Threads and Tales by Sofia: Being a Woman in Media

By Sofia Lamdichi | September 15, 2025

Photo Credit: Pixabay

In a world where every like, view and follow feels like victory, why do women have to navigate a minefield of ridicule to get there? Women are expected to perform in many areas of their lives with the most common stage occurring on social media. Everything about the female body and personality must fit the expectations that their audience has for them as the consumers of their content. The trends women follow, as well as the way they post and curate their online presence, are meant to emulate an image of women that their viewers are comfortable seeing. The women seen on screens are inclined to emulate numerous looks, demeanor or even speech of their successful predecessors because everyone who creates content needs to appeal to their audience in order to succeed. 

The pressure to fit the mold of the perfect woman on social media is so prevalent that there are even tutorials on how to speak and act on camera to make viewers see you as deserving of their time. More often than not, these tutorials are targeted towards women who are trying to conform to the patriarchal society. Chasing the dollar sign, likes, comments and shares creates a space where people can act uniformly to indulge in their own success stories. 

The issue that this demanding media brings is its consumers’ tendency to change their expectations for women frequently. When this occurs, it pressures women to change themselves inorganically, promoting the standards demanded by society rather than those preferred by individual women. When they finally meet the new conformist standards the society demanded, they are berated by their decisions to meet the expectations. Despite this common backlash, female internet personalities are attacked for not keeping up with the new trends and expectations. A woman in the media must never dare to show the world that they are multi-dimensional.

Even their speech must be of a certain cantor. The standards for women in the media all have one common denominator: they must be considered attractive by men. Their self-worth is thereafter completely out of their hands and reliant on people who don’t truly know them. As if it is justifiable for women to have their space in the media only if they are serving men. The only way for there to be changes is if women begin to refuse to conform to the outlines written by patriarchy, which are then delivered to them mostly by other women. A sort of digital boycott is necessary to break the cycle. It would open doors for many openly-different creatives to bask in the success of their creativity. 

With the digital boycott, viewers would be exposed to diversity in the media instead of the same five faces popping up on our feeds. When one is exposed to more and more diversity, they are less likely to be ignorant towards the cultures, lifestyles, preferences, appearances and languages of others. With a vast group of people now spending more time online than discovering the world around them, it is important that the digital landscape does not become a dystopia and instead serves as a mirror of the world around us. 

When our phones act as mirrors instead of portals, it can create change and progress for society as a whole. It is time to use our telephones and computers as tools instead of a means of escape. Especially as there are millions around the world who are living a reality they currently cannot escape. It is up to the ones with privilege to use as many aspects of our lives towards mending the broken soul of the world. This can all be started by questioning why one must stay in line to reach their ideas. Changing your very being to be successful is not sustainable and only leads to self-hatred. People can focus on bigger issues when they realize how primal it is to obsess over filters and trends that will grant them the most validation from men.