The toxic female gaze | Emma Jones | TEDxGhent

[Music] have you heard of Jennifer Aniston would you like to meet her she is after all an a-lister someone who's so famous that we feel that maybe that we all know her a little bit well I'm a journalist and a few years ago I had the chance to interview Jennifer Aniston so as I was preparing for this interview feeling a little nervous because you know it's Jennifer Aniston I also began to feel a little bit irritated because Jennifer Aniston had recently turned 40 years old and all the media coverage around it was about that and about basically how it was the apocalypse for now as a journalist my job is supposedly to go to people and ask those questions that everyone is thinking so was I really going to go and interview Jennifer Aniston and say this to her hey Jennifer how do you feel about turning 40 without Brad Pitt's without a baby and now apparently you're gonna lose your looks too because you're getting old it's not really something any one human being should ever say to another and what annoyed me even more as I continue preparing was I found out that her co-star in this particular film Owen Wilson had also just turned 40 a few weeks before Jennifer and nobody cared this really got me thinking you know why are we so obsessed with a woman's age and her looks in the same way that we're not quite as obsessed about a man's so I decided to flip things around and to ask her that now Jennifer gave me a wonderful diplomatic Hollywood answer about how things were tougher in the film industry for women than for men but my thinking on this subject was really confirmed a few months later when I interviewed the actress Sandra Bullock and as I exited the room she called after me thank you so much for being the first person not to ask me about being an older woman in Hollywood age bodies relationships why are we so interested in them when it comes to women since that time I've been a woman on a mission because I want to ask famous women about their work but it's difficult sometimes to get the opportunity to do that the Internet's over the last 20 years has made celebrity gossip really really accessible and I'm sure most of us now with social media have our Facebook and our Instagram accounts and Instagram is really king of social media at the moment I mean it's so easy you scroll through you drop a like you look at pretty pictures of pretty people all the time and if you're posting on Instagram you know all the angles and all the filters that make you look good I have even seen four year old girls who know what angles and poses to assume in order to make them look good on Instagram so yeah the media's quite bad but isn't the media a reflection of society does this actually come from within ours after all isn't it ingrained within us from the time that we're little girls I don't know if any of you but I certainly was I was known as daddy's little princess I think it's the highest compliment we can ever pay a little girl in a nice dress to go look how pretty you are that's first of all that's the best compliment we can pay her Intelli instead of telling her that she's kind or smart if you go to a toy shop you will see an explosion of pink sparkles glitter Barbies all aimed at little girls then there's Disney Princesses and this hope that one day all little girls will meet their prince charming so I think it's imprinted on our brains from that time and I think boys can grow up with that idea of little girls as well however when it comes to celebrity gossip and the people who are reading it it's not you guys it's not men who is reading it it's women who are clicking on these articles about age and relationships and how to keep your body looking good the most popular news website in the world at the moment I will tell you is something called the mail online it's an english-language publication and it has at least 20 million viewers and readers daily it's massive and who are the main readers of it it's women aged between 20 and 60 some of them have kids some of them are going to go on and have kids too and it's it's really easy site to read and it's quite funny I don't know if you've seen it but it's got what we British call a sidebar of shame and that is basically it's mainly female celebrities and you can scroll down and have a look and it's basically pictures of women in in tight outfits or on red carpets or how they're out shopping in Hollywood and today they're looking to thin too fat too old too young or maybe that their legs just aren't great today so that's the world's most read news websites at the moment and it seems so harmless doesn't it just just to click on it I mean Here I am telling you about this stuff and I know how easy it is to click on things like that because a few weeks ago I believe that Kim Kardashian's on airbrushed ass broke the internet again and I clicked on that picture I did it too so it's really really easy and it seems so harmless doesn't it one little trick but in fact with every click on those kind of websites you are generating more revenue for that media organization from the advertising and also when we do that a message is sent to the advertisers and to that organization that we like stories like that that they need to find more that they should publish more of them because they're popular and they will get more money but there's there's also something else that makes it less harmless I think as human beings we are created to you yearn to seek beauty and I think that we also want to seek a higher purpose I think it's in our DNA it is built within us but if we turn it in on ourselves too much that quest for beauty and that quest for meaning or if we focus it too much on other people then it can lead to envy comparison and in the worst cases mental health problems I was really upset to read a few weeks ago that in the UK for girls aged between 16 and 24 one in four of them had admitted to self-harming that's cutting yourself usually that's what it means and a similar number said that they felt worthless I consider that word worthless without value it's a terrible thing for a young woman to say about herself and yet as well if you asked a 17 year old girl in the United States according to a survey recently a 17 year old girl you asked her what she thought of her body four out of five of those girls who were asked would tell you that she hated it and I think that it's not just important for women to know this but I think it's also important for guys to understand what's going on as well because recently in the UK anorexia amongst young teenage men has doubled so this objectification this worship of the self this this seeking after the body and and all the surface it's coming for you as well I think that we're in some kind of poisonous cycle really where women where we have already absorbed these messages that our looks are all important are passing this on to the next generation without really realizing it and they have social media they are living in an even more visual age I passionately believe there is a direct link between what we are seeing in the media and how we feel inside you can't escape it so what is the solution well I think there is a solution but it's going to take you the public and as the media to work together to do it firstly consider before you click I know that sounds strange but let me enlighten you say for example there is a website and there's a beautiful young woman in a in a short dress on a night outs and it seems like a really mindless celebrity story just to just to look at well are you seeing the whole picture what if I actually showed you the whole photo of that woman's night out what if I showed you that she was being chased down the street by 30 photographers taking her picture without permission would you be so eager to read that article then I have seen with my own eyes Britney Spears taken to hospital some years ago suffering from nervous exhaustion after a life bombarded with the paparazzi and I have seen Amy Winehouse in London chased down the road by photographers as well for her image most celebrities to be clear on this are not colluding with the media to give away all aspects of their personal life most people really want to be interviewed for their work and their talent so that's the first thing you can do the second is to really get behind women like Emma Watson who are already calling the system out I admire greatly for the fact that she is campaigning tirelessly and speaking out about the way that the entertainment industry treats women now it will be wonderful she is Himani for so many Millennials it would be wonderful if she can work her magic but people like her need your support they suffer an awful lot of abuse for speaking up about this because in a way it's going against the industry itself and then the media what do we need to do about it well I think that the question on whether social media needs to be regulated is a subject for a whole on a TED talk but speaking as a journalist personally I think that the mainstream media has to acknowledged that we have a really toxic system it's pointless talking about strong female role models and when there is one in front of you we ask them whether or not they want kids for example so I would like the mainstream news media to really get together to come together and see pledge to ask famous women more I believe that we can shift the narrative that we can change the conversation if we do it together and this is what I want from my world the world I work in there instead of age bodies relationships there instead we hear from women about their talents their opinions and their beliefs thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 299,910

Rating: 4.3366199 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Belgium, Social Science, Feminism, Media, Social Change, Social Justice, Women, Women in business, Women's Rights

Id: UclXAnTMZRY

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017