In this day and age, sex sells. That is not a mystery to anyone any more. But more often than not, this is exhibited by the female body. Is this right? Does the media have some type of unspoken responsibility to portray men and women equally throughout their publications, televisions shows and movies? They obviously think that they don't, which is clearly exhibited in the photos below of four recent covers of Rolling Stone Magazine in which men are shown looking serious and virile, while women are shown looking seductive and trashy.

What does this do to our society? Little bits of this at a time seem harmless, but what happens when we look at the big picture? Over time people see these images over and over. Men have careers, and women have sexy bodies. That's just the way it seems to be in the entertainment world. It also seems that the media has targeted and pigeon-holed men and women to a group of stereotypical interests for their respective sexes. The web site of Men's Magazine displayed a menu of options. The options included Dating & Love, Sexuality, Fashion & Lifestyle, Power & Money, Entertainment and Health & Sports. Vogue Magazine had a similar menu of options. The options included Fashion Shows, Trends, People & Parties, and Shop. Nothing on the Vogue site was included about career at all. The word was never mentioned.

Another startling trend that I noticed was that of magazine covers. When women appeared on the covers of magazines, they were made to look sexy, and in many cases, seductive. When men appeared on the same magazine's cover (Rolling Stone) then looked macho and not seductive at all. The articles are no better: the girls are talked about boys and sex before they are asked about the music, movie, or show that they are famous for. Rolling Stone Magazine opened its article about Christina Aguilera in the following way: "...and in walked a teeny blond teen in baggy, Army-green pants. She walks at the head of a growing entourage to her dressing room and slips into a black baby T-shirt that halts just below her solar plexus, exposing a navel that wouldn't look out of place on the label of a Gerber's baby-food jar. Written in silver on the front of the shirt are the words "I Love Playboy." Dear Reader: Meet Christina Aguilera."

This controversy arrives because everyoene wants their favorite stars (mostly teens) to look sweet and innocent, much like Britney Spears does in this photo below, taken in 1999 when she was seventeen years old. Many feminist groups in particular do not want women to be seen as sex symbols, especially younger women.

One more trend that I found to be quite startling was that men are shown more than women on television. Men are shown fifty-five per cent of the time, where women are only shown forty-five per cent of the time (media-awareness.org). In the over all media, men outnumber women by as much as 200% (childrennow.org)!!!

Another problem that I noticed is that women are often portrayed as the weaker sex. According to once source, "Weaker Sex" is listed as an alternate definition to "woman" in a theasurus (gurlpages.com). This belief goes back to the Bible and other early religious beliefs stating that a woman is simply a "lesser man". These ideas have been reinforced by popular cultures of previous decades (such as the image at left) but also by images that fit into contemporary society. Such many fairytales which tell the story of women who do not think for themselves and are at the mercy of other forces to get what they want.

The main problem with the media is the notion that they do not influence peoples' self-images. The media, especially entertainment media is one of the single largest influences in our society today.