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Hayden Allred
Professor: Fran Voltz
UWRT 1102-020
December 5, 2014
Proposal
I have chosen to look into body image and the objectification of the female body,
done so by the media and society. I plan to look into affects of the issue. What has
society done to women and for their image? What are young women learning? What is
this showing them they are worth? With all the reform since the womens rights
movement, why hasnt more changed? What has gotten worse and what is being accepted
as normal that shouldnt be? What does advertising really give us? Is it more than just
selling products? Does this relate to the issue of body image and eating disorders in
women? Why care? Why did we ever begin to care?
Some may pin me as a feminist and that may be true, though I dont associate it
with anything disgruntled nor do I partake in rioting. I simply just believe that women
and men should be treated equally and have the same opportunities because we all have
our own strengths and weaknesses. My aim is to show women and girls that they should
embrace being a female and see how amazing it is and teach them how to get out of the
stigma we find our selves in, to not accept stereotypes and to be the change. I aim this
towards everyone really because if we continue nothing will be different. We must first
change the way we think about things and change what we deem acceptable and normal
to really be able to have reform.
This is very important to me because in the early years of my childhood up to now
I have always had self esteem issues. I have always compared my self to others and been
obsessed with what I could do to be prettier and better accepted. I have never been truly

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happy with who, or how I am. Now that I am trying to get to the bottom of it all and have
been working on my self, I have became interested in the topic of why myself and
millions other like me and worse are the way we are. It infuriates me that I being as much
able bodied as the next man am viewed differently because I am in fact a woman. I cringe
at the fact that my generation is obsessed with themselves and with selfies and their self
worth is measured by the amount of likes they can get on face book and with materialistic
things and that sex in practically in elementary schools. Its time to change and that is why
I am interested.
I have previously done some research on this topic and others similar. On this
topic I know several things. I know that a girls self esteem peaks when they are nine
years old, that 80% of children who are only 10 are afraid of being fat, 90% of women
and girls want to change at least one aspect of their appearance and that a quarter of the
girls ages 15-17 would consider having plastic surgery. I also know that the US weight
loss market is over 60 billion, that 10 million or more people in the US have an eating
disorder most being women and girls and that it is the number one killer of any and all
mental illnesses. I know that this is caused largely from media that we see on a daily
basis, 3000 on average to be exact. Only 5% of women actually have the ideal body
type as portrayed by the media. I know that aside from their intended purpose of
selling products that advertisements also sell ideals, values and normalcy. I am aware that
beauty standards affect the way women as well as men view and worth of the female
gender.
I would like to do more research on this topic of body image and body
objectification. I would like to find where an ad has been called out. I wish to find out

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more on statistics and seek out what some experts on women and media have to say. I
would love to interview some people and how they feel towards the subject.
1. What is body objectification?
2. What kind of eating disorders are prominent and from where do they stem
3. What has been the log term effects of media form the past 100 years
4. How long have we been working towards where we find ourselves now
5. What can be done to turn this around
6. How much is the beauty industry worth
7. Who are some real examples of people I can use in my paper
8. Where are we headed if things dont change
9. How does society perceive females do we want change as a whole?
10. What is currently being done to combat objectification of the female body
and body image, self worth, eating disorders
I feel like I will find a lot of the information I seek on the web and by asking
people men and women about their views of the topics. I feel like my hardest
question to find an answer for is do we as a society want change and how will
we get there. We wont find one clear answer.
If tons and tons of research bombard me, I will narrow it down to just eating
disorders same for if I cant find enough information on body objectification I
will also just stick to eating disorders because I know there will be plenty of
information on that.
My target audience is definitely women and girls. The main goal is to make
women realize their worth and demand it. Make us love oneanother and stick

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together because fighting one another in the beauty contest will never change
anything or make any one feel better about themselves. We as women need to
learn to love our selves and value our own opinions of ourselves because
when we can finally value and respect ourselves then the rest of the world will
too.