Works Cited.

• “About Us.” Just Yell Fire, 2008. http://www.justyellfire.com/
• “Body Image: The Media Lies,” Our Bodies, Ourselves. http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/excerpt.asp?id=2
• “Industry Statistics,” Media Report to Women: Covering All the Issues Concerning Women and the Media. http://www.mediareporttowomen.com/statistics.htm
• “Media Coverage of Women and Women’s Issues,” Media Awareness Network, 2010. www.media-awareness/issues/stereotyping/women_and_girls/.cfm
• “Research and Statistics.” The Women’s Media Center, 2009. http://www.womensmediacenter.com/index.php/resources/research-and-stats.html
• Brown, Rick. “Anne Royall: America’s First Professional Female Journalist?” Historybuff.com. http://www.historybuff.com/library/refroyall.html
• Gerber, Robin. Official Site. http://www.robingerber.com/
• Greenwald, John. “Barbie boots up.” Time Magazine, November 11, 1996. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985509,00.html
• Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty… and the Beast of Advertising.” Center for Media Literacy, http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/beautyand-beast-advertising
• Mindich, David T.Z. “Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News,” Oxford University Press, 2005. Pages 54-56.
• Smolowe, Jill. “Nipped, Tucked, and Talking.” People Magazine, Vol. 57, No. 6, February 18, 2002. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20136440,00.html

Conclusion: Drawing Parallels.

The issues women are confronted with everyday in journalism and the media greatly outnumber the obstacles their male counterparts face. The only way to change the downward spiral women are facing is to encourage positive representation in the media and news.

Instead of journalists focusing on women's style and sexuality, they must focus on:

• The issues. What are female politicians fighting for?
• Athletes' abilities. Make news coverage of female athletes equal.
• Views of women. Focus less on their sexuality and more on their intellectuality.
• Pay equity. Why are women still earning less than their male counterparts?
• Equality. Female journalists should be equally represented in positions of power.
• Respect. The media's message is that women are objects. This needs to end.

Although these ideals may seem unreachable, every little difference can lead to a larger change but the people must demand this of the press.

Strong women of today:

Image Source: nydailynews.com

Female journalists and sexual assault.

In the course pack, an associated press article title “TV reporter’s assault highlights women’s issues,” shows how sexualizing women and devaluing them in the media can seriously affect reality. In the article, a senior U.S. television correspondent experienced “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” by a frantic mob during the last night of an 18-day revolt in Egypt. Another article in the course pack, “Four female journalists stripped naked in Sierre Leone,” states that four women were humiliated and degraded when they were stripped naked in Kenema District in Eastern Sierra Leone. The journalists were covering events that marked the “International Day Against Female Circumcision,” when they were attacked and abducted by supporters. The women were also forced to march the streets naked and were only freed after the police intervened.

Fact: Teenage girls face a one in four risk of sexual assault. If the media uses less exploitative representations of women and the news reports more on sexual assault awareness, this statistic could decrease.

Video source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsqH5X7qQCM

Naked News: Sexual Exploitation?

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Women's worth measured by weight.

Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten and a half times more advertisements and articles endorsing weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s bodily appearance—by diet, exercise, or cosmetic surgery. Television and movies reinforce the importance of thinness as a measurement of a woman’s worth. Heavier actresses often receive negative comments from male characters about their bodies in the media. Unfortunately, 80 percent of these negative comments from males are followed by canned audience laughter.

Advertising companies fuel news industries and have a large influence on what is reported and depicted in the media. Advertisers believe thinness sells products. When the Australian magazine New Woman recently included a picture of a full figured model on its cover, it received an abundance of letters from satisfied readers asking for more. However, the magazine’s advertisers complained and the magazine returned to featuring extremely thin models.

Jean Kilbourne argued that the overwhelming presence of devastatingly thin women in the media has a negative impact on female readers. Women are judging their own bodies and trying to live up to impossible standards of beauty, which has led to increased competition in women for men’s attention and the presence of eating disorders.

Source: “Body Image: The Media Lies,” Our Bodies, Ourselves.

The message: thinner is better.

Women’s magazines are filled with articles and advertisements stressing weight loss as the key to a perfect and happy life. This mainstream idea of beauty is achievable for a very small number of women.

Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and she would have to walk on all fours to move around. These standards have made their way into every form of media in America’s culture. Pressure to be thin and beautiful is weighing down today’s girls and women. In 2003, Teen Magazine reported that 35 percent of girls ages six to twelve have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight. Overall research indicated that 90 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearances in some way. This is because of the way the news industry and the media are portraying women to be perfect.

Media activist Jean Kilbourne said, “Women are sold to the diet industry by the magazines we read and the television programs we watch, almost all of which makes us feel anxious about our weight.”

Photo source: clutch.mtv.com

Women’s bodies are everywhere in the media and on the news and are especially plastered all over advertisements. Popular film and television stars are becoming younger, thinner, and taller.

Beauty before brains?

The idea of beauty before brains has never been more prevalent in the news than it is today. According to People, when news show host Greta Van Susteren moved from CNN to Fox News in early 2002, she underwent surgery to alter her face and appear younger and more beautiful to viewers. When her new show, “On the Record,” premiered, her hair was perfectly in place and she sat behind a table so viewers could see her short skirt and legs.

Author Robin Gerber said, “Before her surgery, Van Susteren had been an increasingly visible beacon projecting the hope that women had made progress. You believed that she made it in television because she was so darn smart, clearly the best legal analyst on the air.”

Photo source: thumpandwhip.com

However, her surgery represents the many ways that women are using their appearances to become important, remembered figures but for the wrong reasons. This proves that beauty is becoming more imperative than what a woman has to say. Gerber concludes that Van Susteren “has become a painful reminder of women’s inequality… Being smart, smarter, and smartest is not enough. By trying to become just another pretty face, Van Susteren instead became another cultural casualty.”

Source: Smolowe, Jill. “Nipped, Tucked, and Talking.” People Magazine, Vol. 57, No. 6, February 18, 2002. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20136440,00.html