The Influence of Gender Roles on Body Image Satisfaction - Literature review Example

The Influence of Gender Roles on Male/Female Body Image Satisfaction By The Influence of Gender Roles on Male/Female Body Image Satisfaction Literature Review Olivardia et al. (2004) stated that it only takes one a single look at kids’ toys to spot that there are different gender-stereotyped cultural ideals for men and women. Both men and women have different body image ideals that are compatible with their traditional gender roles. However, the belief that the bodies of women are very essential to their well-being entails that ensuring good appearance is more important. Unsurprisingly, studies suggest that there are influences of gender role conformity on men and women body image satisfaction. Olivardia et al. (2004) in their research generally confirmed that men exhibit substantial body satisfaction levels. Men always perceive themselves to be a bit more muscular than their real body sizes. They argued that if men were asked to choose the bodies that they would like to have, they would choose a body with more muscles and less fat levels than their actual bodies. This variation between body ideal and body reality of men is also found in other studies (Furnham, Badmin & Sneade, 2002). As noted in this study, the striking difference between the actual and desired muscularity of men may reflect media and societal pressures on current men to have a more muscular body. Olivardia et al. (2004) also stated that men if asked they can choose a body that has a perceived womans idea. Again, this study is similar to other studies that suggested that men think that women want them to have more muscular bodies. This study also gives an argument that modern men must achieve a muscular and unrealistically lean body due to modern societal pressures. In general, the findings of this study highly support the notion of early researches that there is a large difference between body ideal and body reality in contemporary young men. The authors also outline the relationship between body image, eating disturbances, and depression. They argue that body satisfaction is highly associated with eating disorders, depression, and self-esteem. Although the literature about the image of the body in men remains limited, the authors of this research have tried to show how societal and media pressures are currently influencing male’s body image satisfaction. The finding in their article suggests that modern men show substantial body dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is nearly associated with gender roles, depression, eating disorders, and low esteem. The findings also emphasise the notion that contemporary men are laboring under the influence of media and societal pressures. The article concludes by recommending that support and outreach organizations should become more aware of the concerns of body image in males and psychopathology that accompanies these body image concerns. The content of this article is compared with the article “Body image dissatisfaction: Gender differences in eating attitudes, self-esteem, and reasons for exercise” by Furnham, Badmin & Sneade. The authors have both similar and varying views about the influence of gender roles on male/female body satisfactions. Some of their views that are similar to the article “Biceps and Body Image: The Relationship between Muscularity and Self-Esteem, Depression, and Eating Disorder Symptoms” are discussed below. The general conclusion of this article was that body image of both male and female is highly influenced by eating disorders, exercise, and self-esteem. However, they highly emphasize that body image of both males and females correlate extremely with eating disorders, a notion that is similar in the first article. The authors have also pointed out that there are gender differences in behavior labeling, for instance, men do not admit that eating large quantities of food as binging. Men, according to this study are more interested in body shape than increasing weight, although these two entities are closely related. They further state that the difference between the fact that men desire shape and women loss their body weight through dieting is the function of varying ideas of male and female. The men’s ideal is having a V-shaped body figure with strong muscles while women’s ideal is having an extremely thin body. Females are more likely to describe their body shapes as fat and weigh themselves and diet frequently than men do. In addition, women are more likely to have dissatisfaction with their physical body appearance than men. The main difference in perception of body image in these two sexes is weight dissatisfaction and less likely with shape especially the hips. Furnham, Badmin & Sneade (2002) therefore, assert that body weight dissatisfaction nature of men and women is slightly different. For instance, women can sometimes judge themselves as overweight, while in the real sense they are not. While on the other hand, men are likely to judge themselves as underweight in respect of objective standards. This suggests that these two groups misjudge their body weight by comparing their weight with that of others or using unhealthy standards (Murnen & Don, 2012). “Underweight” has different meaning according to the way men and women perceive it. For instance, men see underweight as bad while women, on the other hand, see it as good. Furnham, Badmin & Sneade (2002) concluded according to the results of their research that, women and men generally have body dissatisfactions. The results showed that due to gender roles, men like being more heavy while women like having a decreased body weight. The statement by Olivardia et al. (2004) that underweight women seem satisfied while underweight men appear unhappy is given some support by Furnham, Badmin and Sneade’s results highlighting the fact that male and female’s body dissatisfactions are very different. Furnham, Badmin & Sneade (2002) further stated that the desire of men to add more body weight is related to their wishes to have more muscular bodies and achieve their ideal of V-shaped body figure. However, these factors can only be changed through weight gain training and not by dieting as it is asserted by Olivardia et al. (2004). In contrast, women ideal of being thin can be viewed as an eating disorder or unnecessary exercise. Therefore, neither male of females can escape the media and social pressures to attain their ideal body shapes. Dieting is more common with women than with men when it comes to matters of weight balancing. What do gender-stereotyped body ideals represent and why do people promote them in the culture sometimes? Murnen and Smolak (2009) argue that, body ideals give support to the modern gender roles norms ad in women case they give a direct representation. We are still living in societies where there are different roles for males and females. Our body image ideals give support to gender-stereotyped roles. According to Cash (2012), social role theory, gender roles probably stemmed from some biological dissimilarities between men and women. For example, women have the ability to feed and bear children while men have greater physical strength. Women were mainly associated with domestic roles and caretaking while men were associated with duties that require them to have enough physical strength. In industrialized communities, women associated themselves with home nurturing roles while men associated themselves with outside industrious roles (Davis, 2005). When people associate themselves with certain roles, they must develop skills that will enable them to succeed in carrying out these roles. For instance, women should develop emotions and sympathy compared with men because their roles are associated with taking care of others. According to Cash (2012), the social processes that relate to gender roles result in expectations that men are suited to “masculine roles” while women are suited to “feminine roles”. Diekman and Goodfriend (2006) in their gender role congruity theory added the idea that men and women will be given motivation to live according to their gender roles. Individuals who do not adhere to their gender roles can be rejected by others in the society. Cash (2012) also commended that although men’s and women’s gender roles may seem complementary and suit their biological differences, there must be a power dimension that is associated with these gender roles. The roles of men are associated with an agency that is required for economic and political leadership positions. Although the number of women who have high-status roles is currently increasing, in countries like America, there is still less likeliness of women becoming public leaders (Cash & Brown, 2007). Therefore, women because they are more economically dependent, they must ensure that they have body image satisfaction for them to be able to attract men for financial stability. Further, the men’s and women’s heterosexual interdependence in the society entails that gender roles are romanticized and the sexual success is dependent of gender societal remedies. Kim and colleagues (2007) operationalized the heterosexual concept that men and women should interact with others to perpetuate traditional gender roles as well as promoting the significance of heterosexual relationships. According to the heterosexual script, females are sexual objects while males are sexual actors. Women want relationships while men want sex. Kim and colleagues found that this script was dominant on prime-time television (Murnen & Don, 2012). The messages in this script are bolstered by gender body ideals. The physical strength of men and other markers such as being rich is used to attract females. On the other hand, women representatives in this script use their sexualised body images to attract me. Kim and colleagues therefore, assert that the ideal body image satisfaction is made to achieve the intended importance of interaction between men and women in the media culture. Cash, in his study found that women who are more focused on traditional gender roles have dysfunctional body images experiences and attitudes. Therefore, because heterosexual interdependence and patriarchal society, the bodies of women are very significant to their sociocultural status (Collins, 2001). The notion of women having body images that are more attractive is prevalent than in men. In fact, the development of objectification theory was meant to discuss the women’s objectification that might explain greater experiences of women with eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. Based on this theory, which many researchers have given empirical support, societal objectification influences women to view their bodies as objects. This body monitoring and self-objectification leads to body shame when fail to meet their societal standards. Body shame causes a positive association between eating disorder and self-objectification attitudes. It might be surprising that today’s gender roles are similar to traditional ones given the fact that there is increased number of women participating in masculine jobs such as taking part in athletics because of Title IX. Although there is increased number of women participating in agentic roles, there is also increased focus on the women’s body image. Most feminist theorists argue that there is increased focus of the womans appearance due to women’s accomplishments. Women are currently focusing on shaping their body satisfaction to accomplish their duties. Therefore, women who focus on sexualising the body images seem to thwart the status of women in the society (Murnen & Don, 2012). Lastly, given the modern media culture, women have a lot to gain and feel dissatisfied with their body images and as a result, this influences them to apply some products on their bodies or change their diets in order to achieve societal ideals. McCreary & Sasse (2000) in their research suggested that expectations for women’s behaviours have gained flexibility because the social roles of women have highly changed. For instance, women are in leadership positions are expected to have assertive behaviour. Mahalik and colleagues (2003) examined the norms of the contemporary gender roles by interviewing a group of college students. For ladies, two of the gender role norms are related to concerns of body image which include investing in thinness and appearance. The other roles of child caring, domestic roles, modesty, romantic relationships, and sexual fidelity are clearly associated with traditional societal roles. For male students the roles of risk taking, winning, violence, emotional control, playboy, dominance, power over women, primacy of work, self-reliance, the pursuit of status, and homosexual disdain help in reinforcing patriarchal society. Mahalik and colleagues (2005) developed a scale for measuring both masculine and feminine norms. This scale showed that conformity of feminine norms directly relates to thinness, while masculinity norms indirectly promote muscularity concerns. Therefore, both men and women are exposed to unrealistic body images that are compatible with their traditional gender roles. However, the notion that bodies of women are more essential to their well-being entails that ensuring that they have attracting appearance is highly important. Unsurprisingly, most researchers suggest that there is a huge difference in behaviors and attitudes related to body image. Thompson and Cafri (2007) carried out a meta-analysis about gender difference size in rates of body satisfaction across times. They found that before the 1970s, there existed no differences in body image satisfaction, but in 1980s this became statistically significant. Since then there has been increased rate of gender difference to the rate of body satisfaction, increasing at a faster rate (Cohane & Pope, 2001). They concluded that, women generally experience higher rates in body dissatisfaction due to their gender roles in the society. Johnson and Love (2004) in their study emphasized that both men and women are subjected to impractical body image ideals that increase the properties associated with masculinity and femininity. Due to their gender roles, men are always supposed to be muscular and strong while women are supposed to be sexy and thin. They further asserted that these gendered assumptions are framed according to a culture that is heterosexist and patriarchal. Conformity to women’s ideal is based on their success, whereas conformity to men’s ideal body relates to their success, although not central to their success. References Cash, T. F. (2012). 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