Media Stereotypes

Kuala Lumpur, 28th August 2014
Purpose: Your August issue of the Female magazine appears to marginalize women
Dear Editor,
Nowadays, a hot topic of news is the way media portrays women. It is therefore necessary to examine the media stereotypes of femininity, as well as the role that media plays in influencing the younger generation. What concerns us here is how children, predominantly teenage girls, see femininity in the media. This letter will provide a snapshot of the issues around the media’s portrayal of women and girls such as the effects on body image and self-identity.
First of all, it has to be said that the way women are presented in the media is sexually arousing. Let us start by examining women as sexual objects. Provocative images …show more content…
Let’s move on to the following point which is how the sub-stories, in particular “detox treats that work,” “the sexiest lingerie for YOUR body shape,” and “plaid, punk & leather + tips to acing the look”, are stories to guide women and girls to become beautiful. This leads me to think that the media creates ideals, in the form of celebrities and models, for women to admire. One should also note that adverts for beauty products run throughout this magazine. It must be emphasized that eight beauty products are advertised in the next 16 pages; in other words, one beauty product takes up two pages to publicize. Another sub-story to take into account is “I faked happiness!” One is wrong to believe that women have some sort of mental disability. The magazine fails to feature stories of women’s professional abilities or …show more content…
By way of conclusion, it is evident that we must do more than before. All the factors indicate that these mixed messages from media make it difficult for girls to negotiate the transition to adulthood. Girl’s confidence frequently drops in the pre-teen years as they begin to base their feelings of self-worth more and more heavily on appearance and weight. It happens because of the widening gap between girl’s self-images and society’s messages about what girls should be like. Girls are surrounded by images of female beauty that are unrealistic and unattainable. In addition to being under-represented, women are equally misrepresented: the sexualisation of very young girls, most notably in fashion and advertising, is a disturbing trend given that these stereotypes make up most of the representations of themselves which girls and women see in the media. The pressure on girls are amplified by the media’s increasing tendency to depict very young girls in sexual ways. Young girls are being bombarded with images of sexuality, often dominated by stereotypical portrayals of women and girls as

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