Last Wednesday, May 21, the Women’s Health Awareness Club held their annual event to discuss issues surrounding women in social media. The event’s name, MAG, stands for Media Affects Girls, and also makes the theme apparent right away. When thinking of “MAG,” one of the first things that pops into your head is magazine, which prompts thoughts about the media for a sort of double emphasis.
Social media is both prevalent and problematic, especially for girls ages 14-18. The media creates images of ideal beauty, standards which are highly unattainable because the “ideal” comes from a great deal of photoshopping and editing.
Worst of all, media is all around us; it is impossible to escape. As we learned at the event, on average, teens are exposed to 11 1/2 hours of media per day! From magazines to television shows to posters on the subways, there are portrayals of society’s definition of beauty everywhere. Media makes young women self-conscious, and it often depicts women in negative ways and promotes gender stereotypes.
The MAG event’s goal was to spread awareness about the negative effect media has on girls and women. With speakers and discussions, the event focused on how young women can take control of the media’s impact.
The event started with an introduction from club head, Julia Wolinsky ’14: “The club was inspired to focus the conversation for the year and for this event after watching parts of the documentary “Miss Representation,”” which explores how the under-representation of women in media is a leading cause of the lack of leadership positions women hold in certain fields. A Ted Talk by the writer, director, and producer of Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was previewed. She talks about how the media shapes our perceptions about gender. She encourages all genders to challenge mainstream media by raising awarness. Watch the video below:
Next on the agenda, Julie Dannenberg spoke. Ms. Dannenberg has worked in the publishing industry for 25 years. She has been the publisher of 4 magazines, including Avenue and Scene magazines, and the CEO of two publishing companies. Two years ago, Ms. Dannenberg sold a magazine she had created and switched careers. Currently, she works in public relations at HWPR, which represents fashion and real estate accounts. Ms. Dannenberg gave an uplifting and motivating talk. She informed us that as teenagers, we are the targets of most if not all media companies, and we have the power, as consumers, to influence the media. Ads, products, and all consumer-driven concepts are geared toward the current generation of teenagers, so we have the power to control their successes. She assured us that of the accessibility of our power to, for example, ban an offensive ad by calling the respective advertising agency or magazine. From experience in the field, she believes that the companies will have no choice but to be flexible and submit to their consumers’ requests, or else they will lose their business.
Claudia Chan, a Hewitt alum from the Class of 1993, spoke next. Ms. Chan experienced great success after her years at Hewitt and at Smith College but realized that though there were incredible women role models they were underrepresented in the media. As a result, Ms. Chan created S.H.E. Global Media. Her goal is to help empower the globe to educate and inspire women to change the world. Before creating S.H.E, Ms. Chan one day woke up and realized that she needed to take a step back to reevaluate her path.
She was fortunate enough to have an all girls’ education through high school and college; as a result, she was always told to be confident and to never feel inferior to men. This made the transition between college to the real world easier; Ms. Chan had that confidence to “lean in” and succeed. Unfortunately, due to the omnipresent media and the unrealistic visions of women’s bodies trumping their brains, insecurity among teens is an all-time high. Ms. Chan remarked that because the media is ever-present, we must change it in a way that will benefit women. By portraying women in a positive light in the media, there is hope that society will follow suit.
These speeches were followed with various discussions, healthy debates, focused on a Swiffer ad that shows Rosie the Riveter holding one of their cleaning products. Rosie the Riveter, a character originally used during World War II to promote working women, is now an embodiment of domesticity. We ended with a positive advertisement, shown below, that we hope will inspire other ad campaigns to send empowering messages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmmGClZb8Mg
Media’s impact on women is an issue pertinent to many of us as Hewitt students. Congratulations to the Women’s Health Awareness Club for running a successful event and bringing these issues to discussion!