MissRepresentation: A Response To

The documentary MissRespresentation opened me up to the extent of sexism in our society.  I have always been aware that sexism is very much an issue and is weighted towards favoring males in our society.  Being the only girl to one with the guys at track practice opened my eyes wider in regards to this issue.  I would get comments from coaches saying "good job guys... and Julia," as we would pass by.  I would see that workouts would be divided into difficulty almost entirely by gender.  This of course, is simply because of human anatomy and is not exactly sexism, but it was the only time in my life I have ever been aware of how being a female has affected my life directly.

I was not opened up to how my life was indirectly affected by sexism until watching the documentary.  One of the lines within the documentary that struck me as a I watched was, "it's cartoons we are watching now." With giving this quote more thought and listening to the explanation that followed I soon was taken aback by its truth.  Because of the one dimensional manner that women are being portrayed to us on social media, we are only shown one part of them.  Anything but wholeness in something is not accurate.  Truth only exists if its the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  It is because of this that we are being fed lies through media. The danger in these lies is that they are partly accurate: it is valid that some girls are skinny and have desirable faces that resemble those we are shown on social media.  However, seeing these characters and being fed this information  as if it were the entire truth is extremely dangerous, and as we were shown in the documentary, can lead to large inequalities within our society and the systems our society has in place.