Happy Monday to all!
On this cool day in Fay, I was thinking about a documentary I recently got to watch in my family relations class. First of all, this class is hilarious-our teacher is very open minded but likes to question our opinions too, which is always refreshing to hear. Our last chapter was talking about sexual abuse towards women (and men), and basically women in our society in general. We watched the film, Miss Representation, to go along with the lectures. This film was SO eye opening, it was actually insane.
Yes, this isn’t about fashion or beauty or seemingly anything I ever talk about, but it actually does have to do with everything I talk about-so read up!
[here’s the trailer]
First of all, this film was made because the woman in the beginning is having a baby girl, and she’s scared to bring her in our corrupt world.
And she should be.
In this film, many topics are discussed.
Women’s rights, women’s objectivity, women’s self views.
Women’s rights are discussed in a way that is so shocking to me-first of all, women make
77 cents for every $1 men make.
“We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective”
Michael Eisner, former CEO of Walt Disney CO.
We’re in the 21st century, that’s just astonishing.
Countries leadership is only made up of 6% of the population-meaning we choose from men that are married, are white/caucasian, have a professional degree, and a few other factors. Women make up 51% of our population, and how many are in politics? Not that amount, that’s for sure. Women’s objectivity is really talked about, which isn’t very shocking to me at all. If you sit back and really think about media in today’s society, is it really that uncommon to see a woman in an advertisement or magazine or PG13 rated movie with hardly any clothes on? No, and you don’t even realize it because we’ve grown numb to it, which is really sad. Did you know that most G-rated movies have content that show women in about the same amount of clothes as R rated movies? Don’t believe me…
Crazy, right? This is what the children of our society are watching, and wanting to be like. See their perfect animated bodies? Women and children are trying to be exactly like them, starting at the age of 12. As women get older, 78% of girls at the age of 17 are unhappy with their bodies.
In the film, a few young high school girls were interviewed, and many said that ever since they were young they’ve constantly thought about their weight and their looks. They explain how it isn’t about their value and worth anymore-it’s about how they look, which is so true when you think about politics for women.
I must say, I’m not really into politics, but I do have to acknowledge that women are hardly ever taken seriously.
When Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin ran for office’s, their looks were the first thing to be talked about. For Hillary, the media said that she looked too “haggard”, for Sarah she looked too much like a “sex toy”, which in both cases wasn’t true at all. Why aren’t the media hubs talking about Obama’s haircut or Romney’s suit color? Because it doesn’t matter-they don’t know what to think about a woman running for a huge leadership position, so they focus on what they think is important on women-their looks.
As I said, objectivity is a huge topic in this documentary. It’s discussed how women see advertisements with woman as objects-if you go to google and type “women in advertisements”, this is something you’ll get—>
This kind of advertising really is diminishing to women and girls-because the women in the advertisements are just objects, girls start to see themselves as just another object.
Because of all this scrutiny women get, they start to think that they can’t do what they want to do. If you think about women in movies, only 16% of them are protagonist [it really is that low]. So women start to question-what part do I really play in media? Because they aren’t portrayed at all, really.
[The average teen spends]
31hrs watching TV
17hrs listening to music
3hrs watching movies
4hrs reading magazines
10hrs online
This is 10 hours and 45 min A DAY seeing media.
Media is shaping our society, kids and young adults really are trying to conform to what is the “media norm”, which is virtually impossible.
“How long is it going to take for somebody to take a stand” -Ariella, young girl from film
This couldn’t be more true.
If you really sit back and think, women are SO degraded in our society, and when they do take leadership roles it’s seen as a “bad thing”, when in reality, men and women don’t know how to react to this change since there hardly are women leaders in our society.
If you have about an hour, I dare you to watch Miss Representation, and tell others about it! This film really is so powerful, and explains what there are so many things wrong with how women are seen in our society.
As Marian Wright Edelman said,
“You can’t be what you can’t see”
Until next time,
XX Flancake
[the movie is on Netflix, Amazon and iTunes]
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