Today I will be responding to my classmate, Kelly’s, post. I found her topic about social media and hyper-sexualization not only fascinating, but also extremely relevant. As a young women in a day and age where media has overtaken our world, I am constantly checking/updating/looking at social media. On this social media, it is very normal to see scantily clothed women being used as advertisement, or simply just posing in these sexual ways for their personal accounts. I personally do not think that this is sending a healthy message to younger girls, because it seems as though now there is a “self-esteem crisis”, as discussed more in this article. Young girls are being told by the media that they have to be “sexy”, skinny, and much more in order to considered attractive and desirable.
(I saw a fantastic Ted Talk about this topic called “The Sexy Lie”, from which the picture above is taken, that is really worth a watch)
What’s so interesting to me also is the fact that this hyper-sexualization of women is backed up by research. Kelly looked up many articles that all agreed that social media has caused misogyny and the hyper-sexualization of women to increase and become to apparent. Many posts objectify women, and simply use them for their bodies in order to sell a certain product.
These two photos are advertisements that are very overtly hyper-sexualizing women. The picture on the left is selling cologne, which has nothing to do with women’s breasts, however the latter still seems to be the star of the show. Men are probably more likely to buy this product because of the fact that it is squished between breasts, as it is eye-catching and sexually appealing. The advertisement on the right is more troubling though because it is of a young girl who is made up to look much older and is posed rather reductively. The title reads “Love’s Baby Soft. Because innocence is sexier than you think”. Although this young girl is probably around seven years old and should only be worried about playing outside and scraping her knee, she has already been exposed to the wandering eyes of older men. As the Dove article states,
“Hyper-sexualization of girls can refer to girls being depicted or treated as sexual objects. It also means sexuality that is inappropriately imposed on girls through the media, marketing or products directed at them that encourages them to act in adult, sexual ways”.
We need to end this vicious cycle of hyper-sexualizaiton and instead be praised for talents other than their looks.
Image:
Image 1: http://25.media.tumblr.com/57e3f4589e0a919b6567dfe74fe985ed/tumblr_mvb8c669Y31qeh4t2o1_1280.gif
Image 2: http://sexuallyobjectifiedwomen.weebly.com/uploads/9/5/1/3/9513520/8193464.jpg?338
Image 3: