In the above link, Jean Kilbourne gives an inspiring
presentation about how women are portrayed in the media. She covers three major points. 1.
Women’s pictures are altered to achieve an unachievable ideal. 2.
Women are objectified, sometimes literally. 3. The
media shatters that object, appreciating only parts of the woman’s body.
- Women’s pictures are altered.
Before pictures are printed in magazines, professionals edit
out all the natural imperfections, such as wrinkles and double chins. They create unnatural perfections, such as
increased bust size, and distorted waistlines courtesy of the Photoshop diet. The result is a beautiful caricature, a
completely abstract image of the original model. The women in the magazines resemble some of
my dolls, but is Barbie really to blame?
Look at the Victorian and Edwardian eras in terms of fashion. The hourglass figure predated Barbie.
If you want to look like those models, you can easily do a
fashion photo shoot with a friend who likes photography. You or your friend could edit the picture
just like the professionals, and voila, you have your own Vogue caricature of
yourself. The same image will not be
looking at you in the mirror everyday, but you know you can achieve the
“perfect” look the same way the models do; computer cosmetics! Then those models don’t seem so
intimidating. In real life, these models
are not very different from you, which is more humanizing. Now that you have achieved the same illusion,
you are free to move on.
- Women are objectified.
Ms. Kilbourne makes a valid point that the first step to
justifying abuse is objectifying someone.
Women in the media are portrayed as inanimate objects. The examples in the video included scissors,
beer bottles, and even a video game system.
Regarding the latter, she is a toy to play with, not even a person
anymore.
There is nothing wrong with breaking an object as long as it
belongs to you. Snapping a pencil in
half is not extremely immoral, but you now rendered it useless. Running over a human being is worse than
hitting the neighbor’s cat with your car.
The former gets the life sentence, while the cat-killer gets a lighter
judgment, because as any sociopath would say, “It’s just an animal.” Animals are naturally dehumanized, because
they are not humans. It does make sense,
because humans are considered more important than animals.
Since a male perpetrator believes he is more important than
his female partner, hurting her could be just as wrong as a teenager mutilating
a Barbie doll. If a woman is just an
object, violence against women is easier to justify. She can be consumed and thrown away like a
bottle of Michelob Ultra. Her legs are
like scissors – rock breaks scissors.
Don’t laugh. The rock thrown at
the woman could be literal. Women are
smaller, and sometimes more fragile.
Snapping her in half, like a pencil, would only empower the male
adversary, because he thinks, “She’s an object, and I am above her.” Not giving him what he wants renders her
useless like a broken pencil, and he thinks by breaking her validates that
idea. Might does not make right. Might means you don’t listen, and that you
have no room for personal growth. Being
a brute means you are unwilling to learn anything.
As Ms. Kilbourne said, these pictures do not directly lead
to violence. A man does not look at
these pictures and decide to beat his wife or girlfriend. These images over time affect our culture and
how we see women. How often are men
turned into objects in magazine pictures?
I would be open to hearing a yes.
I would like to hear some examples.
I do not doubt that these pictures are art. They require imagination and took a lot of
time and effort. What we really need is
to stop and think about the way we treat others. We don’t literally think that a woman is a
Budweiser bottle, but do we treat her like one?
- Parts
of the woman are emphasized.
In the media, whether it’s in magazines or movies, fractions
of the woman receive more attention than the whole. Now that the woman has been objectified, she
can be shattered like a glass figurine.
Breasts, butts, groins, and legs are the favorites of the populace. The rest of the person is forgotten. The media limits beauty to these body
parts. Everyone seems to rejoice over
how beautiful the female body is, but then they only talk about boobs, or some
other favored fraction. I can not count
how many times I’ve heard boobs being referred to as “they.” “They are beautiful. They are great.” Who is “they?” I thought “they” referred to more than one
person, not more than one body part on one person. It is dissociating to refer to pectoral
muscles as individuals while ignoring the whole person. It is humanizing the human parts while
dehumanizing the human being.
There are memes that say, “What is the useless skin outside
of the vagina? The woman!” I understand this is only a joke, but are we
really that useless? Are we as useless
as broken pencils? If you agree, please
go buy a “My Size Barbie” doll. Don’t
worry, she doesn’t even talk. She would
be perfect for you. Oh, am I making fun
of you? That was just a joke!
It is ironic how heterosexual men bash gay people, but these
same men don’t like women as a whole.
Men like that might as well just buy a rubber vagina sex toy. They could save money to buy silicone
implants to squeeze like stress balls.
So much focus is on the woman’s shell, while her
personality, thoughts, beliefs, words, intellect, imagination, ambitions are
seldom given a blurb of credit. Males
involved in domestic violence probably value her appearance over her
personality. He thinks he loves her
appearance, but then he physically attacks it, which makes no sense. Notice whenever battered wives are pictured;
there are usually no injuries to her breasts or butt? Take a moment and imagine the injuries of a
battered wife or girlfriend. I imagine
black eyes, broken arms, a swollen lip, a bandage over her head, and genitalia
injuries due to rape. It seems the face
is no longer considered the capital of human beauty. Eyes were once windows to the soul. Though, this man does not want to see her
soul, just her boobs. He would probably
leave the breasts alone since they are so important to him. Ha! I
just said, they!
My theory on why breasts are so important to men starts from
his birth. He suckled on his mother’s
bosom, and he became orally fixated, in Freud’s Oral Stage. Women also seem to be obsessed with breasts
as well, but since they already have their own, the need is fulfilled. The obsession with larger breasts is not just
evolutionary. From a baby’s perspective,
his mother’s breasts are gigantic compared to his head. In his adult age, he wants to recreate the
proportions.
Understanding why men obsess over body parts instead of the
whole woman could help us understand why the criminal ones commit crimes
against women. I do not hate men; I just
hate rapists and criminals. They can be
either gender.
© 2014 Caroline Friehs
References:
Kilbourne, J (2013).
Killing US Softly 4. Advertising’s
Image of Women. [Upworthy video] Courtesy of Brandon Weber. Retrieved from: http://www.upworthy.com/5-minutes-of-what-the-media-actually-does-to-women-8
Picture meme courtesy of:
Quickmeme.com
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