The media has affected my gender identity because it has placed an expectation that young women and girls should strive for the ideal body. However, they have strict requirements such as being extremely thin, white or fair, and having a perfect complexion. Yet, even women in the ads cannot obtain the perfection they are representing. For example, Kilbourne states that models presented in commercial and ads are photoshopped and in some cases four different women (Kilbourne). This gives young girls and women unrealistic goals that they have to emulate the best characteristics from a variety of women. This relates to affecting my gender identity because growing up identifying as female I felt that I never lived up to the media’s categorization
