Having spent a substantial amount of time on our CAP, I have realized how convincing and influential the media can be when it comes to the most facets of our lives. Media outlets such as magazines, television broadcasts and advertisements influence us on a regular basis, and make a huge impact on our personal choices. In “What Men Put on Appearances,” Diane Barthel claims that “one recent study showed that the typical reader spends an average of 25 to 35 minutes daily looking at magazines, during which time he or she would be exposed to 65 or 70 advertisements. About 35 of these will be seriously scanned. In addition, the average television viewer sees 95 to 100 commercials daily, seriously watching about 60 of them” (137).” Our CAP specifically addresses how globalization has circulated Western media and caused the homogenization of the idea of beauty around the world. Since everyone cannot be slender and fair-skinned, it is certainly not fair to impose these standards on all women around the world. Having realized how the media permeates our lifestyles, I have noticed that it plays an especially intrusive role when it comes to gender roles, appearance and sexuality. This week’s articles primarily discuss sexuality, primarily the societal views of young, female adults having sex and how it is still considered taboo, and the media’s efforts to “mainstream” gay couples and their choice to be parents. Both of these topics are personal and should not be so influenced by the media. Just as we are working to address media outlets about the diversification of the idea of beauty, the same efforts should be made to lessen its rather unnecessary influence when it comes to sexuality and personal choices associated with it.
Sex and adolescent/young women are not two entities that mesh well in society today. The taboo created around this topic is best described as a paradox. Girls are adequately warned about all the risks associated with sex before marriage, such as unwanted pregnancy and venereal diseases, yet they are generally not well-educated about reproductive health care and contraceptive devices. “It is obvious that the suppression of sexual agency and exploration, from within or from without, is often used as a method of social control and domination, says Rebecca Walker in “Lusting for Freedom” (23). While Walker found sex to be personally empowering, she argues that because of cultural norms, most young women cannot feel the same way. She says that “sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied. This is sex where we, young women, are powerless and at the mercy of our own desires. For giving our bodies what they want and crave, for exploring ourselves and others, we are punished like Eve reaching for more knowledge. We are called sluts and whores impure or psychotic. Information about birth control is kept from us” (23). The media’s role in all of this is confirmed when Walker states that “we learn much of what we learn from television, which debases sex and humiliates women.”
Another aspect of society that is judged heavily based on what is portrayed by the media is the topic of gay couples acquiring and raising children. The conflict that gay couples face when it comes to adopting children is "familiar to many groups battling for civil rights: Is the best strategy to assimilate with mainstream culture, or try to radicalize it? Often, the urge is to downplay difference and therefore avoid conflict,” says Margaret Price (233). Again, the media is heavily involved in shaping views on this matter. "Most media representations of queer parents eschew this paradox and emphasize the seemliness of their subjects. It's almost as if, having decided to focus on one freak factor, those shaping the stories feel compelled to keep everything else (race, gender, family structure, sexual practices) as bland an unremarkable as possible,” says Margaret Price(234). While the initial intention of the media seems to be to make the public more comfortable with the idea of gay parenting and make it look as normal as possible, I do not think the decisions made by media executives are advantageous to gay couples around the country and world. The fact of the matter is that gay parenting is a very different concept, and these differences can’t be shielded. Our country is lucky to be home to people of so many nationalities and backgrounds, and homogenizing standards of living and pushing such different people into the same category is not what we should be doing; the differences must be recognized and embraced.
Remarkably, the standards of “queer parents” in the United States appear to be on the same plane as beauty standards."It seems that queer parents- in both fictional and nonfictional representations- are an awfully Brady-like bunch. They're predominantly white, middle- or upper class, and partnered. They don't push the boundaries of gender or sexuality," according to Price. (233). This lack of representation of the diversity in the United States is not politically correct. Though it is probably true that most openly gay couples will be of Western origin (US/Europe), that does not mean that we can simply gloss over the gay couples of other nationalities.
- Lavanya Gupta
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