Hello All! So the time has finally come for me to embark upon the final essay of my research project. For those of you who don’t know I have been spending the quarter going through a variety of research techniques and papers trying to formulate my own arguments on whether or not social media has amplified both the social and sexual pressures on young women.
Throughout the project I have been able to find many shocking anecdotes and statistics, from both my research and my survey, that confirmed social pressures (especially beauty standards) have drastically increased thanks to the internet. However, while the articles I researched clearly addressed social media’s effect on female expectations, I found that there was a gap regarding how these expectations translate to the sexual pressures young women face. Throughout my research I heard story after story of young girls being coerced to snap skimpy pictures, even nudes, but not once heard how this played out into their real encounters.
In contrast, the novel, “Girls and Sex,” which I read during my research, discussed a study conducted by author, Peggy Orenstein, addressing porn’s effect on the sexual expectations put on females. The study concluded that porn has led to more male-dominated relationships; however, it never addressed social media or the idea that, often times, it’s a female’s need to imitate or compete with other female accounts, that influences girls to allow and even encourage their own objectification and sexualization.
Because of this, I have decided to focus my argument on how the poor role models and ideals social media provides have led to the objectifying of women and the creation of a society that encourages girls to serve up their bodies to get ahead. Social media warps girls into thinking that a guy liking your picture and liking you are the same thing and in effect encourages us to use our appearances as a medium to gaining popularity. While this may start online, the increased sexualization of women translates to almost all aspects of our lives. In today’s society, the act of “hooking-up” has lost nearly all of it’s original value and significance. Unlike in the past, when it was frowned upon to “hook-up” with someone you hardly knew, it has become an overwhelmingly normal, even encouraged, act in recent years. While this is somewhat due to my generation’s shift in morals, I personally believe it’s social media platforms that are continuing to make sexual relationships more and more inconsequential.
