Sex, Lies & Media: New Wave of Activists Challenge Notions of Beauty

By on March 10, 2012 in News 4

Miss RepresentationEmanuella Grinberg writes on CNN:

Here’s the fantasy: A half-naked woman lies across a couch, lips pouty and cleavage prominent as her sultry gaze implores you to buy this bottle of perfume.

The reality: Women make up 51% of the United States yet only 17% of seats in the House of Representatives. They’re 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 7% of directors in the top 250 grossing films.

What’s the connection? We live in a sexualized society where the gap between fantasy and reality is vast and harmful, director and activist Jennifer Siebel-Newsom says. “Women are aspiring to do great things in leadership, yet the glass ceiling is still there because of the way media depict women,” Siebel-Newsom said. “It influences our culture and dictates our gender norms and values.”

Siebel-Newsom’s documentary, Miss Representation, is the latest cinematic foray in the movement to challenge portrayals of beauty in “the media,” a term used to describe all forms of mass communication, from the internet, TV, film, magazines, radio and advertising …

Read More: CNN

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  • Liquidself

    You re only looking at one half of the equation.

  • chinagreenelvis

    Because handsome, rich men are never used to sell products.

    The argument that women are prevented from holding an equal percentage of powerful positions as men assumes that enough women are actually interested in holding those positions that it would even be possible.

  • Apathesis

    Hey, if women still read crap like Us Weekly, OK!, Cosmo, etc what do they expect?  They do it to themselves.   That garbage needs to stop being published and any intelligent woman who respects herself wouldn’t pollute her brain with that crap.  Cosmo is a how-to guide for hussies and basically tells woman they are only good for their looks and sex.

    • Monkey See Monkey Do

      You mean how men still read crap like Ralph, FHM, Zoo Weekly and all the other misogynistic magazines out there. Don’t forget that men play a big role in the status of women too.