Role of Media and Feminism - Assignment Example

Review of Related Literature Feminism The term feminism has different uses which depend on how writers define it. Some writers use it to refer to the social, cultural and political movements, theories and philosophies that are concern on the practices in the society. Some also use the term feminism referring to the discrimination of women or an idea focusing on the equality of gender in the society. In Roman time, females were depicted as the weaker sex. Even in the Chinese astrology, feminine side portrays the weaker side. This belief was then carried even up to now. In the past, women were deprived from the rights men were gaining. There was an unequal distribution of rights and role in the society. Because of this issue in the society, in 19th century, feminism emerged, a movement for the right of women. This movement led to the right of women to do things equal to the things men were doing such as right for education. This movement also led women to have such involvement in politics and in the molding of the society, and at the same time, beauty of women played an important role in the society including not only in the social and political aspects but also as well as in the cultural and science and technology aspects. The Body as a Text for Femininity “The body is a medium of culture,” this was according to Bordo. Anthropologist Mary Douglas argued that the body ‘is a powerful symbolic form, a surface on which the central rules, hierarchies, and even metaphysical commitments of a culture are inscribed and thus reinforced through the concrete language of the body’ (Bordo 1993: 165). Bourdieu and Foucault also argue that the body is ‘a practical, direct locus of social control’ (ibid). Thus, body is regulated by cultural norms. Bordo argues that women, nowadays, are spending a lot of time on the managing and disciplining on their bodies which make them less socially oriented and are focusing more on self-modification. She also pointed out that the discipline and normalization of the female body should be recognized as an extremely durable and flexible form of social control. But because of the preoccupation with appearance nowadays which could become a ‘backlash phenomenon reasserting gender configurations against shift in power relation,’ according to her, she proposed an effective political discourse that thinks of the ‘network of practices, institution, technologies that sustain position of dominance and subordinate in particular domain’ (1993: 165). Furthermore, Naomi Wolf, the author of “The Beauty Myth,” (1991) also argues that the beauty myth is political which a way of maintaining patriarchy in the society is. It also allows women to enter the labour force under controlled conditions. This system, as she claims, keeps women under control of their own insecurities. These insecurities keep women in making their body more attractive and acceptable to the norm of society. On the other hand, Shilling has another view. According to her, the increased interest towards ‘embodied’ sociology in the early 1980’s is due to four, major, different factors; first, it was the rise of the second wave of feminism which has in turn raised struggles related to the gender-based and body-based society; second, the ageing of the population in Western countries, which has turned the interest of social sciences towards the care of the body; third, the new consumer society and culture that has changed the way that people see their own bodies and finally the rapid progress of science and medicine that has totally changed the perception of what is body and has caused a ‘crisis in its meaning’ (Shilling 1993: 32). These information and reasoning, in the new social and cultural framework, the body had appeared to be rediscovered and reconstructed. The debate is now over the new ways of understanding the various perspectives of the body and how it is formed and regulated according to the rules that western, capitalist society has set. The ‘new’ body ‘has been lived differently, […] subjected to various technologies and means of control and incorporated into different rhythms of production and consumption’ (Gallagher and Laqueur 1987: intro). Role of Media Feminists claim that in most cultures and societies, it has been a sign of female beauty to be large or fat for it symbolizes fertility, prosperity and the high ability to survive. And even in our contemporary times, there are still groups of people that believe that being fat is being beautiful, just like in the in those societies in the Hawaiian islands where large females are regarded as the beautiful ones. Even in the mainland United States of America, there are also groups of people that believe in the same thing, such as the colored women who find it more satisfying to be fat than to be thin, they also do not feel obliged to be doing dieting programs, they are less concerned about having fluctuations in their weight, and most importantly, they are not concerned about being fat, because it is their standard of beauty in the first place (Boston Women’s, 1998: 38). However, nowadays, standards of the society about the feminine beauty are presented in almost all forms of popular media which influences women with the images of what is considered to be the "ideal body” of the society. Such standards of beauty are almost completely unattainable for most women; a majority of the models displayed on television and in advertisements are well below what is considered healthy body weight. At the present, slim, radiantly healthy, young and white women were considered to have the perfect body. And this can be proven by just opening a magazine, watching TV commercials, in the billboards and many other things related to media communication. It can be seen that those societies that had started the thin-is-beautiful ideology are those that belong to the Euro-American cultures, which means they are the ones that have the political power in contemporary times. Also, they are the societies that have lighter skin pigmentation compared to the rest of the ethnic groups in the world. Because they have the political power and the economic power, they have become the world’s standards on almost everything.       Even with the “modern” Western concept of beauty is being thin; history says that in the Renaissance period, having a large figure is must for women (Mcdonald, 1995: 197). The bodies that the models portray became the ideal body which greatly influenced every woman in the society. Twenty-five years ago the average model weighed 8% less than the average American woman, based on studies, while on the hand, present days shows that model weighs 23% below the national average (Barnard/Columbia Women's Handbook, 1992). Media has always been a powerful tool to influence people. It can convey different information and different stories for a short period of time and get the attention of many. Media also seem to present the discourse for every topic and through it that specific idea could easily flourish and spread throughout the masses. Media have played a significant role in the construction of a global notion on how the body should be, by creating particular images of the ideal body. As Featherstone (1991: 170) remarks ‘within consumer culture, advertisements, the popular press, television and motion pictures, provide a proliferation of stylised images of the body. In addition, the popular media constantly emphasise the cosmetic benefits of body maintenance’. Such is the impact of Media on contemporary consumers that especially –young- women have become ‘emotionally vulnerable, constantly monitoring themselves for bodily imperfections which could no longer be regulated as natural’ (ibid: 175). However, there was this comment that was raised by Courtney and Whipple about the causality of the issue. It is whether the media just reflects the modern society or whether it actually influences people by using role models (1983:5). In 1998, there was a study done by the Journal of American College Health that found media as the one with the great influenced for imposing the ideal body affecting perceptions of women and teenagers. It has been proven that it is a strong force in creating the stereotype of the tall and thin women as the “ideal" beauty type (Rabak-Wagener 1998:106). These shifts of thinking about the human body, have resulted in ‘becoming more rigorous and even proscriptive in ones attitude to the body, and more inclined to suppose that the body should be a perfect, seamless demonstration of the virtue of efficient and perfect function’ (Evans and Lee 2002: 3). To simplify, this means that women were becoming more conscious to their bodies to make it more acceptable to the ‘ideal body’ of the society. Experiences on one’s body image can affect a woman’s quality of life and way of living because of the money and time she spends on different beauty products and beauty enhancements which can restrict opportunities for her to develop other aspects of her life (Strachan & Cash; Striegel-Moore & Franko). With this concept, media therefore tries to promote the said products that would improve a person aesthetically speaking. Also, the products being shown in the media, also influences the people on how they think about themselves. Images convey messages that happiness among women begin through attainment of the standard of beauty (Levine & Smolak, 2002; Thomsen, Weber, &Brown, 2001; Tiggeman, 2002.). The standard of beauty is also relative but, because of media, beauty seemed to be standardizing in a sense that the concept of beauty is associated with perfection of not only the body figure of an individual but also the skin, skin colour, hair etc.       One concept that is very relevant to this topic is advertising involvement. Zaichkowsky (1985) defines this to happen when an individual perceives an advertisement to be relevant to his / her inherent needs, values and interests. Advertising helps producers promote their products for their consumers to see. Through these advertisements, people have the tendencies to be convinced of how good their products are and are persuaded to buy their goods.       According to the congruity theory, those advertisements that have portrayals that are more congruent to the consumer’s self-concept / self-schema tend to produce more positive attitudes towards it compared to those advertisements that portray less congruent self-schemas of the consumer (Orth & Holancova, 2004). People tend to have more positive feelings towards stimuli that they think to be more or less congruent to their self-concept. This phenomenon is called the self-reference effect. Needless to say that these social and cultural changes ‘of the nature of the body cannot be analysed outside the contents of changes in the production and distribution of commodities under a system of mass consumption’ (Turner 1996:38). It is not a coincidence that more than half of the pages of any lifestyle magazine are advertisements for cosmetics, weight-loss, hair care, clothes, fragrances, drinks and beverages, ‘well being’ and other products and services related to a vicious cycle of selling through, and promoting lifestyle, glamour and sex-appeal. The first and maybe easier target must have been the female gender, however nowadays the momentum of this phenomenon is such that it has spilled over to the male gender thus giving rise to the new kind of ‘metrosexual’. Fitness and Dieting As what is discussed in the Barnard/Columbia Women's Handbook (1992), women as they enter the higher education and employment, women are pressured toward perfectionism. There is the great feeling of excelling over achieving. According to the handbook, women were expected to achieve in the business world while excelling in the traditional role of women which the “wife” and “mother” material. And because of this expectation, there were contradictions about the issue. For upward mobility, there is this need to perfect the body which intensified the social tendency to equate ones body with other. The perfect body is now the new status symbol and weight consciousness has become part of the campaign for upward mobility. An excellent example which illustrates how the norms of western culture shape, regulate and dominate the body, and particularly of that of the female body, is the creation of specific dietary techniques. Sayers (ibid: 151) outlines that ‘our bodies are what we feed them, but what we feed them is conditioned by economic, historical, biographical, ideological, and discursive factors. These in turn, vary systematically with culture, class and sex. This is particularly evident in conditions of food scarcity and abundance’. However, it seems that contemporary society has introduced new, rigid dietary norms which in turn construct the image of the ideal modern body. Dietary norms are not only restricted on how much one should eat in order to maintain a perfect shape but also what is fashionable to eat. Since dinning is essential to social intercourse, fashion now also extends to dietary extravagances and exotic cuisines. As Turner points out in his book “the Body and Society” (1984) the development of dietary techniques in Western societies can perfectly illustrate Foucault’s analysis on the disciplines which regulate bodies which in turn become “docile bodies”- ‘bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, “improvement” (Bordo 1989: 14). This history of diet attempts to show that dietary management emerged out of a theology of the flesh, developed through a moralistic medicine and finally established itself as a science of the efficient body. The principal change is that diet was originally aimed at the control of desire, whereas under modern forms of consumerism diet exists to promote and preserve desire. This conversion involved a process of secularization of the body of bodily management in which the internal management of desire by diet was transferred to an external presentation of the body through scientific gymnastics and cosmetics. (Turner 1996: 38) The pursuit of desire was followed by the pursuit of a non-existing beauty that is never good enough, and this has led to a totally false perception of the ideal body and mainly of the ideal femininity. The construction of the ideal body is based exclusively on a narcissistic view of contemporary culture which has resulted in ‘a group of gender-related and historically organized disorders: hysteria, agoraphobia and anorexia nervosa.’ (Bordo 1989: 15) Indeed, as Grosz (1995: 75) points out the body image in western society ‘is in a continuous process of production and transformation. It changes orientation or inflection as the child develops into adolescence and adulthood’. The stereotypes about body size and ideal bodies as they are represented in contemporary advertisements and magazines have affected both male and female target groups. Especially adolescent girls have become so obsessed with obtaining the ideal image of their bodies that they often turn out to be ill with eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Editors of Vogue are held accountable for these phenomena and criticized for the image of the female body which they present. At the same time, however, as the pages of Vogue present an ideal female body which conforms to a petit dress size, we know that half the female population wears a much larger size. A glance at any high street in any town or city in the west would suggest that the models in Vogue do not represent normality. […] We have, therefore, in terms of actual body size, a society in which real bodies and fantasized bodies are radically dissimilar. Fashion and Cosmetics Apart from dietary and fitness habits, the body in western culture is submitted to norms of fashion habits as well. Social order has set specific rules related to the appearance of the body and consumers, once again, have to follow the habituated models of fashion. Indeed, dress and the body have a mutual relationship with each other, a relationship which affects the way that we live, work and exist in society. Dress has an intimate relationship to the body. The materials we hang at the margins of our body- fabric, jewellery, paint or feathers- enjoy a close proximity to the flesh, outlining, emphasizing, obscuring or extending the body. Choosing leather as opposed to silk, lycra as opposed to cotton, denim rather that wool, will affect the way the body looks and feels. Therefore, the choice of our clothes may depend on the occasion but in any case it characterises our appearance, our style, our status and even us. Make-up, beauty treatments and plastic surgery can also add value to the appearance of the body and improve its external possibilities. However as Sassatelli (Fraser and Greco 2005:284) has argued ‘all these products [beauty treatments, make-up, clothes] though appreciated, are generally seen as ‘superficial’ in comparison with exercise ‘which actively exploits the body’s ‘internal’ capabilities’. ‘Clothes as well as make up and beauty treatments’, she continues ‘albeit with different nuances, do not belong intimately to the subject, to his/her ‘feeling’, but only to the dimensions of self-presentation (ibid). All of the above synthesise an artificial image, the demonstration of which is a contemporary ‘must’, especially for women more than for men, as every lifestyle magazine would advice them not to even think about going out to a social occasion or a job interview dressed in last year’s fashion. It is more than evident then, that western culture and society have altered the concept of body by creating new dimensions and new possibilities on how people should tend to their bodies. All these changes have resulted in endless debates over the new status of the body in contemporary society. Some scholars and especially feminist theorists argue that within the new consumer culture the body is determined by social rules as they have formed it, regulated it or rather re-created it. Some others though, believe that no matter how the body is shaped by and is forced to obey the rules of society, it still remains determining, as the body itself has created the new cultural reality of how humans perceive this radical, change that consumer culture has brought to the pre-existing society and culture. Theories that could help in Explaining the Issue “You can never be too rich or too thin,” this mindset of a person is prevalent in the society which makes it difficult for women to have contentment on their own physical appearance. There are so many researches on how the constant exposure to models affects perceptions of every woman involving their physical appearance or body. These researches indicate that women are negatively affected by the constant exposure to the models that portrays the unrealistic, media ideal of beauty. However, it is not that clear on how these images and portrayals really affect woman’s contentment on ones body. Many different perspectives and theories that are present in these days can now be used to explain why and how women internalize the “thin-ideal,” or in short, the “ideal body.” The theory of social comparison, cultivation, and self-schema are some of those theories which could explain this issue. These perspectives have helped researchers on examining the mechanisms on how media images are translated into body image disturbance in women. These also helped in explaining why some women are vulnerable to the effects of images by media while others do not even care about the images that media has been bombarding on or only show resiliency. Social Comparison Theory According to Festinger (1954), the Social Comparison Theory is “the idea that is a drive within individuals to look to outside images in order to evaluate their own opinions and abilities. These images may be a reference to physical reality or in comparison to other people. People look to the images portrayed by others to be obtainable and realistic, and subsequently, make comparisons among themselves, others and the idealized images.” This theory offers some level of explanation for how media images could come to impact on how women feel about their bodies. The main argument on this theory is that people have the tendency to compare or evaluate themselves with other individuals who are similar to them. There is this upward and downward comparison. An upward comparison occurs when an individual compares ones self to someone who are better than they are on a particular thing or dimension. In contrast, downward comparison occurs when a person is comparing himself or herself to someone who is not that as well off as they are or those who have lower capabilities than they do. In general, upward comparison has been found to correlate with depression of mood, while downward comparison has the inverse effect (Lin & Kulik, 2002; Schooler et al., 2004; Tiggemann & Mcgill, 2004; Tiggemann, & Slater, 2004). Mass media has been found to be the most used for social comparison, especially for women. Popular media, such as televisions, advertisements and magazines, provide a plethora of references for upward social comparison. Images in the media generally project a standard to which women are expected to aspire, yet that standard is almost completely impossible for most women to achieve (Schooler et al., 2004; Thompson & Coovert, 1999). According to Milkie (1999), “the pervasiveness of the media makes it very challenging for most women to avoid evaluating themselves against the sociocultural standard of beauty.” Most companies actually attempt to foster social comparison with idealized images so that women, their target, will be motivated to buy the companies’ products to bring women closer to ideal body or ideal physical appearance. According to Thompson & Coovert (1999), “if women see a discrepancy between themselves and the images they view in advertisements, they will be more inclined to buy the products that are advertised.” There are many evidences for the negative effects of the social comparison of women with the idealized images by the media. Research has found that women who report frequently comparing themselves to other women in media are more likely to show negative mood and body image disturbances (Schooler et al., 2004). Tiggemann and Mcgill (2004) found that women participants' brief exposure to media images of females (11 images) led to increased levels of body dissatisfaction and weight anxiety. This finding is disturbing because the number of images used in the study is far less than what is present in any women's magazine or shown in most television programming. In addition, Tiggemann and Slater (2004) found out that music television is a powerful provoker of the social comparison in young females. The result of their study found that exposing girls to thin and attractive images of women portrayed in many music videos led to increased levels of body image disturbance. Also, it has been proposed by many researchers that social comparison may be the mechanism by which unrealistic media standards are translated into actual body image disturbance in an individual. Women who report higher levels of social comparison are at greater risk to develop extreme preoccupation with weight and appearance, and are also more likely to display disordered eating patterns and/or clinical eating disorders. Cultivation Theory Cultivation theory argues that those images, portraying a woman with an ideal body and beauty, done by popular media are extremely prevalent and that the repetitive exposure of women to these subjects influences women’s abilities to understand that those seen on popular media are unrealistic. They also argue that these popular media had long-term effects which are gradual and indirect but significant. Because of this constant exposure to these popular media, there is a cumulative effect over time. According to Schooler and others (2004:38), “consistent representations on television construct a specific portrait of reality, and repeated exposure to this content leads viewers to adopt this alternative reality as valid. Accordingly, because the representations of women's bodies shown on television are so skewed, adopting this reality for young women are believed to lead to decreased satisfaction with their own bodies, a strong desire to be thinner, and disordered eating behavior.” This theory is supported by the study of Tiggemann and Slater which have shown that individuals who report watching television and being exposed to media display low contentment with their physical appearance. Self-Schema Theory Women use three points of reference to construct their perceptions about their own physical appearance, the socially represented ideal body, the objective body, and the internalized ideal body, and this is the basis of self-schema theory. The portrayals of women by the media influence the socially represented ideal body. This reference point comes from what an individual believes is expected by society with respect to physical appearance and beauty. In contrast, the objective body involves a person's own evaluation of their body. A person's satisfaction and dissatisfaction with aspects of their physical appearance are contained within this dimension; individuals almost always have some opinion about their physical demeanor. The internalized ideal body involves the level at which an individual endorses the ideal image and aspires to achieve it. Some women can be exposed to images of thin women and not internalize such standards of appearance because they know they are unrealistic. In contrast, some women's internalized ideal is very similar to the socially represented ideal, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the powerful effects of the media (Sands & Wardle, 2003). To alter the representation of society on what they consider to be the "ideal body" is almost impossible now. Though there are many evidences or researches that showed unrealistic depiction of media to the female body and that it showed negative effects on how women view themselves, companies still have the same approach in advertising their products without considering its effects. While it is difficult to change the way the media portrays women, there may be hope for altering women's internalized ideal body to reflect something that is realistic and attainable. If women can be taught not to internalize the sociocultural ideal, they may be able to counter the negative effects of the ultra-thin images that are almost inescapable (Sands & Wardle, 2003). Many programs focus on reducing the level at which females internalize unrealistic standards of beauty. Research on these programs indicates that such interventions may help increase women's levels of resiliency to the detrimental effects of multiple forms of popular media (Sands & Wardle, 2003). While such results cannot be generalized to all women, the research does indicate that mental health professionals need to direct their attention toward prevention of body image disturbance in addition to treatment. Read More