The Effect of Media on Men and Women Essay Example for Free

The Effect of Media on Men and Women Essay In the past decade, media has become a lifestyle for most of America. Our lives are being shaped on and around the influence of whatever the media is saying we should live and act. Ever since the media has managed to work its way into our culture, it has had the largest influence on society. Everyone has started to use the media as a trend-setter that tells us what is popular and what is not. This can be a major problem in society today because this influence is too heavy and pushes people to think they are not important and have no purpose in life. This effect on men and women has been very negative in the sense that it is degrading to people to try to be something they cannot really be. Negativity brought on by the media is consistently seen throughout sports, fashion and advertisement worlds. And although media has brought man negative things, it has also brought some positive influences to society, some would argue, in politics and other areas women can be seen excelling in. In addition, it has been shown to have a positive effect on men when exemplary men are on TV or in the print media. The world today has brought media into everything we do, including sports, which would make sense with it because they are nationally televised. Women have always been at the low end of the spectrum when it comes to sports. They hardly have any professional sport that’s constantly being shown outside of the Olympics. The top two that come to mind are women’s basketball and golf. The media is the sports casting network and has nearly shut down any mention of these sports at all. Sports networks such as ESPN and Sportscenter focus on the male sports of that season usually baseball, basketball, or football. Occasionally other sports are highlighted, but rarely a woman’s sport. The media has so much influence in women’s sports that since no one wants to watch women play sports, they don’t allow them to have professional leagues. A study was done by the Women’s Sports Foundation that showed that about 6% to 8% of total media coverage is devoted to women’s athletics, and about 3.5% of articles are written for female athletes (Cassel). This negative effect is constantly seen and heard by women in the sports world and they still have to fight to get these opportunities for women’s sports. This also is reflected in college where women are mostly still ignored. The Women’s Sports Foundation said that males get $179 million more in scholarship money than women (Cassel). This is extremely unfair. Because of the lack of interest in women’s sports in America, women get less of an opportunity to perform as they do in men’s sports. The media can also have a negative effect not only on women, but also on men. In today’s society, everyone tries to have a certain appearance that they have seen on television and that they think will somehow make them look better. Media makes us want to become something we’re not and follow what’s trending. They make us think that if we have these certain look or live up to a certain behavior, all will be perfect, and we can have all the attention, but we find that we fail to live up to those expectations. This goal we seek is impossible to reach because these models or actors have professional coaches, makeup artists, writers, and staff to help them be who we think they are. It is common to see women get the worst because of their insecurity regarding their bodies. They try to compare their bodies to the models that have been photoshopped or are not even real, but yet, they will never reach their goal. These pressures by the media that cause insecurity in women lead them to do crazy things. These changes can be small, like dying their ha ir, or something more drastic like anorexia. The South Carolina Department of Mental Health showed in studies that about 1% of women deal with anorexia which doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s a lot more than it seems (Steele). It is also very common to see girls starting to diet at very young ages, like nine years old with about 40% of them admitting that they do (Seele). These girls aren’t even in middle school, and yet they are worried they’ll become ugly and fat. Women however aren’t the only ones affected by this appearance problem. Men are affected tremendously as well. Men sometimes become very insecure about themselves if they don’t have enough muscle or a six-pack. It doesn’t have as much of a drastic effect on males, but it still affects some of them. Another negative effect on men is that it causes them to try to make the prettiest girl theirs (N.p). The problem with that is that sometimes women can be put down because they don’t think they have the right look. Th is is a huge factor in today’s society and hopefully it will change, but at least not all things in the media are bad. Although the media has had a heavy influence of negativity on society, it has brought some positivity to society. Women have lately been gaining more and more equality to men in society in many areas. Women have been able to engage in a lot more things, such as politics. Women like Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin have been stepping out and having a say in what goes on in politics. This is great for women to see happening because it encourages them to strive to have a voice rather just to allow only men to have a say. Media has been encouraging women to step out and have a say. Media has also affected men in a positive way as well as, if not more than women. Men don’t have the same view as women when it comes to the media telling them a certain way to look. Studies are showing that when men see the media on ways they should look, they take it and try to use it as a motivation like (N.p.). For example when they see the public image of a muscular guy with a six-pack, they take it as a challenge and try to work to obtain those results. This is where women typically are different in the studies. They take media coverage in a negative way and get upset about it. However, it is very rare to have positive influence from the media; it can still have a negative effect on people. Media has become a large part of society today and is most influential to the nation as a whole. Many people shape their lives based on how the media tells them to. This has been negatively impacting the population as a whole, and many would agree it’s doing more harm than good. With the media being so important to our lives, it should start becoming more positive in order to encourage men and women, rather than to degrade them. Works Cited Cassel, Jean. â€Å"Gender Discrimination in Sports.† Livestrong. np. 19 June. 2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. â€Å"How Do Negative Body Images in the Media Impact Women? Physical and Mental Effects.† Hubpages. np. 6 June. 2011. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. â€Å"Media Images of Female Models Have Negative Effect on Men.† News-medical. Np. 7 Nov. 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. Steele, Melisa. â€Å"National Statistics for Anorexia.† teen-beauty-tips. np. nd. Web. 23 Sept. 2012.

Analysis of We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks Essay -- essays research

Poetry Essay â€Å"We Real Cool†, Gwendolyn Brooks The poem â€Å"We Real Cool† is a very powerful poem, although expressed with very few words. To me, this poem describes the bottom line of the well known â€Å"ghetto life†. It describes the desperate and what they need, other than the usual what they want, money. Without actually telling us all about the seven young men, it does tell us about them. The poem tells of the men’s fears, their ambitions, and who they think they are, versus who they really are. The poem begins with the word â€Å"We†, which is the only line in the poem that begins in this such manor, although the word â€Å"we† is repeated six more times throughout the poem. The â€Å"we† that I believe is represented at the beginning is the unity that comes from these seven friends. When y...

Political Changes in Europe Since the Fall of the Soviet Union

In April 1986, Mr. Gorbachev began the perestroika, translation â€Å"reconstruction†, which was to end the Cold War that effectively brought down the Iron Curtain. The split between West and East not only partitioned the world into two parts, but also divided the European family for over 40 years. With the fall of the Soviet Union came many changes that affected much if not all of Europe. At the end of the Brejnev era , the socialist bloc was severely outdated and far removed from the contemporary world.The economy was in a shambles, independent civil society was largely in exile, and corruption throughout and within the state via the Communist Party had become legendary. In addition, the USSR had to devote an enormous portion of its budget to the military. On the international level, the USSR had lost many allies, because its social model proved to be decreasingly successful in its deceit, and the ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (1979 – 1989) did not help in any way .It was therefore necessary to undertake urgent measures, especially in countries where satellite totalitarian regimes were challenged and the USSR no longer had the support of local communist parties. The advent of Gorbachev to power marked the beginning of the reconstruction. His first step on his rise to power was the partial liberation of the press, also known as glasnost. The first free newspapers emerged and some major newspapers such as â€Å"Novii Mir (New World),† Argumenti i Fakti â€Å"(Arguments and Facts) or† Moskovskie Novosti (Moscow News) changed editors. Books banned by the Soviet censorship began to appear in stores.Also, films which had been censored until this time were finally appearing on the screen. The policy change was also considerable. Under Gorbachev, 140 dissidents, victims of Stalinist repression, were honored and rehabilitated. From exile in Gorky, Sakharov, who condemned the war in Afghanistan – was released. Several opposition po litical organizations emerged as a Democratic Union and in 1988 the first anti-communist demonstrations took place. Gorbachev, considering the difficulty and complexity of the political situation at the time, tried at any price to change the political elite in an effort to ensure reconstruction. Policy frameworks† began and brought fresh faces to power. â€Å"Without – parties† (political parties that were not members of the Communist Party) were authorized to occupy important positions in state bodies. In addition, elections were introduced within the party to make elected officials accountable to its voters. Before this time, the party presented a candidate for the post and members could only nod in approval. Despite all this progress, the USSR was unable to overcome the economic and social crisis that hit the country in the early 80s. The Soviet system was not adaptable by itself and reconstruction was doomed from the start.Gorbachev did not have the political capacity to push the desired reforms through. His strategy, in essence, triggered the collapse of the USSR, which was completely unexpected. Perestroika could not change the structure of the Soviet economy, and thus served as an obstacle to reforms. All means of production were under state control. In addition, factories managers and corrupt officials wanted at all costs to keep the economic system that afforded them considerable privilege, especially in a country where the deficit of consumer products was seen in everyday life.The political system, like the economy, rested on a foundation of lies. Political leaders from cities and regions fabricated domestic and foreign policy statistics, using propaganda, including the newspaper â€Å"Pravda† (Truth). This newspaper was later to become a symbol of Soviet exaggeration of the productivity of the communist state. The Soviet secret services were doing everything to prevent people from having information deemed undesirable; any foreign or independent press was prohibited. In launching his reforms, Gorbachev wanted to reform that which what was not reformable.Perestroika and glasnost had made the system fragile, because the lie was no longer there to blind people. Thus, in 1991 a political system that had seemed indestructible – unbeatable, all but disappeared from the world political map. Perestroika was ultimately the determining factor in the fall of the Iron Curtain. The forces it unleashed, such as freedom of speech (glasnost), by Gorbachev inside his country had devoured the communist parties of Eastern Europe. That was also the case with the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent German reunification.The fall of the Berlin Wall was largely provided for by the green light given by Moscow. Without such approval, it would have been very probably a repetition of the â€Å"coup de Prague† of 1968, as the forces of the Warsaw Pact entered the Czechoslovakian capital to put an end to the demo cratic reforms of Dubcek following the Prague Spring. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the reunification of Germany was inevitable. The non-intervention of Warsaw Pact forces during the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the outbreak of the revolutions that occurred thereafter.Elsewhere in 1989 in Eastern Europe, democratic movements freed from the tutelage of Moscow out-punched Communism. This is the case in Romania with the fall of Ceausescu, Czechoslovakia and Poland with the resignation of the communist government and the start of negotiations between General Jaruzelski and the representatives of Solidarnosc. The policy of rapprochement between the West promoted by Gorbachev led to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Having neither the financial resources nor the political will to save this military alliance, the Soviets proposed in 1988 to repeal the pact against the dissolution of NATO.In December 1988, Gorbachev and Bush declared at a meeting in Malta that th e Cold War was over. Immediately after the fall of communism in Europe, former satellites of the Soviet Union chose to join the unified European family and NATO. Chronologically, in the first half of 90 years, almost all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have submitted their applications to join the European Union and NATO. For these countries, membership in these structures is first and foremost a political symbol, to guarantee their freedom and sovereignty.European integration also meant the return of these countries into the European mainstream as equal partners and not merely as â€Å"little brothers†, as was the case with the USSR. Long oppressed by a regime imposed from outside, these countries could finally defend their interests in the democratic framework that the European Union offers. Without perestroika, the world today would not be the same. It is mainly through this process that democratization has been set up in the Central and Eastern Europe an d that Europe is no longer divided in two.

Comparing the New England and Chesapeake Regions Essay

Comparing the New England and Chesapeake Regions The New England colonies were formed by Protestants who were escaping England. They ‘planned’ their society. When they came over they brought entire families, not just random people. The Chesapeake region colonies were formed by whoever signed up. The reasons that resulted in the differences between the New England and the Chesapeake colonies were political, social, and economic. The political reasons for the differences were that in New England there was a basic plan. In document D I found that after a group of people grows to forty families it is then considered a town. This document also tells that everyone got some land. Document E adds some more pieces to the puzzle by†¦show more content†¦This would make the people behave quite nicely. In document B I am told that entire families were brought over from England. This would make it quite a bit easier to get communities growing. Also, under document D they intended, with all haste, to find a minister. This would give the community a sense of continuity, and would make the people behave quite a bit more. Now on to the Chesapeake region. Under document C random people, whoever signed up, were brought over, and not many of them were female. This lead to many problems, because the people didn’t want to work. This deal, however, was good for the females, because they got an extremely large, at least for this time, amount of freedom. In document F it is stated that there is unrest among the people. Some of them even tried to steal some supplies and the ship and go home. Document G talks about how no one wanted to do anything, even defend their place. Now for the economic reasons. The Chesapeake region developed a tobacco economy, everything they did was to grow or sell tobacco. Document H states that the poor were unhappy. In a society the poor are sometimes unhappy, but in this case the rich did nothing to make the poor feel any better. In New England the economy was not extremely important, but the average person here was wealthier than the average person in England. The New England and Chesapeake regions were vastly different, even though they were settled by the same country.Show MoreRelatedDifference in Societies of New England and Chesapeake Region Essays645 Words   |  3 PagesAlthough New England and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by people of English origin, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two different societies, why did this difference in development occur? For different reasons, settlers chose to inhabit the regions of New England and Chesapeake. The social economic and political reasons separated these groups. 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