Students discuss stereotypes at Diversity Dialogue
The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and EMPOWER co-hosted a diversity dialogue on body image Thursday evening to discuss the influences of the media.
“The goal of the dialogues is to promote social justice and to get college students thinking about diversity and social justice issues,” Marcy Labossiere, graduate assistant for social justice and diversity education, said. “It’s important for them to understand their thoughts and perceptions in an increasingly diverse society.”
Labossiere began by explaining society’s concept of body image.
“Females have to be thin and pretty to be confident and smart. Males have to be muscular and fit in order to be successful.”
This concept of body image is continuously reinforced in the media.
“The media promotes perfection in body image the way we currently perceive it by publicizing images, documents and videos that focus on this image,” she said. “People should focus on being healthy instead.”
After an introduction of the dialogue, students divided into small groups to analyze different forms of media. One group leafed through pages of a magazine to observe the stereotypes portrayed in the pictures.
“They seem like one type of person,” Anthony Sullivan, a second-year political science student, said. “They have the same body type and size. It seemed like it was tailored to slender people.”
Rebecca Duensing, a second-year sports management student, commented on the portrayal of women in magazines. “All of the magazines have very tiny girls,” she said. “It gives girls this idea that their body is not good enough.”
Students were then prompted to analyze the pictures further and comment on the negative effects. One group paused on a picture of a nude girl in a snow globe for a makeup ad.
“Women are often times objectified in society and this girl has been turned into an object,” commented fourth-year political science student Dominick Donaldson. “She has no control over her surroundings. She has been completely photo-shopped to remove blemishes.”
Students expressed what messages they felt the media gives off concerning body image. “All this stuff is geared toward able-bodied people without disabilities,” Donaldson said. “They capitalize on your insecurities.”
Labossiere advised students on how to overcome and ignore the images portrayed in the media.
“Try to be in the mind-set of stopping comparing yourself to others,” she said. “If you travel around the world and observe other cultures you would see that not all societies think of beauty the way America does.”
While there are stereotypical portrayals of body image in the media, Anthony Gomez, a third-year psychology and Spanish student, believes that the media is trying to incorporate campaigns that are geared towards promoting natural beauty.
“In the past all you saw in magazines was a skinny body frame,” Gomez said. “I feel like now we have moved towards the natural look. Dove, for example, uses people that they find to represent a natural beauty for their campaign.”