Miss Representation Page #2

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is that the effect

is primarily subconscious

and that it is very harmful

but that for the most part,

we're not really aware of that,

which is why we need to

pay conscious attention

to these images.

The average child develops

over 18 to 24 years,

and full brain development

doesn't really occur

until you're into your early 20s.

So the idea that kids

at 8 or 10 or 15

have the same level

of intellectual and emotional

maturity as an adult is nuts.

They have different

interpretive abilities,

they have different

emotional abilities,

and they're a much more

vulnerable class in society.

I worry about, you know, how

much pressure my daughters feel

in a society that features

anorexic actresses and models

and television stars.

We get conditioned to think

this is what women should look like,

so even people

of average weight and size

have body dysmorphic disorder.

When I did my first television

show, "All-American Girl,"

which was the first

Asian-American family show

on television,

I had a lot of problems

with the network

because they were constantly

telling me that I was too fat.

You know, I became very anorexic

trying to somehow keep this job

that I really wanted to keep,

and they ended up canceling

the television show,

and they replaced it with Drew Carey

'cause he's so thin.

An aspect

of media-literacy education

that I think

many people aren't aware of

is the whole political economy

of the media.

Most media get their revenues

from advertising, you know'?

So the non-advertising content

of these media

has to support the advertising.

Everybody needs to learn

what the media's really about.

It's really, like, about

how they want you to be

something that you're not.

A lot of advertising is based on

making people feel anxious

and feeling insecure.

For men, there's a lot of

anxiety around status and power

and wanting to look as if

you have power...

at least drive a powerful car.

For women, that you're never

beautiful enough,

Durham:

Which is why you keep seeing

these same body types

over and over and over again.

Because those are the body types

that generate the purchase

of all these beauty products

in this futile pursuit

of this idealized body.

It's a hugely profitable pursuit

for these media industries

and for all of the advertisers.

American women end up spending

much more money on beauty

and the pursuit of these ideals

and these myths

than on their own education

which, in fact, would benefit

them more in the long run.

And so, under this rhetoric

of empowerment,

it's completely disempovvering women.

Kilbourne:
Not only are girls

seen as objects by other people,

they learn to see themselves

as objects.

Heidman:
The American

Psychological Association

has found in recent years

that self-objectification

has become a national epidemic,

a national problem.

The more women and girls

self-objectify,

the more likely they are

to be depressed,

to have eating disorders.

They have lower confidence.

They have lower ambition.

They have lower

cognitive functioning.

They have lower GPAs.

How does this connect

to women in leadership?

Women who are

high self-objectifiers

have lower political efficacy.

Political efficacy is the idea

that your voice matters in politics

and that you can bring about

change in politics.

So if we have a whole generation

of young people

being raised where

woman's objectification

is just par for the course,

it's normal, it's okay,

we have a whole generation of women

who are less likely to run for office

and less likely to vote.

Siebel Newsom:

This is dangerous business.

If the media

is sending girls the message

that their value lies

in their bodies,

this can only leave them

feeling disempovvered

and distract them

from making a difference

and becoming leaders.

Mitchell:
Here we are...

this massively powerful

democratic society,

and we are not modeling

for the rest of the world

a better balance.

Newsom:

If people knew that Cuba,

China, Iraq, and Afghanistan

have more women in government

than the United States of America,

that would get some people upset.

No wonder we are in such trouble

in this country.

We've been choosing

our national leadership

from 6% of the country.

Lawless:

Without more women in politics,

we just don't really have

democratic legitimacy.

Something looks fundamentally wrong

with our political institutions.

We're shortchanging voices

that are urgently needed

in public forums

from ever getting to the table.

Washington is still pretty male,

and it was not unusual

to go into a room

and be the only woman in the room.

Sometimes, it mattered.

When there was an attempt

to change Title IX

and some pressure

from Capitol Hill about that,

I can remember Karen Hughes

and I going to the President

and saying, "You can't do that

because you don't know"

"what it was like to be a woman

in college prior to Title IX,"

when you had to ha a bake sale

"to get your sports team

to take a trip."

If you have any kind

of a decision-making board

and there are not any women

on that board,

they're going to make

the wrong decisions,

because they don't have

the woman's perspective,

the woman's insight,

the woman's experience.

It's an absolute scandal

that America's women

continue to earn just 77 cents

for every dollar men earn.

In nine states

and the District of Columbia,

women who are victims

of domestic abuse,

who've been victims

of domestic abuse,

can be denied healthcare coverage

because domestic abuse

can be considered

a pre-existing condition.

We go to the ladies room...

the Republican women

and the Democratic women...

and we just roll our eyes

at what's being said out there.

And the Republican women said,

when we were fighting over

the healthcare bill,

"if we sent the men home,

we could get this done

this week."

[ laughter, cheers and applause]

The United States is the only

major industrialized nation

without paid family leave.

If women didn't speak up

on these issues

and didn't become

front-and-center

on making sure they were

on the front burner

of the legislative agenda,

they simply wouldn't happen.

I feel if it wasn't us,

who would do it'?

Women have been actually creating

the best public policy in America

in every state and community

of this country.

The living-wage campaigns,

micro-enterprise, safety...

everything that needed

different thinking,

women have been doing it.

So we got to get them

in the tables of power.

Well, two things have to happen

when you talk about women

moving to the next rung

or minorities moving

to the next rung.

First, you have to have

the candidates.

You have to have people

who are in the pools

from which these positions are drawn.

But you also have to have

a kind of psychological breakthrough.

Can an American see a woman

or an African-American

in that position'?

Now, I think with women

we still have a bit to go.

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