Discussion Questions
Q1. Hunger As Ideology
We live in a culture where women are encouraged to look a certain way in order to be liked and accepted by men. This image is very narrow in terms of the many different body types that female humans can have. Western cultures values thin, youthful looking, tall women with large breasts. Other societies such as ancient China, show that beauty can be subjective and societally enforced. In ancient China plump women with small feet were the sorts of women that were sought after as men for their beauty.
In Hunger as Ideology reports correctly “Women are continually bombarded with advertisements and commercials for weight-loss products and programs. The commercial that has the author of this essay particularly outraged because one young girl tells another girl that her mother stays thin by not eating much. It is easy to blame the media for this image, but it is also a two way street. Marketers use thin women to sell products because they sell products. So who is to blame, the marketers, the consumers or both?
Q2: A Necessary Vanity
Brazil has some of the highest rates of plastic surgery for women in the world. They are sold even to the poor since they “have a right to be beautiful too.” That carries with it an assumption that value depends on beauty and beauty requires certain physic components to a body. This is the message of the culture, so how could this idea be combatted?
While the sale of sex is illegal in the US, the media uses sex to sell things, which objectifies women. If it can be shown that such advertises causes women to be objectified, which can be shown to increase instances of domestic violence, should the government pass regulation on sex selling things in commercials in the same way they prevent cigarette companies from advertising on TV.
