Cited Works: Essay Examples

Essay

The website that I chose for this essay is the website of Armani's products for women. In Armani collection, they portray confident women who boldly carry their outfit combinations. However, the general depiction of women is that they are slim, pretty, and confident. In one word, they are flawless. This representation of women, young and middle-aged, can be seen as a twisted image of women. One might rarely see older women in an advertisement or a product website even though they exist. This attempt to hide the inevitable process of aging is the product of the modern culture and the impact of media and beauty products that impacts every woman.
The young girls and women who advertise and proudly wear Armani's outfit are confident and careless. They send a message of a carless life, a life where worries do not exist. Their hairstyles are free from form and shape and are not realistic. A woman with this hairstyle would never be able go to work or school because it will not be convenient and practical for her everyday tasks. Another aspect of the models is their ideal weight. They are slim, even thinn and the presented outfits are made for slimmer bodies. One may have difficulty in imagining a slightly overweight or an obese woman in an Armani collection. The makeup is not so much dominant as the perfect lines of the model's faces. Their eyebrows are perfectly shaped and eyes are slightly shaded. The tone of the skin is silky.
The values that these website products are trying to pass is that the beauty is in the simplicity and style. However, the style is closely associated with the material status and this immediately becomes out of reach for working class women and teenage girls. The images of women in product advertisements are far from the reality, but they are presented in such as way that they truly look like "the girls from the neighborhood." The dominant Western culture seems to play in this way with millions of women who fail to meet the standards given by the popular media. This affects the self-esteem and impacts their life. As Gentile states,"In the world of young people where “fitting in” feels like an all-or-nothing game, being labeled outside what has been defined historically and culturally as acceptable female sexuality can be a damaging and traumatic experience sometimes leading to body image issues" (3). Even thought women have won their position regarding the equal treatment with men, they are still depicted as objects whose only purpose is to be pretty and carless. This image is in opposition with the reality where women are faced with many roles in their everyday life. They need to be good students, mothers, career women, and at the same time be pretty and look stunningly. This is difficult to achieve and may bring a lot of stress for every women.
The media and advertisements have influence on every woman. They impact women starting from the advices on how to loose weight, through the ways on how to look young forever. We are living in the society where impossible is expected from women. The images of products where women are described as pretty and carless objects in every life situation carriy a heavy burden on the shoulders of the women. The attempts to catch up with the standards that are set up by the media industry are frequently resulted with failure and due to that women face with depression and other psychological difficulties. It seems that now, more than ever, women have become overburdened with so many roles that the society expects them to play.

Gentile, Patricia. Popular Culture and Female Sexuality: Consuming the 'Representations' Media Action Media. November 2007. Web. 2. February 2015. http://www.media-action-media.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/gentile-mediaction-nov07.pdf
Armani Jeans. Web. 2. February 2015. http://www.armani.com/us/armanijeans/women/ready-to-wear_section