Reaction Paper

Rachel Young
Topics: Media and women, and the Holocaust
In essay sixty-five, Caroline Heldman addresses the issue of body
image and self-esteem issues in women. She begins her essay by
discussing the advertisements that frequently have women dressed in
scandalous clothing giving the impression that womens bodies are
objects for others to visually overcome (Adams).
This issue has become very personal to me in the past few years.
My sister developed an eating disorder while leaving away from home.
My sister had lost over fifteen pounds, and came back home weighing
less than a hundred pounds. It was absolutely terrifying to see her
come home in such an unhealthy state. Soon after she came home,
she looked into a health center called Center For Change, located in
Orem, Utah area. My sister had to live at the center for months before
she could come back home for a weekend. They helped her regain her
weight back and taught her to look at her body in a more healthy way.
Within those months, my family had to take classes in order to help
and prevent eating disorder thoughts. We were taught to do
everything in moderation: eating, exercising, etc. We learned about
triggers that invited the eating disorder back.
Dr. Nicole Hawkins gave a presentation about the media and how
it influenced girls and their body images. The statistics were
astounding. There was a study done in Fiji back in 1995. They
introduced TV to the population and three percent of girls reported
vomiting to maintain weight. Thirty-eight months later, fifteen percent
of girls reported vomiting to control weight (Hawkins).
The image that the media presents is unrealistic. Most magazine
covers require $60,000 to produce and six months of airbrushing
(Hawkins). These images that the media presents are mostly
manipulated and airbrushed, but women all over the world believe
they have to fit that body image in order to be of any worth
whatsoever. As Caroline Heldman stated, [women] get the message
that their bodies are the primary determination of their worth
(Adams). Women are constantly bombarded with these images
everywhere they go: magazines, grocery stores, and advertisements,
even on our phones. This influence causes most women to resort to
any diet, or surgery that will give them this look. Sarah Murnen, a
professor for the Kenyon College, wrote, girls are taught to view their
bodies as projects that need work before they can attract others,
whereas boys are likely to learn to view their bodies as tools to use to
master the environment (Adams).
I have seen this very recently. I was out running with one of my
best friends, and the conversation of the warm weather came up. She
started discussing how she needed to improve her body before

summer so she could, look good and get some attention. My friend
runs competitively for her high school team, and is in very good shape.
But she doesnt feel her body is good enough to be seen in shorts
and a t-shirt. Our bodies should not determine the worth of women, but
who we are as a person: our characteristics, talents, skills, and
strengths. The media should promote the importance of womens
personality and what makes them unique from every other person.
I discovered, when I went into middle school, that I loved history.
I do believe I got a lot of this from my family, because we are all big
history nerds. When I took my US history class my junior year of high
school, we talked a little bit about world war two. I found this war to be
the most interesting out of our nations many wars. So, I took a world
war two class my senior year of high school. It was a fascinating class.
I loved it, but there were some things I found extremely difficult to talk
about, one being the holocaust.
Holocaust means whole (holos) and burned (kaustos). This is
how we refer to this now, but back during the war it was known as the
final solution (The Holocaust). The Jews were persecuted because it
was the belief of a lot of Germany that they had lost World War one
because of the Jews. The persecution continued to grow until they
were put into ghettos or concentration camps in 1941. The Nazis
started killing off the weak and least useful: the sick, old, and weak,
and the very young (The Holocaust). This reminds me of the scene in
Schindlers List where the little children run and hide, and one little boy
hides in human waste in order to escape the guards. Around six
million Jews were killed within the four year period.
I had to opportunity to travel to Washington DC with my family
several years ago. And within that time, I visited the Holocaust
museum. There are some images I saw that I would never be able to
forget. In essay forty-eight the map entitled The Jewish Death Toll
explains a lot of what I learned about in that museum. One of the
highest death counts adds up to 4,565,000 is on the eastern part of
Europe, including Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Western USSR.
(Adams). Auschwitz was a death camp located in Poland where two
million people were murdered. A lot of this was done within gas
chambers, because it was quick and easy. They were stripped of all
their belongings and clothes before they entered the chamber to take a
bath. The Nazis commonly put all the clothes and shoes in piles.
When I first exited the elevator into the official museum, I was sickened
by what I saw. You walked through a room where shoes were piled. It
seemed to go on forever. It was a small insight of just how many were
killed.
When I was looking at the maps in essay forty-eight, I was also
happy to see the map entitled, The Righteous Among The Nations. I
have so much respect for these people. I wish we knew more about
who they were, and why they did the things they did. They risked

everything in order to protect those people. I love the movie

Schindlers List how they predict Oskar Schindler. He risked so much
for those people, he said, I was now resolved to do everything in my
power to defeat the system.
In my philosophy class, we were talking about deontology, and
utilitarianism. One of the scenarios my professor mentioned was Anne
Frank and her family. She asked us, if its wrong to lie, (according to
Kant) than is it ethically and morally wrong to keep Anne Frank and her
family in your home? The answer isnt hard to answer; of course its
the right thing to do because youre saving their lives. But because of
theories it could be seen as wrong to hide them from the police and
government.

Sources:
Adams, Maurianne. Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. New York:
Routledge, 2000. Print.
Hawkins, Nicole, Ph.D. "Negative Body Image - Understanding and
Overcoming | Center for Change." Center For Change. Center For
Change, 18 Nov. 2009. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.
"The Holocaust." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 03
Mar. 2016.