MissRepresentation

     Last week, in zero period, we had the opportunity to watch the movie "MissRepresentation". This movie focused on the place women have in society and how we are portrayed in media and movies. This movie started off with frightening facts: 53% of women are not happy with their bodies and this moves to 78% by the age 17, 65% of women have eating disorders, 17% cut or self harm. The question i asked myself was, what is causing these large, horrifying percentages?
     I strongly came to a belief that media is a large part of the reason for these numbers. Some other facts that were mentioned was that only 17 percent of protagonists are women, where half of them are chasing after a boy, 17% of congress is women (Iraq and Afghanistan have more women in government than the US), and there are 2,300 governors are men compared to 36 women. On television and movies, women have begun to be seen as objects, instead of being their individual self. This leads to something known as self objectification. When women see other women on TV being considered more like an object, we begin to do this to ourselves. We begin to believe we have no voice that we can speak our minds with. Throughout movies, women are dressed in a way that they look almost as if they are just their for sex. This, on its own, objectifies women and does not let women or men view them as their own. Also, on TV, we only see men as the powerful one, not women. They are leading characters in which you are supposed to look up to, they are shown as the important one. When women can't see other women in these roles, or jobs in the real world, it becomes harder to be inspired to do these jobs are take the route media only shows men to be taking.
     Models, today, are unrealistic. After the company choses a picture, the model is edited down extremely. When girls view these pictures or commercials, we begin to set a standard for ourselves that is nearly impossible to reach. This also raises the expectation that men have for women. When we set this standard for ourselves, we are also telling ourself that how we look is our value, not  our intelligence. This leads to a cycle of women never feeling good enough with who we are how we look. The standard throughout society at which women are set to is impossible. That, i believe, is a cause to self harm and eating disorders. It is horrifying, no one should ever feel this way, but it continues to occur and a large thing i blame is media, TV shows, and movies.
    Each week, teenagers spend thirty one hours with TV, seventeen with music, and a total consumption of ten hours and 45 minutes with media a day. 235.6 billion dollars is spent on advertising a year. These numbers are higher than ever, going hand and hand with the percentages of women not feeling confident, self harming, or having eating disorders. I do hope one day I can see a world in which women are portrayed as who we truly are and can be. Women are strong, intelligent, athletic, determined, and are so much more than how we are seen across the online world. Women can be leaders and take on any job a man can. But media is keeping many women from seeing this, we are just exposed to men having these jobs. More people should become aware of these problems, it is horrifying and terrible to see the real percentages in which many women face low confidence and self harm. MissRepresentation is a powerful movie that I recommend for everyone, both women and men, to watch.