"If I Were A Boy" by Beyonce

Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy" is a very different song. It takes you through the life of a women who wishes she was a boy, and describes what her life what be like if she was a boy. She could just "roll out of bed in the morning, and throw on what" she wanted, and then go. She would not have to worry about dressing up and looking nice, like women have to do. She plays a police officer in the music video, which a symbol of masculine work. She speaks of drinking beer with the guys, giving the listener a feeling that men have more time on their hands to just hang out with their friends and have a good time. Women would be expected to be caring for the children, cooking and cleaning during this time. The woman in the song says that if she were a boy, “I think I could understand How it feels to love a girl”. This indicates that the girl feels that boys don’t understand girls, and if she were a boy she would correct the wrong and understand girls. If she were a boy, she would “turn off her phone [and] tell everyone it’s broken, so they’d think that I was sleeping alone.” If a girl was to turn off her phone, and tell people it was broken, they would not believe her. Boy’s have more privileges and can do just about anything they want, and be believed about any lie that they make up, just because they are a boy.

This song addresses a lot of the issues that are present in society still today. Like men still being above women, but this song brings up a lot of new problems, like women wanting to be men. Women should be able to feel comfortable in their body and this society. If women are going to ever be seen as equal, we need to break down the rest of these barriers and be strong. We need to embrace our womanhood and what makes us women.

Hopefully this song empowers women to be better, not to feel overpowered by men.

The Great Gender Gap

Car commercials have always been very powerful. They seem to really lull people into buying certain cars and tell people which type of car they should buy. Gender is portrayed very distinctly in these commercials.



This Toyota VENZA commercial shows one example of this gender divide. Here two women are talking of the VENZA and all it has to offer. It has lots of "cargo space" for all their stuff, it's affordable so these women have "more money for shopping" and it is marketed towards women. Women who are primary seen as mothers, mothers who go car shopping and need tons of cargo space, and want more money to buy things. If women are constantly portrayed as the mothering ones, the one's that need the minivan and not the sports car, then women will always be put in this same group. They will always been seen as the ones that need to care for the children and who don't need to go to work. Women will constantly be downgraded and will never gain the power that they deserve in society; they will always be second to men. Now let's look at a sports car commercial:



This Audi Supercharged A6 commercial is a man going through time driving a multitude of cars popular during the certain time frame, and of course he is driving fast and recklessly. The male is portrayed as the character that does not have a worry in his life. He is not the one who needs extra cargo space, but he needs a Supercharged car, one that can go ridiculous speeds, maybe inferring that he needs to hurry in order to get to work on time. He jumps through hoops (and windows) to get to his car. He needs a beautiful car, just like beautiful women, huh? So if the man is always in the fast car does that mean he is always on the fast track in life? The one that has all of the power in society, the controller of all women and all other cars.

Car commercials have always had this gender divide, so when some of the car commercials that challenge this gap came out, everyone questioned the car maker. Why would this particular car company make a commercial that challenged this gender gap? Are women in greater control in this company, or are the men just more progressive?

Perfect, is it possible?

The world has come up with standards for women, and those standards are not only seen on the TV, in commercials, in magazines, in newspapers, on the runway, in movies, and every other place in the media. Women are constantly trying to be this perfect girl, and so I decided to do a little experiment, I goggled "How to be the Perfect Girl" and the first article that came up was a guide entitled "How to be A Perfect Girl." This article talks about how girls need to brush their teeth every day, promoting a perfectly white smile, just like in all of those toothpaste commercials. For instance, Crest toothpaste often airs commercials where a girl gets boys because of her shiny smile! They talk about how you have to sit lady like, and use a good screen name. It's like the article is generalizing the girl, and taking out the individuality of each one of them.

The media describes the perfect girl as not too short, but not too tall. They cannot be too thin, like the Stars of the new 90210, where many of the actresses are being harassed for being "too thin for TV" or Jessica Simpson, who is being called fat.

Certainly, she does not look fat to me! If young girls are being told that Jessica Simpson is fat, how do they feel about themselves?

Young girls, starting at the age of 5 and 6 are having eating disorders. Does anyone remember the 2 young girls who were in the media not too long ago? One appeared on Good Morning America, where she stated "I think sweatpants make my legs look fat," [Even though she is thin, the little girl said she runs to keep her weight down.] "I don't want the fat to spread all over my body." (http://preventdisease.com/news/articles/disorders_start_early.shtml) The other young girl ate paper, yes paper instead of food because she thought that she was chubby like in her baby pictures! A lot of people say that not only is the media, in forms of television and movies, but in the toys that many young girls are playing with. Take for instance, Barbie. What does she look like?

Barbie has a very unporportional waist line, a busty breasts and butt and thin legs and arms. She is a body that is unachievable to most all women! So if a little girl looks at herself and sees that her hips and waist are the same size, she immediately thinks she is chubby.

Hopefully, this idea of a perfect girl will soon disappear or at least be changed to included real women, like in the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. Perfect in unachievable by all, now why can the media not see that?

Lifetime, Downgrading Women

Lifetime, the Network for Women, regularly and continually downgrades women. The shows that Lifetime airs are continuously showing women that they need to rely on men, need to dress a certain way, or can't go on in life if they are not married. I decided to browse the Lifetime homepage, and found many downgrading links. Women can get on the Network's Internet site that is suppose to make women feel that they do not need to focus on beauty or men or money to be happy or successful in life, and see the "Top Headlines" of Get the Look: Ethnic Hair Celeb Style, a Recipe for Chicken Cacciatore Over Pasta that "won't pack on the pounds" and a Game to Get a Total Makeover Now. If only the headlines would say things like Real Women's Stories about how they are successful without a man, or why they don't need the newest fashion to be beautiful or why makeup does not make you how you are!

So why would Lifetime call themselves the Women's Network if they are only adding to the problem that is Women in media. I think that it has to do something with who Lifetime is owned by, "The Walt Disney Company." The Disney Company continually makes movies and television shows usually present women as needing to be saved and hopeless. For example, in Cinderella. Cinderella is first saved by her fairy god mother and then wisped off by her "Prince Charming." She is changed from a maid into a Princess. I think that Lifetime's way of making women feel has to deal with who are the "big wigs" at The Walt Disney Company. 3 out of 12 of the people on the Board of Directors are female, and they do not hold even the largest roles, or have been on the board the longest.

Media Conglomeration has become a huge problem in the world of television, Internet, movies, board games, action figures, and even more. Since the media is being controlled by only a few certain people, and is so horizontally integrated, that no matter what television station you are watching you are being feed the ideas of these few people that control all of the media.

How do you think Lifetime would be different if it was controlled by say Viacom, Time Warner, NBC, News Corporation, or was independently owned?