DiSTORTION Apr. 2014 | Page 9

By: Michelle Badiadiaz “FEAR OF BEING EXPOSED” Magazines are one of the main targets when it comes to portraying women as sex objects. They are used for gossip, advertisements and useful information or tips. Nowadays, most magazines sexualize women on their cover page using women to both represent a product and better appeal to consumers. The reason for this is because the media has a great influence on everyone, especially on young girls and boys who are still trying to d i s c o v e r t h e i r i d e n t i t y. Magazines can misrepresent gender roles and make the public believe obscene concepts and ideas of how they should be and what they need to look like to be noticed. The media has a great influence on society. Women are perceived to be sensible, unable to do things, and weak. This makes it harder for them to get a job and become a leader because of their “lack” of skills. As women are portrayed as having a lack of intelligence they are used to grab people’s attention by making them sex objects. Women are so perfect in magazines, with such amazing bodies and color that society has begun to judge the average women for not resembling the ones portrayed in magazines. since they don’t eat because they want to be as perfect as the girls in magazines. All girls want to fit in, look as beautiful, and feel as wanted as the ones that are advertised. Another problem is that girls are just thinking about their appearances, taking part in crazy cleanses and workout regimes to be noticed by boys. As a result, this has made society shallow and extremely materialistic. For men to see women as being pretty, the women needs to be exactly like the ones in magazines. They don't care about their personality they just look at the outside not the inside. A perfect example is how girl in college wakes up two hours before class and instead of taking a bath, they prefer to put on make up and go to class immediately. Teenagers don’t know the harm they are doing to their face by putting makeup on everyday at all times. As media portrays girls faces wearing make up, the girls in our society think they need to wear make up to look pretty as well. However, I bet that these girls are way prettier without makeup because honestly nothing beats an “au naturel” look. Girls are so used to wearing makeup that some do not even remove it during a sleepover, in fear of being judged. A great example of the This is a huge problem because misrepresentation of women is young girls are suffering from shown in the deodorant ad on all kinds of health problems t h e p r e c e d i n g p a g e . T h i s advertisement is called “Fear of being exposed”. To start, the pick line of the ad tells the public that women are afraid of being introduced to the world. Moreover, the first thing you realize when looking at the ad is the beautiful woman in the ad. She appears to be extremely happy, beautiful and thin. It also shows the girl walking away, showing her naked back. This clearly displays the role women play in media. As you keep looking at the ad, you realize another quote “fearlessness apply daily”. This mean that as soon as you wear this deodorant you will be powerful and brave, meaning that women weak and the only way they can become brave and gain confidence is by wearing this deodorant. This advertisement opens our eyes to see how the ‘‘ideal women’’ should look like, because media focuses more on a woman’s appearance than anything else.