Faith Beglane
January 30, 2015
Pop Culture in
Society
Pop culture is part of our everyday lives making it hard
for women not to compare themselves to others. Pop culture sets a certain
standard as to what women should look like and how they should act. In Andi
Zeisler’s novel Feminism and Pop Culture,
she compares the way that women were portrayed in the 1990’s to today’s women.
Although the way we as women are looked at is different from the 80’s and 90’s,
it is still extremely sexual and our gender roles remain the same as they were
in the 1990’s. Zeisler explains how pop culture has no true definition yet it’s
impossible to escape and every women turns to media. I agree with what Zeisler
has to say and I believe that the female relies too much on what males think of
them and are far too dependent on males. In the book she mentions the term male gaze
which is when the female looks at things through the male’s perspective and
looks at women the way males would. This shows that women want to impress males
which yes is human nature, but if females cared more about the way that they
looked at themselves, and less about the way that males look at them, then females
would be more encouraged to stand up for what they truly believe in and fight
for a better reputation for the female population.
Although
males do influence the way that we think of ourselves, pop culture has the same
amount of impact. Pop culture influences almost everything in our life
including political issues. Even though
the two things have nothing to do with each other, Zeisler talks about the ways
that political issues intertwine with pop culture. As women, it’s difficult to
not pay attention to pop culture. Even if we wanted to avoid it, you can’t. YouTube
and other music stations now put ads on them along with clothing stores, and
almost every other website. These ads are in fact pop culture. By using sexual
or proactive advertising, more people are willing to buy a product. Most
commercials and television shows use a similar looking women, making it clear
what the men’s dream girl is. If women were to take control for themselves and
not be controlled by men’s thoughts and pop culture, then we could better our image
and reshape the image for women.
I agree with you that a females view toward themselves depend on what males think about them and although they influence the way we think of ourselves and other women, pop culture does also. By realizing how much pop culture intertwines with social issues I can also realize that man is not the only obstacle in the way of women but so is media and its view toward us as a weaker sex.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the part when you said that women can't escape from pop culture. Everywhere you go there ARE ads that appear on every type of social media. They way that they show women in commercials does make people want to buy a product just because they see a beautiful women. Also I agree with your last sentence of the second paragraph. If we do take control of ourselves, then we can reshape how women look.
ReplyDeleteI agree right away with your opener in the sense that there is no getting away from the media. Whether we are watching TV, on our phones, or just flipping through a magazine, women are constantly being sexualized. Because of this we always feel the need to live up to them.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the part when you said women sometimes cannot speak up. I understand why they sometimes cannot speak up because they might think speaking their mind would lead them into trouble especially at work, they might think that they would get fired. So for them to keep whatever they have,women would keep all their pains and troubles inside them.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the part when you said " Although the way we as women are looked at is different from the 80’s and 90’s, it is still extremely sexual and our gender roles remain the same as they were in the 1990’ because It is very clear that in today's world we still this happening, Even though there is still a few women that look at them different in some type of way, society still sees them as something sexual not as women just like in the 1990's.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said that women should care more about the way we look at ourselves then the way man look at us everything will be much better because we will have a stronger personality, but again that is much harder than we think since from years ago we care more about the way man look at us then the way we view ourselves.
ReplyDelete