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?