The Sexual Exploitation and objectification of Women in the Media

Sex sells, it’s a fact. 

You may think this to be an unusual topic for a 21 year old man to be delving into, why would I harbour any concern about what lies behind the blonde hair, big tits and high heels that presents itself as the face of many television programmes, adverts and well.. Just about anything in the media in this day and age? 

I recently had the great displeasure of viewing The Victoria’s Secret fashion show, a gratuitous carnival of ‘perfect’ women strutting about in nothing but some lingerie (very high end and expensive so of course you must buy it right now!) and some heels. A picture of perfection you could say, why wouldn’t I be drawn into this maddening sexual feast for the eyes, especially as I’d not long finished my Christmas Dinner and it could have been deemed as the perfect dessert. It is baffling circus’s like this which try and construct a ridiculous paradigm of physical perfection for Women and which essentially become a ‘yes, yes, definitely, yes till she can’t walk’ slideshow for men which are incredibly damaging to society and, in all truth, more sickening than having a third slice of Christmas cake.

There is a deep-rooted and historical problem which lies behind the misogynistic representation of Women in the media. It seems to me that any woman, provided she fulfils the correct ‘formula’ which is set down by the producers hiding somewhere backstage, can be portrayed as nothing more than a sex object and her intelligence and input to the production of the show can become secondary behind the superficial elements of her persona. 

Don’t get me wrong there are examples of naked Women being used as an art form, imagine Titanic without the famous ‘Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls’ scene. This may be a very literal example of nudity as Art, but there are examples in mainstream media of tasteful and, I would go as far as to say, beautiful and empowering images of Women bearing all, but these examples are few and far between, tangled up in the general smut which is underlying in almost all things these days.

Idolisation, fame and the sale of products come far too readily from pure image and superficial values. Real talent and ability seems to be easily overlooked and it is this mainstream, almost impossible to avoid marketing which creates pressure on girls from an increasingly young age to look the way that the people in the mind bending media tell them that they should look. This inevitably leads them to believe that the most important pursuit in life is physical perfection, forever fighting the voice inside their head, the voice of sanity and reason it could be called, which is telling them to put that make up down and do something… what’s that word? Worthwhile. 

I’m not sure how far the image of Women in the media will ever change if I’m honest, as long as sex exists (and I do believe that’s a thing that will never lose its popularity somehow) it will always be an enormous selling point for almost everything, which is a sad thing.