The Representation of Women's Body Types in the Media is Killing us Softly

Something that really stood out to me in many of the advertisements that Jean Kilbourne showed in her presentation last night is women's body image and how even the thinnest models are photo shopped, and not even those models could ever really look like the end-result photographs of themselves.  It is scary to think about the fact that the media affects us so much when it comes to body image, and especially affects young girls all around the world.  It is really interesting to me that when Jean Kilbourne started talking to people about the issues of the representations of women in advertisements, it was a very new topic that was not discussed by many others.  Today there are a many people who focus on this subject and she is no longer alone, yet the media continues to feed us images of unattainable body types and sexualized women seen as objects in advertisements.  It makes me question when the media will finally change the way that they represent women, and how this change will come about.  There are plenty of advertisement campaigns that go against negative representations of women in the media, such as the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which aims to change the definition of beauty by represent women in the media with realistic body types as beautiful, real women.  As Jean Kilbourne said, the campaign isn't perfect, but it definitely seems like a step in the right direction for the way that women are represented in the media.  Thin models have definitely gotten a lot of negative attention, especially in images that are photos hopped, such as the Ralph Lauren photoshop scandal, in which a woman who is 5'10" and 120 pounds is made to look even smaller than she already is.  Below, the model is pictured on the left and the photo shopped image of her is pictured on the right.  As Kilbourne pointed out, her waist is smaller than the size of her head which is anatomically impossible.  It is images like these, that show women's bodies that they don't even have themselves in reality, that make girls and women feel like their body types aren't good enough and that they are not attractive because they cannot achieve the bodies that the models they see have. 

 

 

Love Your Body

On October 19, 2011 the NOW foundation celebrated its 14^th annual Love Your Body Day. On this day, “women of all sizes, colors, ages and abilities come together to celebrate self-acceptance and to promote positive body image” (NOW.org). A major aim of the campaign is to challenge the unrealistic standards and stereotypes that are present in the media. Gill argues that it is “possession of a sexy body that is presented as women’s key (if not sole) source of identity” (Gill, 255). Particularly problematic is the notion that if this “sexy body” cannot be achieved it is considered a failure.  Additionally, the female body is “constructed as a window to the individual’s interior life…indicative of her emotional breakdown” (256). The Love Your Body Day emphasizes a valuing of women for their character not their outwardly appearance.

Dove has done much in the media to help promote positive body image. In an ad in which Dove asked women what they loved about themselves the women initially responded with a resounding “uhhh…?” The ad concludes with the statement “If we can see the beauty in others, shouldn’t we be able to see it in ourselves?” The media presents an unrealistic image of women that sets a standard of beauty that many women believe they do not live up to. Organization such as NOW and Dove that help dispel stereotypes of what is beautiful and promote positive body image should be more abundant in the media.