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

I actually hate the broadsheets weekend supplements with the endless portrayals of successful can do it all women, stained dressing gown in site..

that was meant to read 'not a stained dressing gown in sight' (up too early)

The product market is just mad, you're nuts if you buy into it, I have started to use natural products and they are much better and much less expensive. The thing is most of us are buying into this nonsense.

my magazine would have pictures of women with greasy hair and stained dressing gowns and children in hand me down's with chocolate on their faces sat in a messy house that is a half finished diy project.. with empty bottles of sauvignon blanc lying around ..

i'm no journalist (although i did want to be one when i was 16) but for a while now, i've been dreaming of setting up a 'fanzine' of sorts which contains only positive images/comments of women.

Whenever i have to jump on a train I'm always wishing i could find something which would uplift me, and make me feel good about myself, but you know what, I can never find a single magazine which does this for me! it's all 'weight/looks/make sure he doesn't leave you -be a dynamo in bed!'

surely this is not why women through themselves under horses?

God this makes me fume with righteous rage.

We have without a doubt gone backwards in the last 10 years. I stopped buying womens mags years ago because I was on an economy drive but when I look at them now they just bore me senseless. Make up, clothes, beach body blahhhhh. 'Sleb mags are poison.

I read something somewhere recently about why women (often mothers) feel the need to be "perfect" and it basically critcized women for being too hard on themselves.

Er - I wonder why??? Surprised the writer didn't seem aware of the irony.

mrsruffallo - I totally agree with your point that (in most cases) girls will take their cues from their mother.

My mum taught her three girls the following:

• Women do not need a man to validate them
• Women need to stand on their own two feet
• Women need to be comfortable within their own skin

She walked away from a violent cheating man (mine & elder sisters biological father), she worked when we were growing up, she had an equal relationship with my (step)father.

If I can teach my daughter half of what my mum has installed in me and my sisters, she'll be fine, no matter what sleb is getting their norks out / selling a story, or what hot man is being seen with a "mystery brunette".

(And FWIW - its hard to expect a united sisterhood in the media when women are quite happy IRL to bicker, bitch, and cheat.) - I'm off to polish my halo

I want to grab young women and say "you're GORGEOUS, please, please don't believe all the stuff you read about how you should look".

I hate the way women are portrayed too.

surely it's the same with every demographic, it just completely depends on the target audience.
men are constantly portrayed as the typical "bloke" and if it is a mens magazine advertising something this is a good thing, if it is a womens magazine complaining about useless men it's a bad thing.
look at tv shows aimed at women desperate houswives/satc and the women are self aware and clued in where as the men are all either scoundrels or lapdogs.
i think people look out for what offends them and ignore the stereotypes about others.
i'm not saying this makes it ok, i think all the stereotypes just smack of laziness, i'm just not sure any group in particular gets t worse than anyone else.

then again as a friend in marketin tells me about every media capaign/technique that i find stupid "if people didn't buy it, we wouldn't sell it"

these magazine are so terrible...

I hate the way they are dictating body image... i am sure they are largely responsible for the explosion in cosmetic surgery.

and a I agree with the earlier poster who got up set by the women who were killed in ipswich being constantly referred to as prostitutes. I constantly shouted at the radio/tv...

and the fact that a huge percentage of 10 year olds aspire to be a glamour model grrrrr

You know what's really pissing me off at the moment is the venom towards women in newspaper coverage. The woman arrested for having sex on a beach in Dubai, the disappearing canoeists wife etc. etc. The men involved seem to be ignored in the articles, while the women recieve all the venomous 'evil woman' headlines.

sooner or later we all have to put our money where our mouths are.

Its no good just talking about how horribly our sex is portrayed in berated and picked apart in the media. We have to take action.

Here and now, i state that i will never buy another trashy/women's magazine or watch another sodding makeover show. If a newsreader refers to a murdered woman as a 'prostitute' i will make my disgust known as loudly as I can.

If a newspaper I am reading refers to another woman as 'blonde, 27' I will also make my objections known. The age and hair colour of men is considered irrelevent. What makes women so inconsequential that they are so easily objectified?

Women died for the equality and respect we are entitled to; the equality that we throw away every time we literally buy into this crap about our gender.

The twentieth century gave us the first opportunity in millenia to assert ourselves. This century is seeing women put firmly back in their place and it is up to every one of us as individuals to make a stand.

I was in a cafe with a friend the other day; they had pop vids on the TV. Neither of us had seen pop vids for years so our eyes were glued to the screen. All the women were, of course, 'hot' (sorry, OP! I use that word ironically here!), scantily clad and thrusting their boobs/ hips about all over the place.

It made me realise how unsurprising it is that many young girls today have such an un-feminist outlook when it comes to their sexuality/ self-confidence, etc. They lack the life experience to be able to say 'it's all BS - it's only a pop video, nobody should be like that in real life'. If they're exposed to that sort of thing every day it's no wonder they think that's how they should be.

The question is, what are we going to do about it? I don't have a daughter, but I think it's just as important for boys to have a healthy, normal viewpoint on what it is to be a woman. So what are we going to do, mums?

(oops, just read the post above mine!) Hear, hear, misfit! Well said! I second your oaths!

Here's a thought: why don't we send a link to this thread to the editors of all the women's magazines that we can think of?

and why is it seen as a bad thing to be feminist?
I hate it when people (usually women!)say "I'm not a feminist but..." as if feminism was all dungarees, no bras and lesbians.
I won't buy Vogue, Bella et al but ironically I've found Good Housekeeping to be reasonably sane .
I hate then when I raise concerns about visiting someone on work related matters an accompanying man is seen to be the solution - sure, we definitely won't get shot/stabbed now!
I hate that women are made to feel that they ought to be daisy fresh at all times, sexy and maternal when needs be... I hate it when men run out of conversation in a pub (after 5 mins) and say patronisingly so what's the latest lipstick or what's Posh up to now.

Jamescagney, often the reason men run out of conversation is because they've stopped talking about themselves! Sad, but true!

Well Thierry might but my dh isn't so vacuous

And I sincerely hope my ds grows into a man that not only respects women but also men...

I think this topic needs to include men as allies not the cause.

I think that largely the magazines are motivated by cash. It is about selling an idea. The fact that the weight loss industry is enormous (scuse pun) is a major driving factor.

FGS of course they wouldn't want you to be happy with how you look! I think plantsitters points were excellent.

Magazines make alot of money out of making us feel crap about ourselves. They are not going to change unless we actually stop buying them.

Anotther thing that pisses me off is (which reaches the media that is) the amount of research that is done on women's health issues - from a negative point of view.

Does anyone remember the smoking and breast cancer link in very young women that was covered a while ago?

It's obviously rubbing off on young girls too. See this poll where more girls wanted to be "glamour models" than all the other professions combined. I do really worry about my DDs and I hope that we can counteract all that stuff by being good role models at home, who knows whether it will work.

MrsTH - i think sending editors a link to this thread is a fantastic idea! let's give it to 'em straight.

we could also send it to the editors of lads mags as they are as bad if not worse as Dittany wisely points out.

so, my suggestions are:

Cosmopolitan
Glamour (God that one always makes me want to shoot myself)
Elle
Marie Claire
The Guardian
The Sun
The Independent
The Mirror
FHM
Nuts/Zoo etc

any others?

How many of you who are annoyed at the magazine buy them?