Woman and Pop Culture Entry 1

Gina Lagrotteria

January 30, 2105

Entry 1

From Images of Women to Woman as Image

In the article "From Images of Women to Women as Image" by Suzanna Danuta Walters it talks about how women are seen in the public eye. It talks about how people see the way that women are being portrayed in the media and it makes an influence on them. People tend to compare themselves to the people in spotlight.

Walters comments on in her article about how the media teaches us stereotypical roles and behaviors. In her article on page 41 she states " The flip side of this reflection model is a view of the media derived from the theories of sex roles and socialization. If the reflection posits the media as a mirror to social reality, the socialization model argues that the media teach us sex-stereotyped roles and behaviors" (Walters,41). I agree with this comment that she made, I believe the media is the reason that females say they can not do something because it is to masculine or the opposite that a male can not do something because it is a female thing. From a young age you see how something is portrayed in the media and you believe that is the truth and reality , when in reality it could be the complete opposite. Gender roles are present in society because of pop culture and the media. 

Like anything in society, people are going to see things differently and have different opinions about the same exact thing. People are going to get a different impression about the same exact television show and take different things out of it. One example of that she states is the example of the show Roseanne and how people see her in completely different ways. Some people see her as strong women who shows true beauty and others see her as someone who is careless and lazy.I feel like in society you see things the way you want to see them. I never really thought of it that way until recently but the way you want it to be seen is the way you will see something. 

One thing that stuck out to me that Walters touches on is how the media portrays females to be more emotional than males are. I agree with this and disagree with this at the same time. It does seem like in society that women are more emotional but how do we not know that it is not like that because men try to be strong because they know they are stereotypically supposed to be. The media has an influence on this as men see how men are supposed to be strong and not emotional. I feel like men and women are both  equally emotionally but men just do not show it as much because they know men are supposed to be stereotypically strong. Women just tend to show there emotions more then men do. When men do show or share there emotions they tend to get judged. 

Women compare themselves to the women portrayed in the media, they want to be them. I know myself that when I see a women in the spotlight, I say to myself I wish I could be just as skinny and pretty as them. Women in the spotlight are idolized, there image has an impact. In Walter's article she talks about Madonna and how she was considered the "blonde bombshell". She set the stereotype at that time as stereotypes are always changing.