We have talked a lot about how the media portrays women, but how do women portray themselves in the media? Many social networking sites have become popular lately and one that sticks out is Facebook. On this site you can not only post information about where you live, what you do for a living, and who you are in a relationship with, but also pictures of yourself, writing notes to each other, and even “poke” people. We spend so much time focusing on how the media portrays women and what kind of face they are giving to the “average” woman, but how our women themselves portraying women? Many times I have seen (and been guilty of) posting pictures that may not depict women in the best light. There are photo’s of scantily clad women, women extremely drunk, and women doing things that just are not respectful to themselves. It is not just the photo’s we are allowing to portray us poorly. Everyone can see what you write on another’s “wall” and sometimes they might seem disrespectful to someone that might not be in on the joke. If I were to call a friend a “bitch” on Facebook, that could give permission for other people to call her that, even if it were a joke between us. While I think it is important to look at how the media portrays women, we should also be looking at how we are portraying ourselves.
Here is a blog related to women and Facebook, called Women on Facebook Think Provocative is Empowering
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/09/women-on-facebo.html
Another article on CNN about how women portray themselves on Facebook called
Young Women Drink, Party, Post
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/10/face.book/index.html
Here is a video that pokes fun at the dangers of Facebook and brings to reality that your friend aren't the only ones looking at what you say and do.
And finally, a link to the Facebook group "30 Reasons Girls Should Call It A Night"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=e5076817ff979a71f47bdd2b695bc0bb&gid=2207899608
All these links you provided for us bring up very interesting thoughts for us, especially since I believe we are all facebook users. I was at a conference last year where this issue of how you portray yourself on social networking sites was brought up. I think teens post crazy pictures because they think they're invincible - "Oh, nothing could go wrong. There aren't any consequences. Nothing will happen to me."
ReplyDeleteBut the most interesting thing to think about is the scantily clad young women who pose suggestively with alcohol bottles/each other and then put the photos online - can those women call themselves feminists? Are those women allowed to be mad at the opposite sex for objectifying our sex, be mad at ad agencies and magazines for showing women posed basically nude with alcohol bottles? Is it only ok for women to put out this sort of image of ourselves but not ok for others to do it to us?
I think that this was a very interesting post because, like Sylvie said, many, if not all of us, are facebook users. I think that girls need to think about what they're putting online and be more responsible about how they present themselves in the cyber world. Mary says that we should not only being worried about how the media protrays women, but also how we portray ourselves. This is true; however, I wonder if these girls who post provocative photos online are portraying themselves in this way because of what they see or have seen in the media. The one link lead to a blog that said that girls think that posting provocative or drunken photos of themselves makes them feel glamourous and kind of famous. This is because many young female celebrities, such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, are portrayed this way in media images. Therefore, it is the media that is affecting the ways in which young women desire to be portrayed themselves.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the fact that not only is women and girls being portrayed negatively, but they are also represented themselves in a negative way by the pictures and comments they post on Facebook. I agree that the way some women and girls are represented stems beyond the media and the internet; today the way some women and girls dress is not a positive representation. As mentioned in the blog some women and girls do not portray themselves in a positive way which affects the way other people view them.
ReplyDelete