Male Superiority

Male Superiority

Starting in the 1920’s, the role of women began to change. Finally, people in the United States began to realize that females are capable of doing just as much as men are based on the work they did during the war. Although this period of time brought many societal changes, such as the increase in working women and shorter skirts, many things still remained the same. Women were still thought of as weak and most remained housewives. Even though they were given the right to vote, sexism still existed and exists until today. The sustaining thought that women are only good for cooking and sex still lurks within our society and the question remains of why. A lot of it has to do with the way media portrays women and the limited amount of role models that young girls can look up to. From the advertisements that are shown everyday to the work force, the United States still holds the ideas of a patriarchal society close to its heart. Therefore, I completely agree with the way the movie, Miss Representation, presents how women are viewed in the United States.

We live in a patriarchal society, a society that is run by men and centered around men. If we look around, mostly all political leaders, news anchors, and any people that hold a higher power in the United States are male. This country has been in existence for the past 238 years, yet, we still have not had a female president; although, we came close to having one. When looking back at the 2008 presidential elections, Hillary Clinton, a woman of a high ranking, was just another victim of sexualisation, and with presidential elections coming up, she remains a target for humiliation. Back in 2008, while the media publicised Obama’s campaign for change, they did not neglect to criticise Clinton on her body, age and voice, never mentioning the qualifications that she had for the job. The media never took her seriously which made the people do the same. News channels such as Fox News and MSNBC made comments on how “[Hillary Clinton] looks like she is 92 years old” and how “that may scare away a lot of those independent voters” (Bixby). This example, if looked at as a whole, shows how stereotypical today’s society actually is. Although Hillary Clinton was a woman who was “the only American first lady to hold national office” (Hillary Clinton) which later became the 67th U.S. Secretary of State, the society and/or media never publicised her credentials; however, they never had a problem talking about her hair.

What kind of image is that giving the young girls that listen to the media everyday? It is definitely making them misprioritize. By seeing that the media cares more about the way a celebrity or even a political figure looks rather than how intelligent they are, they tend to follow that same route by putting their image first and education second. In addition to the news channels and the overall media, the music industry is also a major factor of this sudden rise of sexualisation. For example, when I go to different kinds of festivals throughout the year, I see a lot of girls showing off a lot of skin and acting as if in order to get anything, all they need is have a nice body and any man will give in. Around 5 years ago, when EDM wasn’t as popular, wearing a shirt that exposed a girl’s whole stomach was completely inappropriate; however, now it has become a norm. I believe that the music industry brainwashes guys to believe that this is how the real world works; at the same time, women are taking the idea of sexism and using it to their advantage since they cannot do anything to stop it. Thus, in Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel remarks, “We need to challenge the media conglomerates to value women for more than their youth, beauty, and sexuality and we must hold these companies accountable”. (Siebel)

How is it that although we say we moved on from the days before women's rights and changed our ways, we still remain dependent on the values of the old-fashioned patriarchal society to function? We still depend on the idea of women only being sexual objects and treating them as so. One can see this on the commercials that we see throughout our days that try to persuade us to buy a particular product. Companies such as Coca-Cola and Axe use this method as their go to in every commercial. The plot of these commercials usually goes along the lines of the idea that as soon as one buys a particular product, females will gravitate towards them, giving the public the idea that females are only dogs chasing a bone while males remain sophisticated and dominant.

In addition, the 2011 edition of Vogue magazine in France created a front cover that illustrated models, wearing all black with a seductive