Miss Representation

Some incredible facts that shocked me. (Watch the documentary for yourself to get the exact percentages. I was too riveted to stop the movie and take notes)


Before the age of 7? an equal number of boys and girls happily declare they want to be president. By the teenage years, this number changes drastically, not in the girls' favor. Somewhere between 7 and 13, girls are taught that politics is for men.

American ranks like 90? as far country with percentage of women in government. We're way behind. The numbers of women in our gov't compared to the population on women contained within in the United States is appalling.

In this case, who is representing us? WHO?

Men.

And just what do they know about women's issues? An even better question, why are we letting them control our lives?

Also something that really struck home for me as I watched this is...how we're being taught that the most important thing about a woman is her looks. We are to look sexy. We are to strive to be those women on the cover of magazines, in movies, on the runway. Everywhere we look...women are sex objects and sadly, many women who claim they are empowered--Angelina Jolie as Tomb Raider, Halle Berry as Catwoman...they claim to be empowered, but really, they are--like the rest of us--just striving to please men's ideal idea of a woman. They're half naked and stick-thin, tits hanging out of their clothing...How is that empowered?

We are taught to look sexy and we are taught what sexy is.

What this documentary told me:

Everything is airbrushed. The thin model, they still take a few more inches off before they make the ad. They narrow down the cheekbones, erase a few blemishes...it's all computerized and what we're seeing is not real, so when we strive to look like these women...we are struggling to obtain an impossible goal because that woman does not exist.

This results in depression. According to this documentary, in 2010, more than 50% of women in U.S. suffer depression. And it is because we continue to strive to be something impossible.

And men...we can't place all the blame on them. While we are taught through movies, advertising, and Hollywood that we should look computer perfect, it also teaches boys that that's what they should expect from us.

Something else I thought was cool was the comparison of women in movies today to the women in movies in the 30s and 40s and the roles they were allowed to play. I wonder...when did it all go wrong? When did women begin to oppress themselves again?

And that's all I'm going to say...this is a documentary that I highly recommend ALL women watch. It's powerful, it's sad, it's truth.

I recorded this on Direct TV, but a DVD is available on Amazon.