Ideal Woman

Does anybody know what the ideal woman is supposed to look like? Is this woman thin and tall or fat and short? Why are woman judged on how they look and how they dress, but males are not? Why are images of woman everywhere? Why do woman feel that they have to be gorgeous so society can love her? Believe it or not, society plays a big role in people lives. The biggest role it probably plays is how a female should look. For instance, if you look at the television, if you look at movies, and if you look in different magazines covers, most of the woman appears to look thin. Other woman sees this body image and they began to think they need to look like her. Most actresses today are becoming younger and thinner and some of them have an eating disorder in order to stay thin. Trying to keep the Barbie doll image is very dangerous to woman.

It is kind of hard to believe that some of our wants and needs are based on images, the Barbie doll look. According to Olds, 69% of woman said that magazine models influence their idea of the perfect body shape (Olds, 1999). The media send messages that if you are thin and beautiful then you will get whatever you want. According to a study by Health and Welfare Canada (1992), they documented that 37% of females age 11, 42% of females age 13, and 48% of female's age 15 say they need to lose weight (National Eating Disorders Information Centre, 2000). Most women do not realize this but the media sends woman subliminal messages through television. The average woman sees about 400 to 600 advertisements per day (Dittrich), and by the time she is 17 years old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media (LaVoie). These messages from the media tells woman in order to be successful you must be attractive and thin, which is not really true. Today beautiful young and thin woman sees everything. They sell products from alcohol to shoes, you see them everywhere. These messages tell woman that appearance is more important than character and personality. According to the Health Canada (1997), "In the western culture slim is promoted not only as beautiful, healthy, and sexy but self-disciplined and good. Attractive people are perceived to be kind, interesting, outgoing, and to have a variety of socially desirable character traits." (Pg 28).

Most woman find in order to stay thin, they would try a method called starvation. It is known that people with negative body image will have a greater chance of developing an eating disorder. According to the Health and Welfare, while 1-2% of woman between ages of 14 and 25 has anorexia and 3-5% experience bulimia, another 10-20% of women engage in many other eating disorders (National Eating Disorders Information Centre, 2000). Not every woman is supposed to be thin. Women are supposed to be round and women are supposed to have more body fat than men. So what your body is not perfect. Does that mean you are suppose to get surgery so you can have the Barbie doll look? Does this mean go out and get breast implants because the media thinks most women are supposed to have big breast. I do no think so.

According to my opponent, the media, most women can remember a time as a child when they were teased over some small characteristic of their appearance. This may include their nose, the color of their skin, etc...they believe that if a women have a negative body image it is because of their childhood. They say when girls are young, they realize that there is a standard of beauty they are suppose