 |
| "YOU HAVE TO DO ALL THE THINGS AND BE CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE WHILE DOING THEM!" "BUY OUR STUFF!" (Image: The Sociological Cinema) |
No one can be exposed to all that constantly without negative effects.
I don't think I've ever met a woman who hasn't been hurt by the media. It's so pervasive that even when women try to climb out of the trap of self-hate, they just end up in a different one.
Most women I know have said something along the lines of "I'm not like most women. I like [insert thing a lot of people like but isn't stereotypically feminine by media standards here]. I get along better with men because all women except me are shallow bitches." Even I've said similar things in the past.
 |
| One of countless "other girls vs. me" images. (Image: beekkake) |
But that statement isn't true. Most women aren't like the depictions of women we see in the media. Even women who like traditionally feminine things don't match what the media says a woman should be because the "ideal woman" doesn't exist. She can't exist. As the documentary explained, no one can actually be the mess of contradictions we're supposed to aspire to.
Women end up spending so much of our time and energy battling each other that we as a whole aren't able to realize that women aren't the problem in this mess. The problem is that right now mass media is a tool used by the patriarchy to maintain inequality.
The main issue that I had with the documentary is that it didn't present any ideas for how to fix the problem. (Or perhaps it did, but we just didn't get to that part.) It hinted at maybe having more women in working in the media could help, but part of the film talked about how women are trying to hold media jobs but can't get hired.
It seems like unless we get a majority of men to fight for women's representation there isn't any hope for change. But how can we get men to fight for change when they're already benefiting from the current system?
