My wife, a few friends and myself got into a discussion about how the media’s portrayal of ‘beautiful’ women is seriously damaging to the self-images of many (if not most) women.
My wife maintained that the media’s constant barrage of images of what is a ‘beautiful’ drives a good deal of the insecurity she feels about herself. The media pushes an ideal that is nearly unobtainable yet many women drive themselves to distraction trying to achieve just that anyway. When they fail (as many will) their self-image takes a second punch in the gut (from failure and that they believe they still don’t look good).
My question is something of a ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma. Are women at the mercy of some media conspiracy or do they themselves drive what the media feels it should be showing?
Consider the following:
-
Who buys Vogue and Seventeen? One would think if women didn’t like how those magazines made them feel due to all of the pretty models in ads (and ads compose the vast majority of those magazines) then they wouldn’t buy them. If they stopped buying the magazine or the products advertised the advertisers and magazines would have to adjust or go out of business.
-
What constitutes the ‘pretty’ woman that some women feel they must try and emulate (at least in looks)? It’s a moving target. Marilyn Monroe was quite large by today’s model standards. Later you got Twiggy who was extremely skinny. Then you get Elle McPherson and the athletic look. Nowadays models seem to be pushing an almost boyish look. Which target are women aiming for? While any man may have a preference I think most men would say all of the women just listed were (are) very pretty and would be happy with any one of them at his side (the point being that there isn’t just one bodytype that can be quite beautiful…beauty covers a broad range).
-
“It’s what men like.” Doesn’t work either. I saw a study (looking for a cite) where they showed women a range of pictures of female body types (from skinny to heavy and everything in between) and were asked to choose what they thought men liked most. Women consistently picked body sizes one or two (out of maybe ten total) below the body size men most consistently picked out of the same pictures. Is the media that out of touch? Women don’t like being pushed to extreme skinniness. Men don’t seem to prefer extreme skinniness. Who figures out what the next supermodel should look like anyway and what are they basing their decisions upon?
-
Why don’t men suffer from this as much (relatively speaking)? Male models are just as buff and studly as their female counterparts are beautiful. Those bodies are also just as hard for men to obtain as the ‘ideal’ body is for a woman (I think you mostly have to be born to it and still have to work hard to refine and maintain it).
Obviously American society drives home the need for women to conform to some almost mythical body. If it didn’t we probably wouldn’t see bulemia and anorexia or a multi-billion dollar diet industry. Women are clearly caused a great deal of stress by this (to the point that some die in pursuit of this ‘ideal’).
Is this some sort of warped conspiracy? Is it a male dominated industry coming up with its own ideals regardless of anything else? Is this a convergence of many factors of which women are as much a part of the problem as they are the victims? Anything else you can think of?
Finally, if you want to fix this, where do you start?