revolution WOMEN MAKING WAVES
OBJECTIFIED INVISIBLE EXCLUDED STANDARDIZED OVERLOOKED
VARIOUS DISPLA AY YS OF WOMEN IN THE MEDIA
If this was magazine.... If we were viewing “Surfer “Surfer”” magazine magazine,, the inside front cover would be a large advertisement of a man surfing with a woman photoshopped into the picture. This reoccurring woman is typically facing away from the camera, leaving us to see her unclothed backside and guess what her face might look like.. The picture to the left would rarely be pictured. Although it is a sexual picture, it is also a picture of a female surfing. The surfing world is primarily dominated by men, therefore, women are hidden away. Another instance where a girl might be featured, other than sexually, would be for fashion purposes. This targets the girls who flip through the pages and pause at the cute outfits and tangible products which they’d find useful. It seems evident that women are advertised sexually not only in surfing magazines, but also in magazines such as “Rolling Stone” and other general interest magazines. Studies of women’s roles in media have been studied as early as the 1970’s. The sexual exploiting is seen as a “negative sign in a male-dominated culture,” in addition to a distortion of realistic looking women. There still remains active portrayal of women in the media both sexually and submissively as housewives and mothers. However, sometimes women feel lucky to be represented at all. While there are individual magazines for women’s surfing only, they are relatively small and overlooked due to little popularity in comparison to the larger men’s surfing magazines.
w? n e m o w e r e h
are the
REPRESENTED GIRLS GONE M.I.A.
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In “Surfer” magazine’s 50 years of producing monthly issues of magazines, there have been a short four magazines featuring women on the cover. Keala Kennelly believes that women’s surfing has been diminishing ever since the two biggest wave locations, “Teahupoo and Tavarua permanently disappeared from the Women’s World Tour schedule.” It -Keala Kennelly makes complete sense that interest in a sport would decline if the playing field was suddenly lessened. Most people don’t want to watch good surfers compete on waves that are not challenging. Attention is brought to the sport when the best surfers compete on the most challenging and deathly waves, and this was taken from the girls Although some women are making more than any female surfers have in the past, it is still nothing compared to what males make in the sport. A female world champion prize is set around $10K, where a male world champion prize is set at $300K. Most women can make more as professional models than professional surfers. Although the talent is high, interest is declining.
Girl G
pretty good... for a
Separate, not equal
Many sports programs not only form a habit of preference for separating male and female sports, but also make it a legal requirement. This includes recreational , educational, and even professional sports. This reinforces women’s sports and power to be second-class.
By segregating sports, that is saying that there are physical differences between men and women, therefore, causing women to be inferior to men. As a result, women are naturally brought up as submissive and less powerful. Although most of our values are based on judgment on the individual level rather than the group level, we still remain stuck in this legal requirement that all girls are not up to standards with all boys. One example I came across this summer while working at a camp for children was that girls were not able to sign up for baseball as an activity.. However, the boys at the camp were permitted to sign up for softball. In movies such as “She’s the Man,” “A League of Their Own,” and “Little Giants” these stereotypical roles are challenged. Amanda Bynes acts as both herself and poses as
her brother in order to play soccer for a school that wouldn’t previously allow girls and didn’t have a girls soccer team. She proved that she was just as capable and changed the school’s ruling on female athletes. “Little Giants” features Becky, who plays football better than most of the boys on her team, but suffers from being treated as another boy. She has a brief moment where she tries cheerleading in order to gain a boys attention. This reinforces the idea that males don’t particularly like female athletes and prefer women to stick to the feminine stereotype given to them. Many aspects of media feature women as inferior and unable to compete with males in sports, which just reinforces the idea that women are truly inferior.
HIS
hers
HOW BEAUTY we perceive
Beautiful just the way we are?
We are constantly exposed to women in advertising and media with unrealistic bodies and faces. Almost every model and celebrity has the look of perfection. The media produces a new “normal.,” where beautiful women don’t measure up to perfection model standards. “Dove” formed a new campaign, where, instead of marketing age defying cream, they sold self-esteem. Dove took a realistic approach in their depiction of women, showing happy, average sized women in addition to an ordinary woman who was photoshopped to become the beauty which media creates and enforces. Virginia Postrel challenges Dove’s campaign in “The Truth About Beauty,” featured in “The Atlantic.” Postrel argues that not all women are beautiful just the way they are, and that we (even as infants) naturally perceive differences in attractive versus unattractive faces. Although Dove does market much more realistic women who are happy in their skin, they are still relatively young, pretty, and maintain hour glass figures. Dove markets the statistic that “only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful.” However, “in another Dove survey, 88 percent of the American women polled said they’re at least somewhat satisfied with their face.” The media continues representing women who are closer to perfection than half of its consumers. Dove just attempts to not make consumers feel inferior, and instead, beautiful.
The women’s surfing world may be diminished, but there are some powerful girls doing big things behind the scenes. Carissa Moore was recently the fourth girl ever to be featured on the cover of “Surfer magazine.” The previous one was Lisa Andersen, over a decade ago. In addition, Keala Kennelly became the first girl to tow into Teahupoo. Although she injured herself on the reef, she had some spectacular rides that made the men’s surfing world recognize her talent, at least for a girl. Bethany Hamilton gained some attention with her shark attack that took her arm. She is seen to the right pushing on, even after the accident. The movie, “Soul Surfer” was based on her life and dedication to surfing. “Blue Crush” was another movie which featured an actual intensity in the women’s surfing world. However, that is when Kennelly believed was the peak of women’s surfing. While some media exists promoting women’s surfing, many of these fabulous professional surfers are not given the credit they deserve.
WHY Have they been
IGNORED? G i r l s go i ng B ig
Kat herine Kennedy