Oversexualizing Girls in Media

We are used to seeing scandalous pictures of woman in our every day lives. It doesn't surprise us when we see magazine covers of girls with skin showing, or womans clothing ads with a clear lack of, well, clothing.

The number of woman sexualized in media has been steadily growing. This idea is now so common that it's easy to forget that these images shouldn't be normal.

Looking at popular culture can help us see the values we have, and tv and movies are a big part of pop culture right now. In family films, 28.3% of woman are shown wearing sexy outfits, compared to 8% of men. Only 22% of prime time tv shows have a gender balanced cast.

http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2011/08/12769.html

You may not have ever consciously realized this difference in the media before, but its easy to see when you are looking for it.

We now see images like this all the time, they don't seem very shocking to us, but when you sexualize men the way that we always sexualize woman, the difference becomes more obvious. Then it's easier to see how ridiculous these ads really are. Not only is the idea of sexualizing girls normal to us, the idea of sexualizing men in that way is very unnatural.

As this becomes more common, it's spreading more and we are starting to see even younger girls being sexualized.

http://www.ashleymilnetyte.com/ashleymilne-tyte/2013/07/

This normalizes further the idea that woman are only important for their looks and sex appeal. Showing young girls, or any girls in this way just furthers that negative mindset. Girls are growing up only wanting to be pretty and appealing, and our advertisements and media are doing nothing but encourage it.

http://www.inquisitr.com/326131/lana-del-rey-gq-shoot-criticized-as-sexist/

Objectification and oversexualiztion is becoming more common, it's important that we don't allow it to become normal, and that we give the right impression to young girls.