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.
I agree with you completely on this topic. I don't believe that I have seen one successful women in a high position who hasn't conformed to what the media expects to see from women. Women are expected to be seen as the sex object. Even if they are in high postitions they are expected to self objectify themselves in order to further "feminize" themselves so they are still following the rules of gender of that of a woman. I'm hoping that women will finally realize that in order to be noticed they don't need to objectify themselves. There are strong women out there and they can reject to conform to the expectations of women from the media and society but they decide not to because they want to be "liked". They want everyone to notice them, but they aren't doing it in the proper manner. Unfortunately, I only see this matter getting worse due to the many women who don't make a stand against the expectations the media and society have of them. In the video we watched during class today, we saw that Sarah Paillin may have been less knowledgable than Hillary Clinton but no one paid attention to that. Everyone paid attention to their appearance. Everyone saw Sarah as more of a sex object so she was favorited. Hillary wasn't seen to be as feminine as Sarah so therefore she was seen and talked about differently. In the matters of politics, why did their appearance even matter? Hopefully, our society soon realizes the effects the media ,especially with majority men therefore only seeing a men's perspective on things, has on everyone.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand your perspective on this I respectfully disagree. I understand that women are sexualized and objectified in mainstream media but I think this pose is hardly one of an extreme sexual nature. I would see no problem with a man posing in a handsome or somewhat provocative nature for a similar mens style magazine. Also, I think that women subconsciously want to be seen as desirable, almost like the self-fulfilling prophecy of some sort. The argument here that nobody will care about her because of sexualizing herself is completely invalid, to become the CEO of a company people must obviously care about you.
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are going with this and I agree to some point. Yes, women are sexualized in magazines and media. But this is Vogue. Despite the industry's flaws, there have been a lot of powerful women featured in this magazine. In a career with such prestige as this, Vogue is an important stepping stone for recognition and power. I believe by being featured in this magazine alone, that is power. Especially if it highlights your career achievements.
ReplyDeleteHer pose is somewhat innocent looking and her clothes are professional looking, which is kind of backhanded. Personally, I wouldn't have chosen this pose. I feel like it doesn't represent her in a good way. But like I said, it's Vogue.