Today's Culture...

In today’s culture, there is finally a push back against the hegemonic beauty ideals that are still highly apparent. The dominate beauty ideals surrounding femininity consist of women being very thin, having light skin, and conventionally attractive. When women do not fit this mold, they are deemed unattractive and need to make the physical improvements to be valued. In the recent Women’s Media Center article, Margaret Mandeya writes upon the importance of plus size women and body sizes that are not stereotypically “attractive” being included in the media. The recent cosmopolitan cover that includes a plus size model challenges the symbolic annihilation that has removed plus size women from the media and being included in the idea of beauty. As the author notes in this piece, even though it is great that this woman was on the cover of a major magazine there was still significant backlash for her weight. This goes to show the work that still needs to be done on a societal level of expanding beauty standards.

 

In a recent Women’s Media Center article, Ashley Judd is included in giving an interview on the past year since the #MeToo movement. Judd makes an interesting comment on how the new era of sexual assault is now “messy, imperfect, and urgent”. I thought those sets of adjectives were very accurate to describe this past year’s relationship with sexual assault. The #MeToo movement has liberated women in many ways to speak out regarding their own experiences and for the most part, is working towards a less repressive atmosphere. Ashley Judd also comments on how their needs to be more attention surrounding toxic masculinity, which I agree with and believe that media outlets can focus on toxic masculinity to educate a wide range of people. There needs to be more people who are aware of what toxic masculinity is and how to work through such unfortunate standards on men, and media can be the tool to educate the masses.