Writing Feedback / Response to an article "Struggle for perfection" [3]

In Amy L. Beck's essay, "Struggling for Perfection," the author stresses that the bar set by media for perfection is "responsible for defining what is sexy, and reinforce the belief that aesthetic appeal is a woman's highest virtue." Beck has reinstated that the media is partially responsible for the domestic abuse and eating disorders and I think it is true.

The author has backed his stance by various experiences and observation. Beck starts the essay off by stating how media uses women as a tool to sell its product. For this, she presents the examples of playboy magazine and Victoria Street. These magazines present women as a commodity which can be bought and sold. This type of content distorts men's views about women in more than one ways. She also counterattacks the arguments of those people who say that "proliferation of pornography and other sexually explicit images of women are both harmless for society and inevitable." Beck's stance is further validated by her experience at a psychiatric hospital. There she dealt with the people with eating disorders and anorexic and bulimics. These people were in a relentless and never-ending pursuing of perfection and attainment of beauty. She clearly held responsible media for this abuse.

In my experience, I found all this true and relatable. What do people learn from the advertising messages? On the most obvious level they learn the stereotype. Just look at the TV commercials or bill boards and you will find that a woman is the core element in these advertisements. Media has set a bar for women. Each woman will be judged on these standards. Society is profoundly influenced by media who portrays that every woman must look like a supermodel. If she fails to fit in the society's description of a beautiful woman, she won't be considered pretty, even if her character is good. Women try their best to attain the aesthetics of a model. During this pursuit they develop eating disorders due to high stress and damage their figure miserably; looking even more horrible than before.

In Pakistan and India, being beautiful is synonymous with being fair-skinned. Media shows a dark-skinned person as a person with low self-esteem and few friends I remember my cousin whose complexion was sort of dusky. She tried to lighten her skin-tone so that she could be up to the media's standards of a beautiful woman. For this, she tried several whitening creams but to no avail. During this whole experience, she suffered from severe depression and eventually developed eating disorders. Now, not only her physique is damaged but internally she is damaged too. I believe, even though she chose this route, that she definitely was influenced by media to do those things.

Domestic abuse is not something new. Media is also responsible for this heinous crime. Pornography is one of the catalysts for domestic abuse. One of the most obvious features of pornography is the portrayal of human beings as sex objects. It reduces people to objects and deemphasizes human contact and individuality. Pornography operates on the principle of dehumanization. Women are turned into commodities to be bought, sold, used and discarded. It trains the men to look at women as impersonal objects, valued and appreciated only for the size and shape of their body parts, and for what they're able to do with those body parts. They are portrayed in the most degrading and humiliating ways imaginable.

Young people learn a great deal about sexual attitudes from the media and from pornography in particular. The adverse effects of pornography come into play when men think of women in real world as sex objects or prostitutes and treat them in the same way as shown in a porn movie. The perpetrators of domestic abuse see their wives in a same manner as they would see a prostitute of a porn actress.

In a nutshell, media is solely responsible for eating disorders and domestic abuse. It forces women to pursue for perfection in terms of aesthetics and encourage men to see women as a commodity. The real tragedy is that many women internalize these stereotypes and learn their "limitations," thus establishing a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is high time that media should realize its importance and change its attitude toward portrayal of women.

Writing Feedback / Once I was; now I am [4]

Once I was one of those guys who do not plan ahead. I was a careless boy and waited for the things to take their own course. I believed that planning destroys spontaneity and adventure in doing things. I thought that one's life should be full of surprises.

It was the time of matric exams when I was forced to change my thoughts about planning. It was the paper of Mathematics that day. The paper was to start at 9 in the morning. I thought that I would wake up at 8.15 and will each exam center by 8.50. I did not know that there was a demonstration of a political party near my exam center. I stuck into traffic jam for almost an hour and reached center half hour late.

Now I believe in planning things ahead. I think creating my plan helps me to tackle difficult situations. Planning gives me more control over my goals and targets. Now I am a completely changed man who plans things ahead of time.