Lauren Turcotte
Jan. 30,2015
Blog entry #1
Walters Article
Women have always had a reputation to live up to, whether it be in movies, magazines, or around men. I have never agreed with the way women are viewed in society and reading through these articles makes my thoughts seem more valid. In the articles that I had recently read by Walters, I found myself agreeing with most everything that she said. One of the articles that I read gives a great insight and different perspective of the way women are viewed. The article explains various images of women and then transitions into women as a an image. The articles give various examples and I pretty much agreed with every one of them to an extent. In one of the paragraphs, Walters explains that the way most women are portrayed in media almost gives them a bad reputation. For example, by having a women act a certain way in a movie it sets up a stereotype that it's the way all women should be acting. Walters also brings up the idea of sex-role stereotypes. By having women portrayed a certain way in television it could be having an effect on their audience, especially children. By growing up and seeing these kinds of things they are almost designed to grow up that way.
Stereotypes have been around for ages but we definitely see more about women than we do men and not all stereotypes are positive. Women are supposed to dress a certain way and be sexy. Or the fact that women are supposed to have big boobs or an hour glass figure. Most of those stereotypes are not achievable and women feel they are not worthy if they don't fit these 'requirements'. Some of the only things I ever hear about men is that they are supposed to be the bigger and stronger one in the relationship and women are supposed to lean on their men for support. There are not many movies or television shows that show a women coming into power or ruling over the men. But stereotypes are not limited to movies but they also find themselves slipping into the music industry as well. Madonna is a great example or a role model who used the stereotype of women to her advantage. She had achieved the 'blond bombshell' stereotype that had previously been achieved by Marilyn Monroe.
In Conclusion, stereotypes of women and about women are everywhere we look and not all of them are possible to achieve so we should stop trying. There should be more positive images of women in the media so children have positive role models to look up to. I think Walters does a great job at hitting all different aspects of women and the various images that are portrayed in various sources. I enjoyed reading it and seeing other points of views on some of the same things we secretly all think about.
I agree with that women are often stereotyped and that women should not strive to be like one another. Men on the other hand tend not to be stereotyped the same way that women are but sometimes men fall into stereotypes also. While women are being stereotyped as the "blonde bombshell" or other sexual references, men are often being stereotyped as "jocks" or "gamers" making them viewed differently by the opposite sex as well.
ReplyDeleteI like how you point out that a lot of stereotypes about women revolve around this idea of beauty. This really makes me wonder why beauty is such a huge topic that the media likes to focus on. Many women often mistake beauty for self worth. I like to remind them that beauty should not matter! (It's hard to get out of this mindset, but personally, my overall happiness and self esteem greatly improved after I did). We don't exist to be beautiful. You exist to survive, just like any other species on the planet. The good you do and the person you are should not be determined by this twisted idea of beauty that the media shoves down our throats.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you women are definitely stereotyped. Women are made to believe that they should have a tiny waist and big boobs and if they don't then there is something wrong with them. I also agree that children are pretty much being told how they should act when they get older. There really should be more women in leading roles with power.
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