“The hatred of your own female body has become normalised to the point that listing things you hate about yourself is a perfectly normal conversation. Telling the lady at the store that you can’t wear that dress because you hate your upper-arms or discussing weight-loss with a complete stranger are everyday happenings. In fact, it’s even a way for young girls and women to bond. You see, in girl world, hating yourself can be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”- Anonymous Source. In nowadays society, what the media says, how celebrities look and the way society judges you has just become a normal way of life. Obviously, everyone has different views on what is beautiful, informed by gender, culture, religion, age group, family and peer group. Even living environments can influence body-image views. Even so, “beauty” in media and society is viewed as being slim, fit, and flawless. The fact is, nobody thinks that they’re flawless. You could see someone and think “they have everything” yet inside, there are still things they wish to change about themselves, even if they’re small things.
“I was walking down the plaza on a blazing hot lunch-break yesterday” says Rachel Driver, a student at UWCSEA “I overheard a conversation between two girls. This day was a free dress day, so one of the girls came dressed in long pants. The other girl asked her why she was wearing long pants, on such a hot day like this, and she simply replied that she thought her legs were ugly. I didn’t think much of it at the time so I just went about my business and moved on.” Although this conversation doesn’t seem like a life-altering problem, it can be. Body image and body hate is a huge problem, and something as small as thinking your legs are ugly can often have an extreme impact on your life. This includes mental diseases such as depression, anxiety, anorexia. The list goes on and on.
“Once I was in the girls changing room and the girls next to me were talking about celebrities. I heard them talk about how skinny all these girls were, and how they were never going to be able to live up to those standards of looking like the girls/women they see in the media…after hearing this I looked at my own body and thought about what they said. I only see girls and women that are skinny with a tiny waist, slender legs, flawless skin, big eyes, perfect lips and nose, and dressed in designer fashions or next to nothing at all” says one source, whose name is kept private. Flip through any magazine, watch any movie or commercial and the (usually female) person on the cover will be slim, fit, and flawless. “I saw a watch commercial in a magazine the other day, it featured a woman lying naked on a bed with a watch on her wrist, it wasn’t even the main focus on the magazine. It was a tiny image on an even tinier wrist of a woman.” In many cases it seems as though woman exist for no other reason than to be an object to make things look good and for sex.
“Well I think that mass media provides really unrealistic expectations for young people on what their bodies should look like. It also can make someone feel like they won't be able to achieve anything or ever be good enough unless they look that way” Says Akanksha Shukla another student at UWCSEA. Mass media is designed to reach large audiences through technology. Its purpose is meant to give information we need to function as a society. Mass media is everywhere, there is no escaping from it. From the moment you wake up until you fall asleep you are bombarded with media especially now everyone is on-line, all the time.
Almost every home in Singapore has at least one television, access to the internet, and cell phones.“You would think that the media is for entertainment, understanding current events, or to catch your eye. Now however, I suppose it does catch the eye, but in a different way. The media shakes you up and pushes you down. As if you were taught to despise yourself, all for not looking like something that no one truly has” - The Fab Master
The media has a wide impact on people, particularly in female teens and children. A 2012 a study showed that even girls at the age of five aren’t happy with their body and begin dieting at the age of only eight years old. In the same study 47% of girls in 5th-12th grade felt that magazine pictures of women influenced them to want to lose weight, and 69% of girls in one study said that magazine models influence their idea of the perfect body shape. Another study in 2013 in America, showed that 50% of all commercials aimed at women/girls, spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at men/ boys did the same.
The media portrays what is considered to be normal for how a female acts and looks, and therefore affects what women in society feel they should look and act like. The media's portrayal of body image affects women negatively through using stereotypes, encouraging thinness, and promoting unnecessary products. One figure which is constant in every form of media is the woman. Not just any woman, but a woman who possesses a “perfect” body. She has a tiny waist, slender legs, flawless skin, perfectly sized and placed eyes, lips and nose, and dressed in the latest fashion or next to nothing at all. Is this woman real, does anybody know this woman in real life? The answer is no, she is a photoshopped person. The media portrays what a "normal" body should look like, when in reality it’s not real.
A study in America in 2012 states that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness for women, and that in 2012 ten million women in america have eating disorders, and 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. Another study in Australian high school girls, 76% of the girls wished they were thinner, 50% have tried to lose weight, and only 16% were happy with their body weight. In the same study, more than one in five young adolescent men say that body image is their number one concern. Many young girls go to great lengths to achieve these unrealistic standards of thinness and “beauty”. Dissatisfaction with your physical appearance is viewed as a core feature of eating disorders. A negative body image is also commonly paired with depression. There appears to be a link, although unclear, between depression and a poor body image.
“Fairy tale after fairy tale tells us that what matters is being beautiful “on the inside” but what does that really mean? It means submission, obedience and the suppression of one’s own desires. Don’t be haughty and proud. Clean the hearth. Kiss the frog. Love the beast. Suck it up when you’re replaced by a younger model. Sure, you may look fine, but you mustn’t feel fine. You mustn’t be vain. You mustn’t be angry. All fury and pain must be turned back on itself. That way you’ll be a real princess: silent, fragile and never threatening to challenge the status quo.”- From feminist blog Glosswatch.
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