Preview

The Effect of Media on Men and Women

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1285 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Effect of Media on Men and Women
Cole Cooper
Prof. Selby
English Composition 101
9 Sept. 2012
The Effect of Media on Men and Women In the past decade, media has become a lifestyle for most of America. Our lives are being shaped on and around the influence of whatever the media is saying we should live and act. Ever since the media has managed to work its way into our culture, it has had the largest influence on society. Everyone has started to use the media as a trend-setter that tells us what is popular and what is not. This can be a major problem in society today because this influence is too heavy and pushes people to think they are not important and have no purpose in life. This effect on men and women has been very negative in the sense that it is degrading to people to try to be something they cannot really be. Negativity brought on by the media is consistently seen throughout sports, fashion and advertisement worlds. And although media has brought man negative things, it has also brought some positive influences to society, some would argue, in politics and other areas women can be seen excelling in. In addition, it has been shown to have a positive effect on men when exemplary men are on TV or in the print media. The world today has brought media into everything we do, including sports, which would make sense with it because they are nationally televised. Women have always been at the low end of the spectrum when it comes to sports. They hardly have any professional sport that’s constantly being shown outside of the Olympics. The top two that come to mind are women’s basketball and golf. The media is the sports casting network and has nearly shut down any mention of these sports at all. Sports networks such as ESPN and Sportscenter focus on the male sports of that season usually baseball, basketball, or football. Occasionally other sports are highlighted, but rarely a woman’s sport. The media has so much influence in women’s sports that since no one wants to watch women play



Cited: Cassel, Jean. “Gender Discrimination in Sports.” Livestrong. np. 19 June. 2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. “How Do Negative Body Images in the Media Impact Women? Physical and Mental Effects.” Hubpages. np. 6 June. 2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. “Media Images of Female Models Have Negative Effect on Men.” News-medical. Np. 7 Nov. 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. Steele, Melisa. “National Statistics for Anorexia.” teen-beauty-tips. np. nd. Web. 23 Sept. 2012.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Within sport, gender has played a huge role the way it affects one’s involvement in participation. As I will explore sociologically in this essay, there are a great number of reasons why this has occurred and still does occur, and the way in which pre-conceived ideas and stereotypes along with many other things affect sport involvement.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An issue that I have always been concerned with is how much attention male sports get, while female sports get pushed aside. Males and females put forth the same amount of effort and the same amount of hard work towards the sports they play, and in return males dominate the limelight. Arguments opposing this show that males are obviously better athletes than females. According to Mariah Burton Nelson, controversial activist and author, football, baseball and other manly sports in the United States are not games, but a culture which offer a pre-civil rights world where white men, as owners, coaches and umpires, still rule. In the manly sports, men learn to think about and talk about women in contempt. It is common practice for boys to be belittled as "wusses" or worse if they are not tough or brutal enough or willing to deny their own pain or the pain of others.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Myers, Philip N. J, and Frank A. Biocca. "The Elastic Body Image: the Effect of Television Advertising and Programming on Body Image Distortions in Young Women." Journal of Communication. 42.3 (1992): 108-33. Print. 29 Apr. 2012.…

    • 2138 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The sports community defends the men ability more than they do with the females, and women should receive the same opportunities as the men. There has been a lot of high school, and colleges that have dealt with discrimination of gender in…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The sports industry works against females as only 4% of sports programming and 5% of media print are devoted to female athletics. Even within these small percentages, females experience sports coverage that consists of anything but their actual athletics because the media considers their “competition outfit or hair” the most engaging aspect of their athletic ability. Furthermore, 99.6% of sponsorship money goes towards the male sports industry.…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Our nation has invested itself, economically and socially, in sports for more than a century. To the athletic elite, there is the opportunity to turn their childhood passion into their livelihood. From the four most recognized professional sports in America - Baseball (MLB) , Football (NFL) , Basketball (NFL), and Hockey (NHL) - only a select handful of athletes reach the professional level, and even fewer remain at that level and see long-term success. Our nation as seen a continuous evolution in professional sports when regarding the integration of race and gender into the games. It provides a unique experience to view sporting events, one being performed by female athletes and the other by male athletes, from a sociological mindset and take…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the past 100 years, gender roles of men and women have started to change greatly in our society, and especially in the world of sports. Recently, female athletes have made great strides in gaining equal representation, and media coverage, in comparison to the past, where there was little coverage of female athletics. In addition, women have begun to participate in many sports that have previously been male dominated. Some of these sports such as MMA, and hockey have been perceived as “manly” sports, and many feel that women should not participate in them due to their physically demanding nature. However, even though many female athletes have been discouraged from participating in male dominated sports, women have continued to break…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Thin Ideal

    • 2809 Words
    • 12 Pages

    The impact of media images on men and women in America is a formation of an unrealistic illustration of the thin ideal. The media has painted a picture of "the perfect body", people who choose to accept these ideals develop a fantasy and fictitious image of what the ideal body is. In our society, where the mass media is the single strongest transmitter of unrealistic beauty ideals, it is often held responsible for the high proportion of women and men who are dissatisfied with their bodies.…

    • 2809 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In Sara Maratta's article, "Move Over Boys, Make room in the Crease," Maratta takes a stand against unequal representation of female athletes in the sports world. Maratta describes her love of hockey and how being a part of the sports world opened her eyes as to the amount of mistreatment toward females in the athletic world such as female athletes, coaches and journalists (Birkenstein 537). The nature of sports and female athletics has come very a long way in such a short amount of time. Many strictly male dominated sports now have many women participating in them. So many women have been participating in male dominating the past few years that they are now creating special divisions of those sports for female athletes. Female athletes have been crossing the cultural barriers of sports for the past decade or so and have had and amazing turn out. Women are now being recognized greatly for their effort in sports and are now being taken seriously as athletes. Though there has been much success in these past years for women being equally recognized in sports, there are still aspects in the sports world in which women are still treated as lesser equal to men.…

    • 1380 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Studies have found that when women are exposed to sexualized material and media it can increase the risk of depressive symptoms (Durkin and Paxton 2002), lower self-esteem (Grabe et al. 2007) and cause body dissatisfaction (Davison et al. 2000). It also leads to women internalizing the objectifying and sexualized messages in the media. This causes women to feel valued only if they maintains a physical appearance that is sexually desirable for men. This is known as self-objectification (Fredickson & Roberts 1997). According to Fredickson and Roberts (1997), Self-objectification may increase a woman’s anxiety about her physical appearance, increase body shaming (comparing her body to someone on the media that is culturally accepted), and increase chances of eating disorders and…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For years men were seen as the prevailing light of sports; women weren’t socially accepted to engage in sports, it was seen as a function only men could do. In recent years women have begun to embrace sports and knock down the norm that sports are only for men. However, a concealed affair that persists is the faulty image the media has portrayed on how female athletes should look. According to the article, “I Won, I’m Sorry.” by Mariah Burton Nelson there is still a disequillbrium between men and women in sports. Women are limited, in a sense, due to the fact they have to keep their feminine side alive otherwise they’ll be looked down on, seen as manly, or homosexual. After visiting sportsister.com I came to the realization that women are showed…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Hegemony In Sports

    • 2840 Words
    • 12 Pages

    This paper is going to be about how females have been ignored and looked down on in the sports world. Since Title IX of the Educational Amendments gave women the right to play the number of women coaching women dropped since 1972. Why? This paper will break it down while applying a few theories to show that there is a problem, also these theories will give us a better understand of what’s actually going on and why the decline of women coaches has gone down since Title IX. Will look into the potential solutions to help…

    • 2840 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both men and women from all over the world play sports. However, many of the women play as a hobby, but not as a profession. Women’s sports aren’t as popular as men’s sports, due to the lack of attention from the media as well as the few product endorsements and the negative idea that not all sports should be played by women. Society does not have high enough expectations for women athletes, which is why women athletes don’t receive the same amount of opportunities or have the same image as male athletes. Society should have higher expectations, so female athletes will be viewed differently.…

    • 713 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Over the centuries, beauty has been primarily defined by pictures of socially adorable figures and portrayals of idolized women — often became the epitome of what is attractive and beautiful. Nevertheless, past literatures have shown that people being barraged with numerous idealized images may lower self- esteem and cause various psychological disorders. The purpose of this report is to investigate whether an increasing amount of media exposure will lead to body image distortion. A survey consisting of 45 questions regarding their attitudes towards the idealized images, their habits and perceptions were asked, which aims to evaluate the effect of the media. There were 40 participants, with 15 males and 25 females. Results supported the hypothesis, demonstrating that exposure to both magazine and television induce body dissatisfaction based on comparison and self-evaluation. A considerable number of people have constantly tried to control their weight.…

    • 3579 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How media affects us

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Media affects everyone's life that comes into contact with it. There are many disadvantages and advantages to media and advertising. This essay will talk about the advantages and disadvantages evolving around the media. A few advantages that this essay will talk about is that media can target a global audience as they can reach out to us and that it can be used for educational purposes to help people learn all around the world. A few disadvantages are that it can be manipulated very easily and that it can easily tell us exactly what to want, what to wear, how to think, taking away our freedom.…

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays