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Missrepresentation in Politics

The under and misrepresentation of women in politics is much worse than anyone could have expected, subtly and sometimes more blatantly woven into discussions so that even women start to believe them. I know that there aren’t enough women in politics, and the problem of under-representation is one that I can understand. One that can easily be solved by just adding more women to the political sphere. The connection between under and misrepresentation, however, is one that I did not make. The reason there aren’t many women in politics is because of the way women are portrayed, taking away potential role models for young girls who want to become later involved. This vicious cycle results in the status quo: a world ruled by men.
Since fourth grade, I have wanted to be a  Supreme Court Justice. One of my role models was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first female woman of color on the Supreme Court. I always had her to look up to, and before I was exposed to a lot of media- I never really heard anything bad about her. My opinion of her was one of a little girl trying to find someone like her, and while she was not a black woman of color (like I later found in Yvette Mcgee Brown), it was enough for me. Imagine not even having that. Imagine a world where women are slammed by media if they manage to make it to a position of power in the first place. Oh wait, that's just the world we live in.
The saddest thing about it is seeing the way that media has changed over the course of even my lifetime, and the effect that it has had on both of my younger sister. My sister in eighth grade has become caught up in a world of shaming women for the way they look and idealizing a certain figure that is very hard to come by. While she doesn’t see it as rude, she makes comments that put other women down and is much more focused on appearances than the actual content. Due to this shallow analysis of the world, she knows barely anything about politics and women in power outside of Michelle Obama. She has no one to emulate and sees only women being put down so that is what she embodies. Another girl who caved to the ways of the world
Sonia Sotomayor in black formal shirt and with arms crossed, looking straight into camera smiling

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