Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary entitled “Miss Representation” discloses that the average teenage girl takes in 10 hours of media per day, and that women dominate a measly 5 percent of clout positions in the industry.

Since the beginning of time, men have undoubtedly dominated the entertainment industry in everything from advertisements in magazines to public television. In retrospect, the female population has been objectified by participating in scantily clad photo shoots and trying to achieve the epitome of “sexy,” ultimately for the sake of men.

The constant power struggle between men and women has proved to be a losing battle for females in the media industry. Several male news anchors have publicly bashed iconic women for being too fat, too ditzy or too powerful. NFL cheerleaders have been ridiculed for being too fat when thousands of teenage girls look up to them as role models. Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin has been one of the biggest victims, as countless news networks labeled her as a weak candidate for the vice-presidency because she was involved with her family and was considered to be stupid, unqualified, or both.

If we’re labeling women with such demeaning titles because they’re actually able to balance a family life and a professional career, America has pointed toward an issue that is larger than just having women in the working world.

This generation has manipulated themselves into believing that women are less capable of the same things as men are, and they end up looking irrational for even trying to appear equal to men. Additionally, it seems a woman is only featured in a magazine or on television if she has the ideal, picture perfect body. The media has instilled the message that if you aren’t a size 2 and don’t have the correct breast-to-butt ratio, you will never be considered beautiful, and that’s the problem.

Take, for example, Esquire editor Alex Bilmes speaking about the women featured in his magazine in a recent interview with the Guardian:

“The women that we feature in the magazine are ornamental, that is how we see them. I could lie to you if you want and say that we’re interested in their brains as well, but in the whole, we’re not. They’re there to be objectified.”

He continues to defend Esquire by saying that they feature “many shapes of women,” when in reality, there is no real difference between Megan Fox and Mila Kunis, who by little coincidence are also the only two women to appear on the magazine’s cover in the past year.

Personality and common sense are just as important – if not more so – than physical looks to anyone who actually plans on having a relationship with someone of the opposite sex sometime in their lifetime. To say a woman’s worth depends solely on her physical qualities is like expecting an A in a class that you never once showed up to; it is entirely unrealistic and impractical.

It’s irrational to assume that every woman between the ages of 18 and 30 will look anything like those headlining actresses, but women are flawed to believe that they need to strive to look like that.

Although objectification isn’t exactly the correct term, women can’t get by without being held responsible for trivializing men, as well. For example, Vogue wouldn’t be half the advertising success it is without the aesthetically pleasing men advertising some new cologne in nothing but their form-fitting boxers. Attractive men appeal to women just as attractive women appeal to men. This just goes to show that sex sells products, especially since buying cologne has no direct correlation to being naked.

The problem with society today is that there is no effective effort to assure that these detrimental aspects of media don’t negatively sway upcoming generations into thinking they are inadequate. Being bombarded with the images of what a girl is expected to look like sets younger girls up for failure when they are faced with the reality that Photoshop and unhealthy habits are the reasons why cover models look the way they do.

Women are not incapable. Women are not stupid. And women are not meant to be objects for society. Once we realize this, maybe we can truly be able to look at how far we’ve come.