Page 48 - Sandy Jackman Pantai Hotel

Women Role Models 2014
A couple weeks ago I began a project exploring the second wave of femi- Shailene Woodley - Starring in the upcoming film
nism and the affect the movement had on society. At the beginning of this
project my teacher asked me what women I looked up to. I stared blankly
back at him, not sure what women I thought were my role models. This clarified saying “For me the big thing in life is about sisterhood,” she says.
raised a whole set of questions in my mind because It’s not that I don’t look
up to people, I just realized in that moment that I am probably not looking up
to the right ones. I found myself aspiring to be certain people for their looks
and not their accomplishments. women. I’m so lucky. I have the best sisters in my life. The best.”
Have you ever noticed the way ads use bodies to sell their products, por-
traying women as the weaker ones, making them the sum of their bodies?
By Lizzy Marples
Objectifying a woman is making her an object
of sexual desire instead of a human being with
feelings. The second wave of feminism arose in
the 60’s and women finally started to emerge from
the social roles that men had placed on them.
These social norms/roles included the ideology
that woman could only be housewives and nothing
more. This second feminist movement was great
progress for empowering women. However, media
was growing right alongside the movement and
took this empowerment and made it into some-
thing exactly the opposite of empowering: Notice
that the majority of the products women became
objectified on were products that men use such
as; beer, cigars, and cologne. When large cor-
porations realized that sex sells, you start to see
women becoming only a sum of their body parts in
all type of media.
Keeping that in mind, imagine how seeing these
“perfect” women in advertisements, and how they
are portrayed as less than men, could affect the
way young women value themselves and their
morals. Being a young women growing up in
this social media craved generation, I have been
affected first hand. Social media has become
a filter for people’s lives, to show only what the
majority wants to see. When I see Kylie Jenners
tweet about getting a brand new Range Rover
and then scroll through her Instagram only to see
how happy she looks I begin to think that one must
have what she has in order to be happy. Instead
of looking up to women like Michelle Obama, who
is a graduate of Princeton and devotes her life to
helping other people. Teens look up to Miley Cyrus
who is all over the media and looks like she’s hav-
ing the time of her life.
Since finishing my project I have redefined my role
models and encourage other young women to do
the same. There are so many empowering women
out there who are happy and contributing to the
world in positive ways. My top four are:
Jennifer Lawrence - Actress who began her
career in Winter's Bone. The media called her
fat and she was told to lose weight for one of her
roles, but she refused because she didn’t want to
conform to the typical super skinny actress role
JK Rowling - British Author who basically created
a whole empire off her Harry Potter series
Sheryl Sandburg - Chief Operating Officer of
Facebook
Cindy Sherman - Photographer/Artist/Model/
Director whose art portrays women living in this
society
A Fault in Our Stars, Shailene was asked if she was feminist and said no,
which caused lots of controversy. But instead of fighting the media she
“Bringing sisters together and supporting one another…What I found so
funny and so sad about that article is that I talked about that the entire
time. Nothing is going to change in this world until women start loving other