Flesh for fantasy : exposing the sexualised and manipulated female persona in contemporary women's media

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis focuses on the representation of women in media aimed at women. A criticalexamination of visual communication (magazines, advertising and visual story-telling1) willdemonstrate that the media may be regarded as highly influential in the way women perceivetheir bodies, reproduction and sexuality.I begin by examining the presentation of the 'ideal' woman as an instance of the Pygmalioncomplex. This reading of the media's formulation of the female ideal aims to demonstratethe psychological effects of the Pygmalion complex on women, and illustrates how theresultant striving for perfection drives production and consumption. I shall demonstrate howthe image of the 'ideal' woman is increasingly more sophisticated and convincinglyportrayed through the use of digital manipulation, plastic surgery, excessive dieting andexercise regimes. I propose that the average woman is left feeling inadequate and isundermined by the voice of her own cultural representation.This thesis also investigates the persistence of the virgin / whore binary in the media'sdepiction of female sexuality. I propose that this is an essentialist and dualistic presentationof female sexuality as either 'good' (surrendered, submissive and conforming – i.e. thevirgin); or 'bad' (transgressive, explicit, dangerous and destructive – i.e. the whore). I furthersuggest that this polarised appropriation of women's sexuality deprives women of ownershipof their own sexuality. I also propose that the media's treatment of female sexuality presentswomen as being in competition within one another for male attention and approval and thatthis representation damages female solidarity.Finally I demonstrate that pornography has infiltrated all aspects of popular culture, frommagazines to music videos. My hypothesis is that this use of pornographic conventionsdepicts the rape and abuse of women as normative, commonplace and even entertaining, andthat this has a detrimental effect on both women's and men's sexual and social wellbeing.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University