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Caitlyn Heath
Prof. Sipin
ENG110C MWF
2 November 2014
The Media and How it Affects Women
In todays society, advertisements and other types of media rule the world. While most
ads are entertaining, their sole purpose is to persuade. Many of these advertisements, such as
makeup ads, consist of beautiful, skinny actresses or models to convince the viewer to buy that
item. The ad may use gimmicks like, If you want to look like she does, buy this, to make the
viewer think that this product has the potential to improve their appearance. In certain ads, the
women involved are often portrayed as perfect or ideal and this has a negative impact on the
women who think of themselves as not quite ideal. The expression of size 0 women and women
covered in makeup in ads contribute to thoughts in most other women such as, I am undesirable
because I dont look like them. According to the Westminster Undergraduate Academic
Journal:
Mass media's use of such unrealistic models sends an implicit message that in
order for a woman to be considered beautiful, she must be unhealthy. The mindset that a
person can never be "too rich or too thin" is all too prevalent in society, and it makes it
difficult for females to achieve any level of contentment with their physical appearance.
(Serdar)

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Advertisements are not the only form of media that have the potential of impacting
women. Television shows like Americas Next Top Model have a negative impact as well. In
Americas Next Top Model, the participants must fit the criteria for what a model should be, and
the contestants that do not fit the standard are labeled as plus size models, even though they are
what society views as an average size for a woman. The women who are sitting at home
watching these advertisements and television shows and flipping through magazines are being
faced with this weight and pressure to look like the faces and bodies in the media. These
pressures on women cause many problems in our society such as eating disorders, body
dysmorphic disorder, and body shaming. In the past these were minor issues that were dealt with
in private but as time went on and media became more and more demeaning towards the average
woman these problems became not just private issues but public issues. Women should be
portrayed in ads as how the majority of women really are not how the media thinks or
standardizes them to be. Steps need to be taken to change this industry and express roles as they
should be seen and interpreted: proudly. Not only will this change the outlook that women have
on them and other women but it was also change how the world views beauty and what the
average women is supposed to look like, which is simply happy in their skin.
In order to find the start of the negative effect of media on women, we have to start at the
beginning. According to the National Eating Disorders website, the rate of people with eating
disorders rose significantly after the 1950s and continued to rise every decade afterwards
("Prevalence vs. Funding"). In every decade between the 1900s and the 1950s in all
advertisements with women in them, the looks portrayed by these women were being healthy,
curvy, and happy. The people who created these looks and idols said that they got their idea from

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all around them; that they saw the women in their advertisements everywhere. Charles Dana
Gibson who created the Gibson Girl of the 1910s said:
I'll tell you how I got what you have called the 'Gibson Girl.' I saw her on the
streets, I saw her at the theatres, I saw her in the churches. I saw her everywhere and
doing everything. I saw her idling on Fifth Avenue and at work behind the counters of the
stores. (Bahadur)
The idolized girl being someone you could find anywhere changed drastically in the 1960s.
Along with the 60s came new ideals of beauty due to the rise of Twiggy, a model known for her
extremely small frame (Bahadur). This change in idols changed everything and from here the
amount of people with eating disorders rose every year. Now the standard model you see in
magazines is portrayed as thin, long legged, and busty which has become the image of the most
desirable woman and the body that most woman today strive for (Bahadur).
These models in the media and how the media portrays them have been a strong cause of
eating disorders and mental illnesses in women. After conducting an experiment where women
were exposed to pictures from magazines, according to Eric Stice and Heather E. Shaw, the
women show signs of depression, stress, insecurity, and so on. Stice and Shaw believed this to be
proof that the media does cause problems in the mind of women (Stice).
While the media does affect women in many ways one of the ways being brought up lately is
how it affects girls of today. Growing up most little girls have the same common memory of
playing with their beloved Barbie Dolls. According to Mirror Mirror:
If Barbie was a real woman, she would be 56 and weigh 120 pounds. Her body fat
percentage would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate. Her measurements

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would be 38-18-34. The average womans measurements, on the other hand, are about
41-34-43. ("Barbie And Body Image")
Little girls around the world play with these dolls and aspire to be just as pretty as them; this has
been seen to be a cause in the early start of body insecurity and eating disorders. The effect that
the unrealistic Barbie Dolls have on people is stronger than one might think. In one case a
women, Cindy Jackson, went through multiple surgeries just to make herself look like a Barbie
Doll because she was so strongly influenced by them as a child ("Barbie And Body Image"). All
the controversy surrounding the effect that Barbie has on the average girls body image has led to
the creation of a new doll, Lammily, that is the average proportions and looks like the average
girl. Lammily was created by Nikolay Lamm who made the doll in order to give children a more
realistic alternative to Barbie. The Lammily Doll is considerably bigger than Barbie and can be
made to look even more realistic with stickers that give her acne, stretch marks, and cellulite
which are normal occurrences in the human body. While many may think that the children would
not want Lammily because she is not perfect, sales on Barbie dolls this year have gone down by
12 percent ("Reaction Time"). If that does not say enough, there was an experiment conducted
and filmed of a group of second graders where they were given a Lammily doll and a Barbie doll
and they were told to tell what they thought of each. In the video, the results showed that the
second graders liked Lammily more than Barbie because she was more realistic and looked more
like them. A majority of the children that played with Lammily in the video talked about how
pretty the doll was and how the doll looked like and reminded them of their own sisters, aunts,
and other relatives compared to Barbie who the children said was unrealistic compared to
Lammily ("Second Graders React "). According to anad.org, 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to

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be thinner. This proves that media not only affects women but it also affects children and
implants thoughts of the ideal body into their minds at an early age ("ANAD").
This change in the mindset of people can not only lead to eating disorders but also body
shaming. Body shaming is defined as inappropriate negative statements and attitudes toward
another person's weight or size ("Body Shaming Definition"). Body shaming is seen mostly
towards people that are deemed overweight or out of shape but body shaming can in fact affect
anyone. Most people are guilty of body shaming usually to make themselves feel better about
their own body. If someone is bigger than us we call them fat to make ourselves feel small and if
someone is smaller than us we call them anorexic to make ourselves feel healthy. Healthy or not
everyone can fall victim to body shaming. Not only is body shaming seen in the real world but it
is also seen in, of course, media. In a lot of television shows, we often see overweight characters
being used in many of the shows jokes ("Body-Shaming"). According to Sara Crispe:
We have no idea when we see a body what the story is behind it. We could be looking at
a woman who spent years working and overcoming issues to get that fit or one who was
naturally born with those genes. We could be looking at a thin woman who is unable to
conceive so her body never went through the changes that pregnancy creates. Or we
could be looking at a body that tortures itself every day either through starvation or
binging to keep a number on the scale that others will both admire and simultaneously
resent. (Crispe)
This is what we need to think about when we shame someone elses body or strive for someone
elses body because we believe it is ideal.

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Everyone is a victim of the ideal body shown in media that we are coerced into loving
and hating at the same time. We as a people need to change the idea of beauty not just to the
average bodied woman but to the happy and healthy women. Only after we stop portraying
having a certain body as the only way to be happy we will be able to be happy with our own
bodies and allow others to be happy with their bodies. This change in thought can change the
world and how we the people see ourselves. It can allow us to be happy with the idea of having
differences and that being different is normal. Change what is in the media and we change the
minds of the people.

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Annotated Bibliography

"ANAD." Eating Disorders Statistics. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://www.anad.org/getinformation/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/>.

Bahadur, Nina. "It's Amazing How Much The 'Perfect Body' Has Changed In 100 Years." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
In this article, Bahadur compares the progress of the ideal woman and how this idea has
changed over time, from the 1900s to present day. From the 1900s until about the
1950s the ideal woman was a curvy, motherly figure. During the period of 1960s up
until the 1980s the ideal woman was seen to be more athletic, muscular, and healthy.
Finally, beginning in the 1990s, the ideal woman was portrayed as incredibly skinny.
Bahadur is credible in her research and shows a picture of each of the ideal women for
each decade in the article.

"Barbie And Body Image." RSS 20. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://www.mirror-mirror.org/barbieand-body-image.htm>.

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In this article, the author focuses on Barbie dolls and the ideal image they create for
children at such a critical and young age. These dolls are portrayed as skinny, beautiful,

shiny, perfect and always smiling. While this is a very unrealistic standard for a young
girl, the children think nothing of it, until they begin to want to look just like their doll.
At this point, many children will start to form an eating disorder and begin body shaming
themselves.

"Body Shaming Definition." - What Is Body Shaming? Web. 1 Dec. 2014.

"Body-Shaming: What Is It & Why Do We Do It?" Walden Behavioral Care Body Shaming
What Is It Why Do We Do It Comments. Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.waldenbehavioralcare.com/body-shaming-what-is-it-why-do-we-do-it/>.
This article explains to the reader the definition of body shaming and why people tend to
do it. They say that we do it to make us feel better about ourselves. People learn to make
fun of others in order to feel better. This website also states steps on how to recognize
and put an end to the act of body shaming.

Chapman, Taylor M. "Women in American Media: A Culture of Misperception." RSS. 1 Jan.

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In this article, Chapman looks at mass media and its effect on women. She explains that
the media affects how one defines their own personal identity and how it changes their
daily routines and lives. She also touches on the fact that it isnt just women who are
keeping up this beauty standard by abiding by the ideal image. Society as a whole urges
and expects women to fit the ideal beauty standard or they immediately reject that person
from it.
Klein, Kendyl M., Why Dont I Look Like Her? The Impact of Social Media on Female Body
Image (2013). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 720.
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/720
In this paper, Klein states that The purpose of this paper is to understand and criticize
the role of social media in the development and/or encouragement of eating disorders,
disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction in college-aged women. Klein uses many
research sources for her paper, providing a reliable scholarly journal. Klein begins her
paper with the history of women and how they viewed themselves, then moves on to the
modern world and how things have gotten worse.

"Prevalence vs. Funding." Get The Facts On Eating Disorders. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders>.
This website shows statistics about eating disorders as well, how often they occur, and
which areas have more prevalence than others. Health consequences are touched upon,
such as symptoms of eating disorders and how to spot early signs.

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"Proud2Bme | Building a Nation Where Confidence Rules." Proud2Bme | Building a Nation
Where Confidence Rules. 26 Mar. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
The purpose of this website, Proud2Bme, is to spread the views of real life teenage girls
that are influenced by social media and the standard of American beauty. The website
showcases direct quotes and feelings from a handful of girls that feel that the beauty
standard is unrealistic and unfair. Many issues are brought to light through this website,
such as anorexia, bulimia, and body shaming, all results of the American beauty standard.
The author has interviewed these teenage girls to show the readers just how negatively
influential social media and advertisements such as magazines can be on the youth of
today, especially women.

"Reaction Time: 'Body Positive' Lammily Doll Is Just Barbie 2.0." Neon Tommy. Web. 30 Nov.
2014. <http://www.neontommy.com/news/2014/11/reaction-time-body-positivelammily-just-barbie-2>.
This article explains how the Barbie doll used to have more fame than any other toys, but
have now been outsold by the Frozen characters action figures and dolls. The standard
has somewhat changed in children over time although eating disorders are still prevalent
among many. The Lammily doll is also introduced as being a new doll similar to the
Barbie, but with stickers of normal features that women may have such as: stretch marks,
moles, beauty marks, freckles, acne, stiches, scrapes, etc. This is a much more realistic
doll and studies have shown that many children prefer this doll over the real Barbie, due
to how it resembles their family members.

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"Second Graders React to Lammily and Other Fashion Dolls." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 30
Nov. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jue_JlxnPGM>.
The second graders in the video tend to talk about how realistic the Lammily doll is when
compared to the Barbie doll. Majority of the kids chose the Lammily doll over the Barbie
because the realistic doll resembled their mom or sisters, claimed a few kids. This caused
the sale of Barbie dolls to drop by 12%.
Serdar, Kasey L. "Contact Us." The Myriad: Westminster's Undergraduate Academic Journal.
Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
This websites goal is to strip down the issue of the American beauty standard and body
shaming to different perspectives. One way the author gets the point across is through a
psychological perspective, explaining many different social theories about how and why
the media affects people the way it does. The author has efficiently built up a large
amount of research on the topic, and offers a lot of statistics as well.

Stice, Eric, and Heather E. Shaw. "Adverse Effects of the Media Portrayed Thin-Ideal on
Women and Linkages to Bulimic Symptomatology." Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology 13: 288-308. Print.
This scholarly journal states that many sociocultural aspects are influencing the
production of eating disorders. The article address the obsession that our society has
with beauty and this ideal way everyone should look. It really is an obsession to keep our
bodies looking thin, eating unhealthily to do so, and so on.

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Valinsky, Jordan. "Here's What Happened to American Eagle After It Stopped Airbrushing Its
Models." Mic. 4 Nov. 2014. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
In this article, Valinsky addresses the effect of American Eagles brave new campaign to
stop airbrushing and retouching their models. Not only has the company completely
stopped distorting the models bodies, but they are also leaving any tattoos, moles, stretch
marks, and scars for the world to see. This article portrays the reality of the lives of these
models and how the ideal body should look: normal. Since American Eagle has begun
this campaign their sales have gone up a tremendous amount.