Women on Wednesdays discusses body image in media
Women swiftly thumb through the latest copy of Vogue magazine, nonchalantly gazing at advertisements featuring predominantly white females who some might call frail, lean, sexually enticing and vulnerable.
By unknowingly internalizing the media’s message, some in American society deem this portrayal of women as the social standard.
GCSU Women’s Resource Center is vocal in its campaign to release women from what it considers unrealistic standards society has placed upon them, and to promote diversity in the media by demanding to see “real” people in advertisements through its signature program, Women on Wednesdays.
Some women gathered in Maxwell Student Union room 143 on Sept. 30 to discuss the media’s portrayal of women and the impact on body image.
Senior psychology major Tiffany Payton led the event and encourages students to visit and be involved with the Women’s Resource Center.
“This is just a safe place where, even though we like to think that things like that don’t happen on our campus and in our community, they do. We provide a place for these women to come and hopefully start dealing with these issues, and advocating against them,” Payton said. “Especially women in college, it’s in our faces all the time; we’re constantly being faced with these new situations.”
Discussions were held concerning the lack of diversity within the media and the serious outcomes linked to negative body image, such as eating disorders, depression and anxiety. Women’s Resource Center Coordinator Jennifer Graham provided photos showing the female’s skewed portrayal through nearly every media outlet.
“You think, ‘body image, aww, is it really such a big deal? Yeah, I know they are models, they’re Photoshopped; I know it’s fake,’ but at the same time when that’s constantly what you’re bombarded with then it affects each person’s mental image of how they envision themselves and the goals they make,” Graham said.
The women who attended the Sept. 30 meeting found themselves searching through popular magazines, cutting out images they felt threatened feminine identities.
One by one, each woman made her way to the front of the room, placing the pictures from the magazines onto posters labeled “objects,” “rewards,” “victims,” “mothers,” “leaders,” “active” and “children.” In a matter of minutes, the entire front wall stood engulfed by the images.
The participants continued with discussions of personal experiences and were provided with a number of resources such as Web sites like loveyourbodynowfoundation.org, adiosbarbie.com, campaignforrealbeauty.com and eatright.org.
The Women’s Resource Center posts upcoming events on its Web site, http://www.gcsu.edu/womenscenter, as well as its Facebook group.
“If enough people voice their opinion that this type of image isn’t what I want to see then the media will catch on and will start to change what they put out there,” Graham said, “It’d be a really good thing to feature real people, it’d be good.”
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 9 2009. Filed under Features.
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