Anyone can gaze at them, touch it, or use them any way they see fit. They are seen as merchandise to be purchased and taken – but once one is tired of them, they are discarded, often to be replaced by a newer, younger edition; these possessions are women. They are not treated as full human beings with equal rights as their male counterparts are; they are used as objects and personal dolls for men. Women have been, and still are, objectified and sexualized through TV shows, movies, books, music, models and advertisements.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE?
As children, a boy and a girl can’t tell the distinction between each other. All they see is a friend, and someone to have fun with, not a gender. They have fun the same way, they laugh the same way, speak the same way ? they even dress in the same type of clothing. As they get a little older, the media and the people in their lives begin to influence them, conforming young girls to the gender stereotypes. They start to have fun differently, they laugh differently, speak differently, and of course dress complete different. A study done in 1975 on the effect of gender labels show that people treat males and females differently starting from birth. The experiment started by putting a baby in a yellow jumper. The scientist didn’t tell the participants if it was a boy or girl. When the participants thought that the baby was a boy they were given trucks, and if they thought it was a girl, they were given dolls. The participants treated the girls more delicately than baby boys. “The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says “it’s a girl” (Shirley Chisholm). Pantene has made an ad against labels for women. The short one-minute video shows two people, almost identical in the way the work and act the only difference is one is male and one is female. Pantene wants to show the world that labels against women is real and people will gaze differently upon men and women, even though they are doing the same thing. (Labels against Women commercial)

WHY IS THIS?
An example that dates way in time and is one reason why women have been objectified is the bible. All throughout The Old Testament the text depicts women as inferior to men, and diminishes their status. A particular Story that demonstrates this principle is the tale of Adam and Eve. “After creating the world, God made a beautiful garden, called Garden of Eden. It was a paradise full of animals, fruits and trees. At the centre of the garden, there was a tree with a special power to give the knowledge of good and evil to the person who ate its fruit. Adam was the first man created by God. God told Adam to look after the trees in the garden and warned him, “You may eat fruits from any tree you like, but not from the Tree of Knowledge. If you do not obey, you shall die:” To give company to Adam, God created a female from his ribs, and named her Eve. Both Adam and Eve lived naked in the Garden of Eden, as they had no sense.
In the same garden, there lived a snake. It advised eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and told her that if she ate the fruit, she would become wise like God. Tempted by this, Eve ate the fruit and made Adam also eat it. Next day, when God came to the Garden, Adam and Eve hid themselves from Him, as now they had gained knowledge. God asked them, “Did you eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge?” The two admitted. God became angry and punished them, saying, “You did not obey me. So now, you will have to leave this Garden. You will have to live on Earth. Adam will have to work hard to grow crops and create food, and Eve will have to suffer the pain of giving birth and authority secondary to that of her husband.” (short stories)

While Adam was created in the image of god, Eve was created from Adam. This symbolizes that women are just a part of men and that wives should be submissive to their husbands because they are property. The one to first eat the forbidden fruit and disobey god is Eve, not Adam. This alone makes women seem inherently sinful. By persuading Adam to eat the fruit, women are portrayed as wicked. At the end of the story, when God punishes them for what they have done, he out right says that women are second class citizens. The Bible has influenced masses of people, and they have taken to heart what it says. The majority of the public has grown up with this story and knows it well. However they probably haven’t thought too much about it, because if they did, they would see that their most cherished book has extremely sexist parts.

TIME KEEPS ON TURNING AGAINST WOMEN
As the decades go on, women have started to become a dignified part of society. After many hardships, they received the right to vote, and then they faced the wage challenge, where bosses would not pay women equal to men. So much has happened from biblical times up until till now that has gotten women where they are today. Yet, turning on the television and looking at the women in shows, ads, music videos, and movies, something stands out. It is noticeable how almost every female has trashy or “slutty” clothes on. They act, dumb and girly and all they want to do is fall in love. Over the last three decades research has found that media entertainment affects the development of sexual attitudes among adolescents. (e.g., Handelsman et al.1987),
There are movies like Mean Girls, which shows girls that it is okay to be catty, unintelligent and overly sexual. Clueless is a movie that again portrays women as brainless, erotic, girly-girls. Even the seemingly harmless Disney princess movies or stereotypical as in, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty all show a damsel in distress who is saved by a prince, and then they fall in love. Even fierce, warrior type- girls are dressed in clothes that are skin-tight or incredibly revealing. Examples would be Tomb Raider, Underworld, Resident Evil, and the Fifth Element. These are all great movies, and unfortunately, all made for men. Several movies and shows that everyone has watched are completely sexist, and nobody ever notices because it has been entirely engrained into society.

MUSIC VIDEOS AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE POPULACE
When music videos first popped into everyday life they were a hit. All the teenagers would tune into MTV to see what new video is out. They started to emulate the people in the videos. The concern came in when the entertainment industry and the bands started to portray women in their music videos negatively. Nobody really noticed at first until hip-hop and rap hit the scene, and women’s roles in the videos were to shake their butt, look provocative and, fawn over the guys. The artists were calling women slurs and treated them as property and play toys. They gave off messages that said it is alright to treat women as sexual objects to use and abuse. Many people were outraged and there were a lot of people against hip-hop and rap. As time went on, people stopped caring and didn’t notice as much; now it’s normal to see this outrage in a video. Miley Cyrus made a few songs called Wrecking Ball, and Adore You, which showed her naked, and doing provocative gestures. The video objectives her and makes her look like a toy rather than a person. A song called Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke has women in the background with skin tight clothes that make them almost seem naked. They dance erotically around the singer while he sings a song about date rape. Most of the hit music today and back then had something to do with women being sexual for example the song “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “She was a fast machine. She kept her motor clean. She was the best damn woman that I ever seen. She had the sightless eyes, telling me no lies. Knocking me out with those American thighs.” (AC/DC)

Both men and women artists are playing roles in generating these media stereotypes.

EVERYDAY COMERCIALS
The objectification of women in ads is just as harmful to society as movies and shows because ads depict a false reality. Ads that are trying to sell their product to men by putting half naked women on billboards, in pictures and in 30 second blips that say if you buy my product women will be all over you. Men buy these products and keep seeing the ads and soon they believe that all women showed look, act and be the way the media depicts them. Guys are not the only ones that are being bombarded with these false ideals, women are too. There are commercials that portray the perfect woman; silky hair, smooth skin, and stunningly beautiful. As long as the media business continues to make money off of these negative ads, they will continue to pump out a none-stop flow of false ideals. The Dove Real Beauty ad campaign is helping women feel good about themselves- only 4% of women around the world actually feel beautiful. Dove is trying to change that, they want women to have a have a high self esteem and feel proud no matter what they look.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE!
Media reflects the viewers’ desires and what the viewers relate to. Media also makes people believe that what everybody seeing is acceptable, so the public then adopts the behavior they see. The media’s portrayal of the dim-witted, over sexual woman is destructive to our society. It can physically and mentally scar a woman. Early in their lives, women try to have the perfect body; not for themselves, but to impress men so they can fall in love, just like they have seen in the movies. They don’t eat to stay skinny and be model thin or throw up the food they ate so they won’t get fat. They even get depression and low self esteem issues. The media today is doing a horrible thing to the young growing girls of the world. More people are starting to notice and help women become free from the chains of stereotyping.



Work cited page
“SHORT STORY." Adam and Eve. Short Stories, n.d. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.
Bogt, Tom, Rutger Engels, and Sanne Bogers. "“Shake It Baby, Shake It”: Media Preferences,
Sexual Attitudes and Gender Stereotypes Among Adolescents." PubMed Central. Springer, 27 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 Feb. 2011.
Barber, Jon. "Objectification of Women in Media - Media & Change." Objectification of Women

in Media
Media & Change. Jon Baber, 27 Feb. 2011. Web. 09 Dec. 2013
Seavey, Katz, and Zalk. "Baby X: The effect of gender labels on adult responses to infants" Sex roles, 1975.