Rough Draft formal paper #2

How exposure to media effects a woman’s standards of body image

Dear, _________

Women everywhere are being constantly bombarded with images of beautiful, half-naked, skinny “role models” and it is effecting the way that girls view themselves, consequently lowering their self esteem.

In our society today, it is becoming increasingly harder for a woman to fit the standards of what the media portrays as beautiful.  We all want to be seen as attractive, and that’s not a crime, however 

In the United States today, we are constantly bombarded with images of the “ideal” man or woman, and these images effect us and shape what we come to know as our “generalized other.”  Our generalized other “functions as a sort of monitoring or measuring device with which individuals may judge their own actions against those of their generalized conceptions of how members of society are expected to act.” (Devor, 530) In our world today, media is one of the main factors that shapes and idealizes our conception of the “self.” This __?___ particularly effects the females in our society. Since we are subconsciously comparing ourselves to what we see on movies, television shows, magazines, and on billboards and ads everywhere we go.  The images we see contain attractive females, with bangin’ bodies, beauty, and sex appeal.  In our patriarchal society, it is easy for women to be pressured into placing priority in vanity and appearance, since females in our society haven’t exactly been (something about how women were confined to the home and domestic tasks

 Media has created this idea of beauty that we are pressured to conform to, and consequently we learn what is acceptable to be considered beautiful in our society.

As women, we are expected to look good for the opposite sex and essentially turn ourselves into objects for men in this male dominated society, and this can have extreme consequences for girls who compare themselves to the images of women that they see in the media.  Shelly Grabe, a professor at the University of Wisconsin stated, "I want to stress that it's totally normal for women to want to be attractive, but what's happening in our society is that many women are striving toward something that's not very realistic or obtainable, and that leads to a lot of health consequences." (Grabe)  In a society with rising rates of obesity and eating disorders, girls face many obstacles to fit into the expectations of our society’s idea of what is attractive and desirable.  The most devastating consequence of our medias skewed portrayal of beauty: the distorted and unrealistic standards females compare and judge themselves by.  This unrealistic portrayal of beauty in our media greatly effects women in our society to strive to be the rail-think barbies that they see on TV and in magazines.

The images in media portray extremely beautiful woman in skin-tight and skimpy clothing, with perfect symmetrical faces and rockin’ bodies. Take Cosmopolitan Magazine for example, with a different beautiful bombshells on the cover every month surrounded by sex, dieting, and beauty tips.  The message of the magazine reads loud and clear: stay skinny, always look pretty and use sex to your advantage.  Girls are pressured to place a high priority on their looks 

Formal Paper Proposal #2

Topic-  For my second formal paper, I will explore the double standards in American 

culture with regards to gender.  I will focus on dating, hooking up, looks, and gossip.

Exigence: What prompts me to write this paper is the fact that I experience these double standards in my everyday life, and I know that the same is true for my peers.  These double standards, such as difference in treatment of men and women for partaking in the same activities, for example, girls are often labeled as sluts for being promiscuous, while boys are congratulated and praised for hooking up with as many girls as possible.  This difference of treatment from society greatly effects men and women everywhere and the bottom line is that it is completely unfair and wrong.

Claim: Women are treated unequally from men, mainly in regards to sexual encounters and using sexuality to their advantage.  Women seem to be constantly penalized while men are encouraged.

Main Evidence:

The evidence I will use will come from a variety of sources, some research will be done from web articles or magazines, and the rest of it will come from the articles we have read and discussed in class. One quote I will use is from Kimball’s Bros Before Hoes, that says, “ Never listen to a thing a woman is saying, but express immediate and unquenchable sexual interest.”

RA #3

The Death of Macho by Reihan Salam is a provocative piece about the decline in male dominance and the increasing role of women in positions formerly held by men.  Salam calls it a “monumental shift of power from men to women.” (629)  Salam explains that men have been hit harder by the recession, giving women a chance to climb the economic ladder into more equal paying jobs.  Salam explains, “Although not all countries will respond by throwing the male bums out, the backlash is real - and it is global.  The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power - the cult of macho - has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.” (630)  He is saying that men’s “manly” behavior is not something to be respected or revered, it is actually destructive and has usurped women’s power for too long, and it’s finally time for women to receive the same opportunities, wages, and respect as men.  Salam predicts the outcome of this power switch and investigates the effects that this will have on our infamous “macho men.”  Men will have to either conform or rebel to this new social and economic dynamic.

Salam uses cause and effect to show the huge impact that machoism has had on society and the serious implications of it.  He also explains the effects that this will have on the dynamics of the household and workplace, now that women are climbing up the economic ladder and men are forced to take a step back.  Salam explains that male dominated jobs such as manual labor type of jobs as he refers to as the “housing bubble” are startin got diminish so that female dominated jobs can find a place in the economy.  Salam also quotes US President Obama, he says, “though construction and manufacturing jobs won’t vanish altogether, they will constitute a smaller percentage of the economy.  As a result, women are just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than men are today.” (632)

I really enjoyed reading this article.  I am a working woman and also a full time student, and I completely take care of myself and never dreamed of not making it on my own.  I see that women are taking a greater role in the economy and toward being completely self sufficient, and I intend to support and feed this change by continuing to climb up the ladder to success and show women everywhere that unequal treatment in the job market is absolutely wrong.  I think its about time that someone assigned this type of article in an english class so I could write about it!