Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Pull down your skirts ladies, or else you're asking for it!

According to a report in the Guardian, there are more than a few groups annoyed at the media portrayal of women. Four groups, End Violence Against Women, Equality Now, Object and Eaves are all asking various news sources to stray away from pop culture and focus more on issues at hand like equality, rape, and "the daily treatment of women". All of these organizations have sent letters upon letters to the editors of news sources, citing examples of sexism and explaining in detail why these things are not okay, calling for a call to action to change the way that the media views women. Object's campaign manager, Anna Van Heeswijk, states that "This 'sexualisation' process objectifies women and girls, and grooms boys and men into thinking it is acceptable to view and treat women and girls as sex objects. This portrayal of women is incompatible with a socially responsible press." Many of the issues at hand are more than just issues of dehumanization, but also the fact that such articles are in magazines that are labelled as "family magazines."

This is more than just an issue of censorship in the media. How far are we going to allow the objectification of women to go before we finally take a stand? The society we live in teaches "don't get raped" as opposed to "don't rape". Is there no middle ground where both genders have respect for themselves and others?

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