American Female Role Models
The media promotes role models who are degradingly submissive to women. Society brainwashes others into believing that thin is important and even necessary. Models and magazine editors teach the female gender to value beauty and thinness over strength and character. The results are alarming.
Many female role models are not only weak and thing, but are submissive to men and highly sexualized. Essentially, many women lose their personalities and become sex objects. Women are constantly told they all eventually must have the perfect marriage, be an energetic “super” mom, and have a successful career, all while having a perfect body.
The visual aspects of the media influence girls at a young age. According to smith.edu, a web site dedicated to ending sexist advertising, 90 percent of American girls aged 3-11 own Barbie dolls and live in a world with a fairy tale princesses as their role models. Some may be unaware of the underlying messages that these figures contain.
Barbies themselves represent the “perfect” woman. She has a ridiculous figure with a tiny waist, big breasts, and long, slender legs. She works at almost every occupation, giving the false impression that woman are not discriminated against. Another example of portraying women as weak is in fair tales. Women are displayed as characters who reply on their looks and helplessness to attract a handsome man, and they always need “saving.”
This causes women to spend hours and dollars trying to buff and paint on new and “better” bodies, whether it is reducing their waists, hips, and legs by trying ridiculous diets or using diet pills. Some go to the extreme of undergoing painful and sometimes dangerous surgeries in the hopeful pursuit of obtaining supermodel beauty. Most of these procedures have no lasting effect except on their bank accounts. Sadly, some doctors are earning big money from a woman’s insecurity.
Some women believe that modern standards of beauty don’t affect them, but these standards have become so manifested in a woman’s mind, they are second nature. It is a constant struggle that many women have to fight.
The truth is being thing does not ensure happiness, dieting is not always the solution, and surgery does not guarantee lasting beauty. It is, in the end, healthier to focus on what’s on the inside, not on fleeting bonuses. If women all learn to love their bodies as they are, and men learn to love the total package, both men and women could have happier, long-lasting relations, and the fake American women can waste away. 8
