Thursday, 7 June 2012

A Passage Through Time

I do not know whether the dinosaurs had gender inequity problems, or if they thought about that before deciding to attack each other. I do not know if birds, snakes, sharks, monkeys or apes have gender inequity problems, or if they think about it. I do not know why it is that we, human beings that were a part of the natural world, happened to create this gender inequity problem or how we created it. As creatures of nature, this inequity should not exist, as it does not exist in all other species (or the other species simply do not recognize it). I do not know whether, when we first evolved around 60,000 years ago, we had gender inequity problems. I do not know whether we had such problems even after then, closer to the times we are familiar with. I do not know when discrimination defined by gender started, but I know that it exists today.

If we travel back to the start of the twentieth century, it is clear that gender inequity has changed in form. Back then, the discrimination against women was more evident and clear to see. Women were made to stay in their homes, look after children, following the "Cult of Domesticity" as it was called. Advertisement was not as large scale as it is today. The inequity across genders was focused more upon work opportunities and what people did for work rather than on the way women were looked upon.

Today, advertisements have reached a new level. The ways in which advertisers put down women have become more and more intricate and subtle as people start to realize how they have been manipulated throughout the past few years. Similar to how new technology sparks during wartimes, new strategies of advertisement are sparking now, as advertisers fight a war against a population that is becoming ever more aware of the trickery that has been thrown upon them. Along with the advertising world, new computer software has made it possible for advertisers and modelling agencies to create pictures in magazines that I find it hard to call human. I feel like images in magazines that are modified by computer software are the work of evil. They might seem nice to look at, at first. However, in the back of the mind, it creates doubt. In the Beauty Myth, Wolf stated that "To airbrush age off a woman's face is to erase women's identity, power, and history" (83). This doubt is doubt in one self, doubt in one's abilities, in one's power, in one's knowledge, and in one's appearance. This doubt is created because somewhere in the back of our minds, when we see those pictures that aren't human, we know it is not possible to be like that. But as human beings, we always want what we cannot have.  Knowing that we can never be a computer generated image, we start to doubt ourselves because of the constant failure to achieve something that is unachievable. This is the evil that comes with advertisement.

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