#therepresentationproject

American teenagers spend: 31 hours a week watching T.V.(source) 17 hours a week listening to music (source) 3 hours a week watching movies (source) 4 minutes a week reading magazines(source) and 10 hours a week online (source)

That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day(source)

It’s estimated that there is somewhere north of 1 billion people who use the Internet every single day (source)

53% of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies.  That number increases to 78% by age 17. (source)

It is estimated that out of the 8 million people with an eating disorder 7 of those million are women. (source)

65% of US women and girls report disordered eating behaviors.

17% of teens engage in cutting and self-injurious behavior.

Depression in women has doubled since 1970

U.S advertisers spent $235.6 billion in 2009.  80% of the countries in the world have GDP’s less than that.

U.S women spend $12,000 to $15,000 a year on beauty products and salon services.

The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth under age 19 more than tripled from 1997 to 2007.

Women make up 51% of the US population… however women comprise only 20% of congress

35 women have served as US governors compared to 2,319 men.

71 countries in the world have had female presidents or prime ministers, the US is not one of them.

U.S. women continue to earn 77¢ to every dollar that men earn.

In nine states and the District of Colombia women who are victims of domestic abuse can be denied healthcare coverage because domestic abuse can be considered a preexisting condition.

The U.S is the only major industrialized nation without paid family leave.

In 2011, only 11% of protagonists in films were female.

Between 1937 and 2005 there were only 13 female protagonists in animated films…All of them except one had the aspiration of finding romance.

More than 20% of teens in the US have sex before the age of 14

In Nancy Pelosi’s four years as Speaker of the House, she has been on the cover of zero national weekly magazines

Women own only 5.8% of all television stations and 6% of radio stations

Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media (telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, and advertising)(source)

Studies prove exposures to sexually explicit video games and music videos is linked to men’s acceptance of rape myths and sexual harassment

1 in 4 girls experience teen dating violence

1 in 4 women are abused by a partner in their lifetime

1 in 6 women are survivors of rape or attempted rape

15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12

Rape survivors are more likely to suffer Depression, Abuse Alcohol and Drugs, or Contemplated Suicide

70% of women in the workforce are mothers; yet we have no national paid leave child care or flex time policy

    OTHER STATISTICS

42% of children under 8 years old have a TV in their bedroom (source)

52% of  0 to 8 year olds have access to a new mobile device such as a smart phone, video iPod, or iPad/tablet (source)

Girls between 11 and 14 see on average 500 ads a day (source)

Males outnumber females 3 to 1 in family films. In contrast, females comprise just over 50% of the population in the United States. Even more staggering is the fact that this ratio, as seen in family films, is the same as it was in 1946 (source)

Women are about 37% of prime-time TV characters (they are 51% of the U.S. population). Women 45 and older are only 15% of prime-time TV characters. (source)

Male TV characters (41%) were more likely to be shown “on the job” than female characters (28%). Men were more likely to talk about work than women were (52% vs. 40%) and less likely to talk about romantic relationships (49% vs. 63%) (source)

Only 20% of news articles are about women (source)

The American Psychological Association estimates that teens are exposed to 14,000 sexual references & innuendos per year on TV (source)

In 2011, women comprised 18% of all directors,executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films (source)

Forty-two percent of first to third-grade girls want to be thinner, while 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of getting fat (source)

Eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet. The number one magic wish for young girls age 11-17 is to be thinner (source)

Rates of depression are the same among boys and girls until puberty, but twice as many women are diagnosed as depressed post-puberty (source)

15% of rape survivors are under the age of 12 (source)

In 2008 57% of rape or sexual assaults against females were committed by an offender whom they knew (source)

Twenty to 25% of women in college reported experiencing an attempted or a completed rape in college (source)

The US ranks 97th in the world for number of women in national government

So I am currently working on a research project about the hypersexualization of women in the media. This is a very prominent and important issue, and needs to be dealt with. 

One aspect of this project is service. My plan is to advocate for these two organizations:

The SPARK movement, www.sparksummit.com. It's a women-founded organization made for the empowerment of women and girls. 

The Representation Project, www.therepresentationproject.org. You may have heard of this one. It's an organization fighting for equal rights for men and women. They made two short films, Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In. Check them out!

The Rep Project has a sub-project going on: the hashtag #NotBuyingIt. It's a project for places like Twitter and Facebook, places that have hashtags, to raise awareness of sexist media. Download the #NotBuyingIt app and tweet! Post! SPREAD THE WORD!!

Meanwhile, donate to SPARK! It's in incredible organization. It inspires a generation of girls to see that we have the power to make change happen.

So spread the word! This is an issue that affects everyone, and we are the only way to stop it. Stop sexualizing women in the media. They are not objects to be used as you desire and then thrown away like they're trash. We are human beings, and we deserve every right that a man has.

Women have made significant achievements in media, especially in the passed year. However there are those who still see an portray women as inferior objects rather than human beings. This is a huge problem in our media and has been for some time now. But it can change! As Helen Keller once said "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much". If we can work together both women and men we can change the minds of those who continue to keep us from equality. Men and Women may be different, but those differences are what make us the perfect balance when we work together. By removing the inequality between women and men that balance will help us to do great things in our world. With men and women working together, instead of against or at each others expense, there is nothing that can't be done!