Pop culture media is a negative influence on young people because it teaches young women to objectify their bodies and determine self worth on exterior appearance. From Maybelline billboards to Corona commercials to the latest cover of Glamour; advertisements, television shows, magazines, music, and movies are encouraging young women to aim for unrealistic and unhealthy ideals of beauty. Popular media also creates an issue of sexism by teaching both young men and women to objectify female bodies and treat women as a “piece of meat”, rather than as human beings equal to men. This inevitably has led to extremely low self esteem, anorexia, and even depression in young girls across the nation, and higher rates of sexual harassment and domestic violence on women. According to a U.S. survey conducted recently, depression occurs twice as often in females than males during the childhood to adolescence years. A young woman’s blog on a website called Tumblr sums it up quite frankly, “The first ten years of a girl’s life are spent playing with Barbie’s, the next ten are spent trying to be like one.” The sexual harassment and domestic violence rates speak for themselves as well, while according to a survey conducted globally, “One out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries,” (Women Thrive Worldwide). These staggering statistics can be attributed to all forms of media in pop culture; in fact, one series called “Killing Us Softly” reports, “The average American is exposed to more than 3000 ads a day, and companies spend over $200 billion each year on advertising,”(American Advertising in the Media). In order to combat these issues, we must address the entire media industry- an administration for the purpose of censoring all media types before they are released to the public would be appropriate. Some, however, may argue that this interferes with the freedom of speech. Having a censoring administration, they may dispute, would take away these rights. However this plan of an administration would not take away these rights, in fact it would only make the media more appropriate for all audiences so women don’t become victims of this “media monster”. The Media Monster manipulates their female audiences into believing they are not beautiful enough- and this propaganda has hurt the well being of almost the entire population of females in this country today (as stated in the statistics above). This censoring administration would have a tremendous effect on the American culture in positive means, and it would destroy the prejudice and restore the pursuit of happiness that we the people of the United States Constitution - male and female- deserve.
Bibliography
"American Advertising in the Media." Google Answers. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. <http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=56750>.
"Depression in Girls - Teen Depression." Teen Depression - Statistics, Prevention, Facts on Teenage Depression. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. <http://www.teendepression.org/info/depression-in-girls/>.
Women Thrive Worldwide. Copyright © 2012 Women Thrive Worldwide. Web. 2012.