Miss Representation focuses on the media’s representation of women and how the omnipresence of media entrenches such representations so deeply into essentially any human with Internet. It delves into the ways women are constantly being sexualized by the media and being objectified by their bodies. This portrayal of women creates unrealistic, not to mention very shallow, perceptions of the female population and creates a sense of value dependent on the ever-changing standard of beauty. This is also very prevalent in Korea as subways are bombarded with plastic surgery advertisements. This is a country where beauty is key, where beauty is the equivalent to political power in D.C and money is in NYC. Women all follow the same beauty trends in this homogeneous society and are all held to the same standard despite our inherent biological differences that affect height and weight. I have a friend who’s in a K-POP girl group who looks like a normal, relatively pretty high school girl. Yet she’s already received backslash from the Korean media for her weight because in comparison to the size 0 girls in her group, she’s considered to be fat. Comments from Korean netizens consist of “she should really follow a healthy diet…” to “too fat to be an idol.” The online community in Korea masks their sexism by acting concerned for her health all the time and the passive aggression in these statements are blindly accepted because of the ingrained sexism in Korean culture and online media.

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry also offers a historical perspective but delves more deeply into specific women in the movement, specifically the NOW movement – a national organization founded for women. One particular part that struck me was the job advertisements being compartmentalized for men and for women with the women’s job advertisement reading “looking for a secretary for a good-looking executive.” The implications in this advertisement are so subtle yet so strong. It suggests that women are incredibly shallow who are only looking for a job for the sake of being in the company of powerful, charming men. It does not recognize the professional needs of women being just as strong as they are for men. It reads “you might end up as his wife.”
I didn’t fully realize the negative connotations of the word “feminist” until my brother called me a “feminist” with an annoyed tone to his voice. He’d grown tired of the “social justice warriors” from his liberal arts school and had developed a negative perception of feminists as a result. My brother’s one of the sweetest, understanding guys I know, but this also serves as a reminder that the people who don’t really support feminism aren’t necessarily black-and-white, horrible people. They genuinely have reasons for not supporting feminist rights, which makes the case for feminism even harder to communicate.