correct weight starts dominating the young girls as early as seven to ten years where it climaxes at adolescence (Dines & Humez, 2005). Majority of women fail to meet the standards placed by the society and eventually continue outsourcing for new images that shall elevate in fulfilling the cultural endeavors of the community. This is the reason as to why women like receiving messages that praise them of their excellent beauty than any other thing in life. Most of the adverts by manufacturing companies tend to use ideal images of women to allow individual comparison among individual women with their natural images. The main trick here to in a way, win their hearts into buying their products to push them to be close if possible to the ideal images used in the advert upon consuming the products in question. The buying decision by these women always arises in case they notice some observable difference between their image and the one in the product that on the advertisement list (Derné, 2008). There is a very clear negative implication arising on women’s’ health that can be seen when they make comparison of themselves with the ones on the media. When they do this, the discrepancies always send them to the status of dissatisfaction, a situation that will see a woman suffer psychologically. The more the media a woman exposes herself to, the more the translation and damage impacted on her body. This will materialize through walking style, accent, and much other learned mannerism. According to the concept of cultivation theory, perceived ideal images used by the popular media are so appealing that, any woman who sedulously masters such standards accorded heroic praises than the one fails to do so will get. The theory has it that, images displaying women perceived in the community to be ideal as those that fill the media houses are more relevant in the society than those who do not. Another striking negative implication of media on women is damage to their skin. Some of the media adverts create a perception that white or brown women are ideal images of the society. If a black woman, for instance, consumes such kind of an advert, she will be tempted to do some plastic surgery on herself in order to meet the standards of the society. In addition, some may turn to use of bleaching creams in order to change the melanin of their skin. The summative result of all these efforts by such women will be destruction to her skin protection layer. Once the upper protective skin is spoiled, it becomes vulnerable to penetration by Ultra-Violet light and contamination of the skin by germs (Carter & Steiner, 2004). The twin results may lead to serious health problems of the victim. Change of feeding patterns and dietary programs of a woman with the intention of attaining a thin body size may end up making the woman in question, to live on malnutrition. This may proof to be dangerous in case diseases attack the victim. The situation will be severe since the body immune system shall be able to show any effort of protection. In most cases, some women die out of starvation while following guidelines that are under the jurisdiction by advertising agencies and or media. The damage the media may trigger on women who tirelessly watch television presentations, soap operas and movies and computers shall manifest itself on the damage of eyesight. These media channels transmit many radiations that eventually damage the viewers’ eye lens. This leads to early blindness or poor vision in case of early redemption. It worth noting that, poor eye vision will not guarantee achievement of the ideal beauty that the victim was seeking in the first place (Archer & Lloyd, 2002). Rather, a catalyst in pushing the victim to a bit of psychological torture. In addition, this problem comes after a lengthy chain of failure to the desired goals. In general, scholars have submitted immense data that shows how media is tearing apart the womenfolk that used to have dignity in the past. It has resulted in psychological confusion on women by use of misleading promotional campaigns that has led to the loss of souls and human dignity in general. Women are generously spending their hard-won resources to chase after the latest product in the market, with the hope of fulfilling the ideal woman status in the society (Baron, 2006). It is shocking to see how women tirelessly move from shop to shop in search for what will make them a perfect woman. The media houses are to blame for violating the ethical issues in product promotion by taking advantage of the social-cultural problems affecting women in order to loot them. This impunity of the highest order as nobody is taking any step after these creed businesspersons and women. References Archer, J., & Lloyd, B. B. (2002). Sex and gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Baron, D. E. (2006). Grammar and gender. New Haven: Yale University Press. Carter, C., & Steiner, L. (2004). Critical readings: Media and gender. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Derné, S. (2008). Globalization on the ground: Media and the transformation of culture, class, and gender in India. Los Angeles, Calif: Sage. Dines, G., & Humez, J. M. M. (2005). Gender, race, and class in media: A text-reader. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage. Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, Kartiganer, D. M., & Abadie, A. J. (1996). Faulkner and gender. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Gauntlett, D. (2002). 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