Post 7

Growing up I have always been in the stereotypical boy routine. Whether it be as a baby being dressed in blue, or being put in football and baseball as a child, what it meant to be a "boy" has always been instilled into me. As I aged, and saw the ideas of men having to be tough, emotionless and strong, while women were expected to be more caring and more in touch with their emotions being the norm, I never thought twice about it before this year. Marketing companies are notorious for perpetuating these gender stereotypes by pushing "standard" gender roles in magazines. Also by over sexualizing those who are in the magazines, readers of said magazine tend to develop unrealistic thoughts on what it should be like to be a certain type of person, further confusing the population on what it means to be either truly male or female. In the Documentary Killing Us Softly we are shown how modeling agencies and the advertising companies portray their female models in more submissive positions while taking photos of them. This is not only bad for the models themselves, but also to whoever would read the magazine and after a while think "Oh, okay this is how the people I look up to in the magazines act like so if I want to be like them this is what I should do". Furthermore when dealing with online pictures it is hard to find "real" untouched photos without them being edited in some way, shape or form. Supermodel Cindy Crawford said "Even I don't wake up looking like Cindy Crawford." Showing that even supermodels don't know who the people in the magazines are.