I couldn't think of anything to write about so I looked up the Feminine Frequency YouTube channel. I watched one called "The Evil Demon Seductress" and since Halloween is around the corner I thought it was perfect.
The video was explaining how movies constantly portray women to be sexual, manipulative, and evil. Whenever there is a female villain in a movie, she gets her way be seducing the man and then violently kills him.
A great example of this is "Jennifer's' Body". The whole movie is about a girl who is supposed to be the hottest, sluttiest girl in school, played by Megan Fox. She is constantly seducing guys, (and even a girl), getting them to be alone with her, thinking they're going to have sex with her, then proceeds to kill them.
Movies like this continue to portray women in negative ways. There is already the stereotype that women are "moody" and "manipulative" and this not only intensifies those thoughts, but confirms them.
No matter what the movie, if the woman is the villain, she doesn't come across as someone who is confident in herself without using her sexuality to show it. (I'm sure there may be one, but for the most part..)
Because of the movie influences on sexual behavior, we also have the sexy halloween costumes. So many young girls are dressing half naked to go door to door to strangers homes to get candy. Doesn't that just sound like something bad waiting to happen!? I mean Halloween to me is all about being creepy and bloody.. not sexy and skimpy. But girls have learned from movies, tv, etc. that in order to get a guy you have to be sexy.
So recently I started watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch again. It was my absolute favorite show when I was younger, and to find it on Hulu made me happier than ever.
Typically in an episode of the show Sabrina will come across an "average teenage" problem, try to fix it with a spell, it will end up backfiring, and she will realize that you can't get everything you want.
I was watching an episode today that was about Sabrina and her "mortal" boyfriend being nominated for prom king and queen. It caught my eye in a different way because usually in the show she does not cared about her appearance, but in this episode it was all about that.
She bought a new dress for the dance, and it was a size to small so naturally she found a "weight loss" spell that was going to help her get to the perfect size. After drinking the potion, she was to the weight she wanted to be to fit into the dress perfectly. The salesman then tells her that she needs to lose more weight and puts a spell on her mirror to make her see herself differently.
To me, this showed how people that do suffer from eating disorders actually feel when looking in the mirror. They feel like they look so fat even though they are getting to an unhealthy small weight. In the episode, her cat says "you've dieted to the point of disappearance," and I think thats the shows way of portraying that the more this affects you, it'll get to a point where you are so unhealthy you could die.
Watching the show now I think I better understand the messages given. I know when I was younger I loved watching the obstacles and I loved that in the end she realized that she couldn't use magic to get her way because lets face it, thats exactly how the real world is.
I was just really impressed with this episode in particular because in the end she realizes that she was already in good shape and it was silly to even consider dieting because she was nominated for being someone who didn't conform to what everyone else was doing and for being "down to earth." Even though the show isn't on TV any more, it was a good show that was always giving good messages to teens and adolescents.
Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo is known as one of the most powerful businesswomen in 2012. She started as an employee of Google, moving her way up through the company and has made a really strong impact in the business world for women.
Its not often that women are looked at to be leaders in a business related job, so when they are its kind of a big deal. She has made very strategic moves for Yahoo thus far such as buying and taking over tumblr.
Marissa Mayer recently decided to pose for Vogue. My first thoughts when reading this were good. I thought maybe she will show that women can be looked at in the same sense as men, and not sexualize the idea of a woman in power.
Nope.
I mean yea, she is fully clothed, and her outfit is very put together. But looking at the pose, would a male CEO ever pose like this? No. Never. And that is what is so frustrating! We finally have a strong woman in a powerful place, but because of media pressures she poses for vogue in an obviously feminine matter. This is an example of why women will never be taken seriously. Men will look at this and think, "damn shes hot" and won't give her the same respect they would give her if she was a man.
I mean she probably isn't facing any kind of discrimination in her office. People probably aren't looking at her like she doesn't know what shes doing. But the way she is portraying women will forever stick to her.
My dad, a CEO of his own company was even discouraged by this. He is all about women having equal rights in the work force, and she was someone he looked up to. He respected her decisions in the work force and agreed with everything she did, then for her to do that he says he lost respect.
Maybe one day women will finally realize that they don't have to be sexy in order to get a guy to listen to them. Or maybe women will realize that by sexualizing themselves, men will continue to not care about you or anything you have to say and be worried about their bodies more so than the work they are accomplishing? Who knows.
A great example of this is "Jennifer's' Body". The whole movie is about a girl who is supposed to be the hottest, sluttiest girl in school, played by Megan Fox. She is constantly seducing guys, (and even a girl), getting them to be alone with her, thinking they're going to have sex with her, then proceeds to kill them. 
