How prepared am I to effectively gauge the effects of communication and mass media?

     As a student who has analyzed the effects that messages containing constrictive gender stereotypes, beauty ideals, and family structures has on the average American I can confidently say I can competently gauge the impact that advertising and other forms of mass media have on society. I had never truly considered how the images we consume affect our perceptions of the world around us. I knew that I always wished I was skinny because Barbie and Bratz dolls were skinny, however I never thought about what played into that mindset. You need a system of media producers to uphold a belief such as skinny being the ideal form of beauty, you need movie producers who cast thin characters as the protagonists and chubby or normal sized men and women as the outcasts. There are toy companies jumping on the skinny train more than ever now, Barbie opened the door for numerous other dolls to come running through with their stick-thin legs, teeny waists, sultry eyes, and curvaceous figures.
     These images may seem innocent, after all they are just dolls, what impact could something as trivial have on a child's body image? While female dolls and animation characters are presented as seductive, sender, and unrealistically beautiful male figures are portrayed as hyper-masculine. Male dolls often have exaggerated muscle mass that would be impossible to attain safely on a typical human body, and male cartoon characters tend to be physically fit, violent, and emotionally vacant or apathetic. These images send messages to young girls and boys that men need to be tough and dominating to gain respect, and women need to be helpless and submissive to be considered attractive. Women are made to feel like they need to take up less physical, mental, and figurative space than men which leads to gaps within the workplace which is illustrated by Sheryl Sandberg, "Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time before they are found out for who they really are -impostors with limited skills or abilities" (Sandberg, pg. 28, 2013).