To be sick, sick, sick of the way women are portrayed in the media

[Janos]

A comment on a thread I posted recently got me thinking about this.

Just looking at women's mags for example, who are some of the worst offenders. A woman's appearance is never ever 'good enough' and is constantly picked at. She's either too fat or too thin or her knees are too knobbly or fingernails are too pointy or some such shite.

The endless pushing of stupid bloody DIETS.

On TV, women who are bolshy or aggressive or not 'nice' and feminine'(for which read passive doormat) are always punished. OK, not always but my god it happens a lot.

Oh yeah, and films. Why don't we have a female version of Indiana Jones? Why is the man always the one who gets to have fantastic adventures?

And in newspapers. I'm thinking of the coverage of those two awful cases last year, Levi Bellfield and Mark Dixie - media full of reports commenting on how their behaviour could be traced back to their mothers. Yet again, women are to blame. Err, what about their fathers - aren't they equally responsible? And then reports on John Hogan...how his wife MUST have had some responsibility for what happened.

Men's magazines aren't much better. Women are sneered at and belittled if they aren't 'hot' (god that word bloody well pisses me off). If they ARE 'hot' they are patronised and objectified and treated like they don't have a brain.

Why must our behaviour and appearance be endlessly critcised and picked apart?

OK, rant over. I feel a bit better now

No, peas! I'm not a journo. Honestly

Hmmm, yes if only we women were more self confident then sexism, misogyny etc would disappear, overnight.

Simple!

Why hasn't it happened then?

I agree men are also put down by 'media'

I often hear woman slagging other women off, this is why I have no women friends, women can be nasty

And a size 12 today is nothing like a size 12 of my day, sizes have got smaller....because women wanted them to.

I can't answer that, Janos, but I certainly don't look to the media for my cues.

Sizes have definitely NOT got smaller! They've got bigger, because we have.

Bought one of those sleb mags today (why who knows) now thoroughly depressed. Whole pages of pictures pointing out that famous women have "fat" on their tummies/bums. Stick thin women with enormous boobs competing to see who can have the most children and still retain the figure of a 12 year old. I despair sometimes. And this is a womans mag what the heck are mens mags like?!

But what is the problem?

Men's attitude towards women or women's attitude towards other women?

sizes have got smaller, the size 8 of the 80's is now a 4, the 10 a 6 and so on

There were NO size 6 and 4 before, but there were plenty of slim/thin women, they wore 8/10

Well there you go.

I would love for all of this to pass me by but I tend to think about things a great deal and also question them when I perceive an injustice.

"this is why I have no women friends, women can be nasty"

I take it you have male friends, minorityrules? Can't they be nasty too?

It is possible, by the way, to object to all this stuff without it being a criticism of men you know.

I used to read FHM (ex husbands) They would say lots of phoars but rarely put a woman down

Woman mags are always putting women down, they sell, that must say women like reading it

Hmm, don't know EffiePerrine. Both, I'd say.

Women often rush to do each other down.

YEs I have male friends, and they don't put women down like women do

They rarely notice if you have the 'wrong' clothes or no make up, they don't bitch, they do notice if you look nice... for me..... much nicer.

You're kidding, right minorityrules? Must be a different publication that I read, then.

The bitchiest environment I ever worked in was all male - an IT department. You'd get your computer fixed quicker if you were fit. They used to slag people off and gossip like the best of them. It's not just a female thing.

Effie, interesting question.

Tbh I can think of a number of women who don't seem to have any idea re the concept of of wimmin's lib in it's most basic sense. (I mean in the media and RL)

The word empowering is used too loosely these days imo.

Well I don't know about that minorityrules.

I could say exactly the same about my women friends and I certainly wouldn't be friends with women who behave in the way you describe - I don't like it either.

LOL Cryptoprocta, the guys in my office are the biggest bunch of gossips I have ever come across.

Great blokes mind you but I think of them and laugh when people say men don't do this sort of thing.

Same here Janos.

My dh and his male friends love a bit of gossip - and they do 'bitching' too! But they tend not to hold it against someone long term ime.

Thanks for such a thought-provoking thread, Janos. I agree with you about all of it and I do fear for my DD in many ways.

Re: men and bitching - men do bitch and are frequently rude about other people when they aren't there. However, it gets passed off as "having a laugh" or "banter", because bitching is something female and BAD. Likewise, a disagreement between men is just that, a disagreement, fight, whatever - when women are involved, it has to become a "catfight" and is all of a sudden completely unreasonable.

I also think the word "empowering" is bandied around far too much and used to describe things that are far from empowering.

I think too many women are 'bothered' by these media images - which is what gives them power. Even threads like this lead to 'real' women questioning their role in society. I do not buy 'womens mags' I have no desire to look like anyone in those magazines and if my DH wants me to look like that then 'tough' - he doesn't look like Brad Pitt either and I don't want him to!

Real people with real values and intelligence are neither responsible for or influenced by the gutter media who portray women like this.

I have 2 dds, too young to be bothered by all this at the moment - thank goodness. But I am determined to bring them up to know that as girls they are able to be tough, strong, fit, funny, clever, loving, kind people rather than pretty and simpering weedy things who think that happiness comes as a result of being thin or whose self worth is wrapped up in looking like Mary-Kate and Ashley or whoever the wannabe girls are in 12 years time. (not that there is anything wrong with being pretty of course - its the passivity of these role models that gets on my wick).

I think it takes a strong woman (thier mum) to educate girls about this kind of insidious media image of women.

Also when I was a girl - back in the feminist 70s I had magazines (ok - 2nd hand from the 50s, my dad was a 2nd hand book dealer) but they had stories about women doing amazing things - adventurous and explorers, nurses in wars, spys etc etc. Was great.

Must find similar things for my dds. I wonder if anything exists these days.

i like the idea of a boycott

just want to say hello to all other mums on mumsnet, finally plucked up the courage to join (it should not need courage i know) i am a mum to three boys aged 8, 5 and 2 and a half and i always dreaded the idea of having a girl, because i did think that maybe traits such as cockiness, whining, clinging, vanity and selfishness that so many little girls seem to have could be innate, just the nature of the way girls are, however i did not end up having a girl, which i feel slightly miffed about as i am curious as to what kind of girl i would raise. it is difficult to find a positive, strong female icon for a young girl to look up to and i really cannot think of any. i think raising girls is probably more difficult due to the medias representation of what girls should be like and the emphasis on appearance etc. speaking as a woman that did not have any female role models that fitted the idea of what i invisaged a woman to be, it is extremely difficult. good luck and steer girls away from Britney

maybe lets reflect upon the sisterhood on MN were regularly female choices are contested and derided regular argy bargy over same ole topics

SAHM/Working
Breast/formula

i also see support, and empathy but we can rip ourselves apart too.one size motherhood does not fit all.

not all men are the same
not all women are the same
reductionist to assume gender is responsible for so much

i dont think the media is ^so all pervasive and influential.We do have autonomy,volition, higher executive functioning. other factors are influential eg socio-economic educational factors