Quick Fire Response: Addressing Inequalities
The documentary called “Miss Representation,” is a message about how, “our young women and men overwhelmingly receive that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not her capacity as a leader.” The documentary states, “while women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.”
When thinking about our class discussion and the readings we have done, gender constructions are everywhere. They are so embedded that many daily routines or actions are gendered. We as people engage in lots of activities that are gendered and we do not even think about it.
We can address inequalities by teaching children at a young age to stray away from social constructions. We can also teach young females their true worth, to raise them strong, to raise them to stand up for themselves. The documentary talks about how girls get the message early on that their value and worth comes on their image and the concept of a perfect woman has to look a certain way and if they do not look a certain way, then they are scrutinized. Women are controlled by their weight and they are also seen as objects. The media wants you to be something that you are not, a lot of advertising is to make you feel anxious and insecure. Because of the media, girls are seen as objects by other people and now girls are learning to see themselves as objects. Self objectification is now an epidemic; a national problem. The more girls and women do this, the more likely they are to be depressed, to have eating disorders, lower confidence and ambition, cognitive function, and GPA’s. Furthermore, we can teach young boys how to actually treat women as well as showing them the true meaning of being a man and having “power.” In the documentary it states how for men, there is a lot of anxiety around status and power. As a society, we are socializing boys that being a man means being powerful and in control. When men run for office, they are not asked who is going to take care of the children, but it tends to happen when women do.
Further points that I wrote down:
- The media, overwhelmingly, has always been in the hands of men – women own only 5.8% of all television stations and 6% radio stations
- That means that 97% of everything you know about yourself and about your country and your world, comes from the male perspective. It doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, it just means that in a democracy, where you talk about equality and full participation, you got half of the population, more than half of the population, not participating
- Media treats power as defined by men; focusing on how women look instead of what they have done
- My own words: What we can do is tackle the media and get a better control on who is running it and releasing information. We need to get more women involved, we need more women’s opinions and intellectual thoughts.
