Dear freshman college girl,
Commercial break! As Americans, it is nearly impossible to ignore the constant blast of advertisements that are shoved in our faces on a daily basis. These advertisements often include a beautiful, tall, thin, flawless woman who appears confident, successful and has plenty of attention from the opposite sex. The unstated message is that you must look like the womenportrayed in these ads in order to be considered beautiful and desirable in today’s society. It’s not a secret that women love to look at other women. So, it’s no wonder beautiful women are often used in the media to sell products and send out messages. And let’s be honest here, who doesn’t love to consult a glossy magazine for style and fashion advice? However entertaining it is, I urge young women to think twice about what these media images are truly telling girls. It’s one thing to seek out tips on how to wear our make-up, our hair, our clothes, or how to have an attractive body, but is it normal for the average girl to flip through the pages of Glamour magazine and think that if she buys the products being advertised she will actually achieve the look of the women on the pages?
Throughout history, the ideal image of beauty has been difficult for women to attain. 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) We see the faces in media as a part of this judging device, and we tailor our behaviors and our appearance accordingly. In our world today, media is one of the main factors that shapes and idealizes our conception of the what we think society expects from us. As a very young girl I loved to play with Barbie’s. From their perfect hair and skin, their long legs, flat tummies, and giant breasts, I idolized Barbie and thought that she was perfect. From the moment I could walk and talk I was surrounded by dolls personifying the perfect woman, and it instilled in me a false belief that in order to be pretty I needed to wear makeup, wear trendy clothes, and maintain a rail-thin figure. My experience is a perfect example of how early this standard of beauty is impressed on little girls. Unfortunately, it never really goes away. On the contrary, it gets much worse as girls grow older and they feel even more pressure to look attractive, especially to the opposite sex. Growing up as a female without some insecurities or body issues isn’t easy. From the moment baby girls open their eyes they are bombarded with images of beautiful women, and are deceived into believing that a normal woman can look like a super model or reality television star.
Women everywhere, whether they like to admit it or not, are subconsciously comparing themselves to what they see in movies, television shows, magazines, and on billboards and ads. The corporations that manufacture and distribute every product targeted to women know this and use this knowledge to their full advantage. The beauty industry, the diet industry, fashion industry and the like rake in billions of dollars in revenue each year selling products to women who feel their appearance doesn’t measure up. If the model uses the product and she is beautiful won’t I be beautiful if I buy and use the product too? This way of thinking makes no logical sense, however media images are powerful. Advertising agencies use all means at their disposal to pull at the heart strings of female consumers and exploit their deepest insecurities.
In a patriarchal society, it is easy for women to be pressured into placing priority in vanity and appearance, since females in our society have always been told that life is easier when you are attractive, and appearance is extremely important. As women in today’s society, we are expected to look pretty and “done-up” in order to be thought of as attractive, and this can have extreme consequences for girls who compare themselves to the Kim Kardashians and Kate Moss’s adorning every billboard and movie screen. Shelly Grabe, a professor at the University of Wisconsin stated in her article, "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 impossible 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 hold themselves to and the consequences they have on girls self-esteem and body image.
Girls are pressured to place a high priority on their looks above all else. This pressure to be obsessed with appearance has devastating effects for many girl’s body image and health. Women are striving to achieve a weight that is unrealistic for them. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders affirms that “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.” Clearly, only a miniscule percentage of women actually have the body type displayed in the media that others so deeply desire. Jennifer L. Deere, a psychiatrist with a special interest in body image and eating disorders explains, “children exposed to excessive TV viewing, magazines, and movies are at higher risk of obesity. When other variables are controlled, TV exposure independently increases the odds of becoming overweight by 50% for both men and women. Furthermore, the type of exposure, not the amount, is correlated with negative body image. Specifically, rates of exposure to soap operas, movies, and music videos were associated with higher rates of body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness.” This drive for thinness has effects on not only self-esteem but it has tremendous health effects for the women that feel pressured fit themselves in the mold of the Barbie doll figure. Negative self image effects not only their ability to feel content with their weight and looks, but many women take it to extreme and unhealthy proportions to become skinny like their media role models. In a survey published by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.” 47% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures. 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape. 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat.” This statistics are shocking. Although these little girls may not be reading Cosmopolitan Magazine or Keeping up with the Kardashians, they are still immensely effected by the pressure to be skinny, consequently imbedding these ideas of unworthiness or ugliness when they look in the mirror for years to come.
The current media culture is complicated and very confusing. Women are told that they can and should “have it all.” They expect the perfect man, the perfect body, the perfect hair, and their beloved models, actresses and celebrities tell them how to do it. The media confuses them with mixed messages about what is sexy, making it difficult to choose a role model. The heroin chic waif made popular by Kate Moss in the early 1990s competes with the voluptuous Baywatch babe personified by Pamela Anderson, that competes with reality TV’s fashion icon Lauren Conrad, and everyone wants to reflect what they see.
There can be a solution to this problem. Girls deserve to feel great about themselves and feel beautiful by their own standards. I believe that the solution to this problem is addressing these unrealistic ideals of beauty at an early age. Children need to learn, both in school and at home, that they do not need to try to achieve unattainable looks and weights that are unhealthy for them in the long run. Parents can also help by refusing to buy toys for their children that perpetuate this flawed conception of how a girl should look. Let’s face it, the times are a-changing, and the rain-thin flawless portrayal of beauty is so rare that it’s crazy to even imagine that the average girl can look like a supermodel with the right make-up, hair-style, and diet (or lack of food at all if that’s what it takes), no matter how much the people selling those products to us tell us they will. As young women enter college, they have an opportunity for personal growth. Unlike high school, where judgmental groups of immature adolescents may have shaped views of the world and self, college is a place where a woman can formulate her own opinions. So I urge college women to keep these truths in the forefront of their minds during their school experience. With maturity and education comes room for scrutiny and question. Everyone has the power to control how they feel about themselves, and there is no reason why anyone should alter their self-esteem for a fallicy that corporations have concocted.
