Name: Polly Gilmore
Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Sexualization of Women in Fashion
Date of Fieldwork: December 12, 2018
Name of Organization: The Paley Center for Media
Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Caroline Quigley, Manager of School and Family Programs
Type of Fieldwork: Workshop
What I did:
We went to the Paley Center for Media’s workshop called Girls, Body Image, and the media. We were the only people in the class so we had many opportunities to discuss and ask questions.
What I learned:
I learned about the history of sexualization of women and unrealistic standards of beauty in TV and movies through watching clips from the Paley Center’s archive of 160,000+ pieces of radio, TV, and film media. We discussed how sometimes the media can communicate that skinny=beautiful. We also discussed how most of what girls do on television is motivated by their need to impress boys. They do things like go on juice cleanses and get nose jobs so that boys will notice them. This enforces heteronormativity and the need for women to have the “perfect” body. I also learned how the media portrays girls body-shaming each other, calling each other “bacon butt” and telling them that they need to go on diets.
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
I learned that some issues are so deeply rooted in our culture that we don’t even notice it. There were many clips from TV shows or movies that I know and love, but have bad messages that I didn’t even pick up on. We need to be more aware and cut back on the amount of unconscious body-shaming and sexualization of women that is going on in the media today.
