Miss Representation

 

The documentary stated with the quote “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice walker,” which became more powerful than I could have imagined as the storyline developed.

 

Throughout the hour and a half, many people speak of how through media and advertising, boys get the message that they should be violent, in control, unemotional, and that women should be treated like objects and second-class citizens, which leads to a model where no one wins.

It was mentioned that American teenagers spend 31 hours a week watching TV, 17 hours a week listening to music, 3 hours a week watching movies, 4 hours a week reading magazines and 10 hours a week online. That adds up to approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day.

It really caught my attention when they said, “The media is the message and the messenger.” It is estimated that 1 billion people use the internet every day. Because of the power of Photoshop, the ideal image of beauty is more extreme than ever before and girls measure themselves against the impossible. Because of platforms such as social media, women learn to seek approval in the eyes of others by highly Photoshopping their faces and bodies to look nearly unhuman in the quest of perfection. The film stated, this use of photo editing also makes men judge women more harshly in real life.

The film then stated, 53% of 13 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies and that number increases to 78% by age 17. Because of this lack of homeostasis, 65% of women and girls have an eating disorder and 17% of teens engage in cutting and self-injurious behavior. According to the research they stated in the film, rates of depression among girls and women have also doubled. It was heartbreaking when a high-school girl they interviewed stated, with tears in her eyes, “How long is it going to take for somebody to take a stand?” after stating her little sister engages in self-harm because she feels she is not enough.

The film mentions self-objectification multiple times. I found a short article by Tracee Sioux called “Self-Objectification and Low Self-Esteem” which I find extremely helpful for explaining the term as well as understanding what our Western culture is doing to our women’s emotional, physical and psychological health.

The film touched on the correlation of learned violence and sexual assault and I think it is very true and disheartening that women are dehumanized. Miss Representation stated one in six women are survivors of rape or attempted rape. I was sexually assaulted the first time when I was just 14. Seeing women as objects instead of humans I believe is seen in victim shaming which is incredibly prevalent. When I was assaulted the second time, my sophomore year of college, I was told it “didn’t count” because we were dating and “boys will be boys.”

Thinking back, I cannot say I haven’t been involved in a non-abusive romantic relationship my entire life. In fact, the documentary stated 25% of women are abused by a partner during their lifetime. In fact, 1 in 4 girls experiences teen dating violence and 1 in 18 men are behind bars or being monitored. It is bought up in the film, “How do we expect young men treat women respectfully when their own fathers and public figures are not?” I think we need to think like Gandhi and “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Miss Representation also touched on eating disorders which I know I have personally been affected by. As a girl who has always been petite, I was always told the same things as the high school girl in the documentary they interviewed when people say things like “now go throw up” if they see me eat anything. I figured if I could never live up to the ideal body type at least I could be the skinniest in the room. When I became a college student I was my heaviest weight I had ever been at 120 pounds, which I felt healthy at, but even after overcoming my fear of weighing over a hundred pounds, someone on Instagram commented “eat a hamburger, bitch.”

It was stated, an individual’s brain does not fully develop until the age of 24, which means our children and young adults are our most vulnerable class of citizens to the proliferation of the media’s messages. I am sexualized in situations nearly every day. Two incidents last week with two different guys involved come to mind. The first one I went mini-golfing with and paid for both of us but then he bought lunch. When we got back to his place after we ate he told me the least I could do is suck his dick for repayment. Throughout the day I had made no sexual advances to said man. When I said no he told me “you have no tits or ass anyway.” The second guy a few days later asked me what my favorite store was and when I told him Victoria Secret he bought me a gift with the stipulation that to thank him I had to send him sexy pictures in it.

Very often I have people tell me I’m beautiful as if it’s a complete thought and it bothers me to no end because I am so much more. I am a 4.0 student who is about to graduate PLU at 20. I also have raised thousands of dollars for the fights against cancer with very little help. And overall, I want to spread happiness to all I encounter. Those are the things I would like to be complemented on instead. It shouldn’t matter if I have A-cups or D’s, nice abs, or great skin or not. I am me regardless and that’s what should really matter and be emphasized.

 When I was in England this past January, I spoke to Suzy Levy who stated when she started working in leadership positions, she figured if she just treated the employees who identified as homosexual the same as those who identified as heterosexual that was the best way to ensure equality when in fact, it was not. This treatment was denying the struggles the homosexual employees faced daily that the heterosexual employees did not, and therefore could not understand due to a lack of experience. In this same way, we need to have women in leadership positions so our realities are not ignored. Our thoughts and experiences are very important to input in every situation to reach an outcome that does not unintentionally oppress. Women make up 51% of Americans yet comprise only 17% of Congress. Only 34 women have served as governor compared to 2319 men. That equals out to about 1 percent. 67 countries in the world have had female presidents or prime ministers, the US is not one of them. In fact, America is the 90^th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures. The film stated that historically the 6 qualifications for success in our country are being: male, white (European American), married (heterosexual), over 35, college educated, and having a professional degree.

We see in races where women run that many people believe it is too much, too soon and too fast- and even worse, women are harder on other women. Susan Molinari stated, “It is far overdue that we women stop criticizing each other and the decisions we make and instead say ‘hallelujah sister whatever gets you through, I support you!’” Too often we girls and women don’t recognize our own internal strength, when what we should know is we can’t let anyone or anything take our power away from us. Many people seem to believe women are emotional so they cannot handle a crisis and therefore cannot handle leadership positions. My response is what Marian Wright Edelman said: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” We need to stop symbolic annihilation. Devanshi Patel was in this film and she said when she would run for leadership positions she would never settle for anything less than the top. Sadly, in our culture we see enthusiastic young women like her shot down consistently. Devanshi, a young woman of color, lost the election to a white, male for youth governor despite over half the voters being female.

The film stated only 16% of protagonists in films are female and in G rated movies women are just as likely to be dressed scantily clad as in R rated movies. In fact, “Ratings Creep” shows that movie rating categories contain more violence, sex, and profanity than a decade ago. This could be related to why more than 20% of teens have sex before the age of 14. I love when they stated, “You don’t have to use your sexuality to gain empowerment in this world” because even though I am two decades old, this seemed like a profound realization.

Women in their teens, 20’s and 30’s are 39% of the population yet are 71% of women on TV and women 40 and older are 47% of the population yet are 26% of women on TV. Women own only 5.8% of all television stations and 6% of radio stations. Women also hold only 3% of clout positions in telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising. Women comprise only 16% of all writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors and only 7% of directors and 10% of writers in film are women. In fact, the average number of news stories about women and girls is less than 20% and they are usually exploited in these stories. They stated this unequal power distribution is due to the phenomena, people tend to hire people like themselves. Hollywood also assumes women will watch stories about men but men won’t watch stories about women. We need media literacy as much as we need to learn to read. 86% of purchasing power in this country is held by women. We need to use this power to stop the purchase of things like magazines which exploit women and hurt girl’s mental health.

You can join the movement at www.missrepresentation.org, by Texting REPRESENT to 313131 and by taking the Twitter pledge @RepresentPledge.

And overall remember, to measure yourself by your accomplishments, not by how you look, and make empowering other women and girls a priority.

The problem today is not the evil actions of the bad people but rather the appalling silence and inaction of the good people –Martin Luther King Jr.

 

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