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Women as objects in advertising
Women as objects in advertising
Essay about how gender issues manifest in advertising
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The incorporation of feminist ideologies in advertising has allowed for an appropriation of feminism that has exploited the movement into what Goldman, Heath and Smith describe as a means of fetishizing feminism by turning feminism into a commodity value (1991, pg. 336). In the article on “Commodity Feminism”, Goldman et al., (1991) argues that through commodity feminism, “Feminism is reduced to the status of a mere signifier or signified” (pg. 336). The recent upsurge of the feminist movement has permitted marketers to incorporate the current trend and social values of feminism into their advertisements, all while binding it to the commodity that they are attempting to push forward. Commodity feminism can be seen as stripping the movement away from being a tool for social and political change, and rather reconstructing it in a way that presents the commodity being advertised as a form of feminist revolution and activism. With Swimsuits For All’s efforts to convey the message of self-acceptance through it’s body-positive advertisement, …show more content…
348). In the Swimsuit For All ad, an advert that seems to be standing for the feminist ideology around body-positivity can be seen contradicting its message through the way in which the female body is sexualized with intentions to serve for male pleasure. It is also seen that the idea around “flaunting” one’s body and feeling empowered can only be reached through the consumption of a Swimsuit For All bikini; a bikini that will reveal the female body which then allows for a sense of liberation. The choice that a woman makes in order to sexualize her own body is where liberation derives from. Moreover, by turning feminist ideologies into commodity signs, advertisers have been able to utilize feminism in a way to serve capitalistic
This phenomenon suggests that all women are required to remain loyal wives and stay at home mothers who aspire to achieve perfection. In “Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images,” Jonathon E. Schroeder and Detlev Zwick claim that “highly abstract connections are made between the models, a lifestyle, and the brand” resulting in a need to associate these products with a specific way of living (25). Instead of simply displaying these luxurious bracelets and handbags, the ad creates an elegant environment through the incorporation of sophisticated items. The women are dressed elegantly in dresses and blouses, adding a conservative element to the ad. The ad presents a rather stereotypical image of the very successful heads-of-household type mothers who have brunch with other elite women in an exclusive circle. Everything from the merchandise they sport to the champagne glasses down to the neatly manicured fingernails provides insight into the class of women presented in this ad. The body language of the women strips the image of the reality element and instead appears to be staged or frozen in time. This directly contributes to the concept of the gendered American dream that urges women to put up a picture-perfect image for the world to see. Instead of embracing individual struggle and realities, the American dream encourages women to live out a fabricated
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
This is a stereotype, which has been engraved into heads of men, women, and children. By plastering the world with models who seem to have it the genetic jackpot, Dove set out to discredit this cultural cast created by our society. Body image, to some people, is the first part of a person they notice. A study conducted by Janowsky and Pruis compared body image between younger and older women. They found that although older women “may not feel the same societal pressure as younger women to be thin and beautiful…some feel that they need to make themselves look as young as possible” (225). Since women are being faced with pressure to conform in ways that seem almost impossible, Jeffers came to the conclusion “they should create advertising that challenges conventional stereotypes of beauty” (34) after conducting various interviews with feminist scholars. The stance of Figure 1’s model screams confident. She is a voluptuous, curvy and beautiful women standing nearly butt-naked in an ad, plastered on billboards across the globe. Ultimately, she is telling women and girls everywhere that if I can be confident in my body, so can you. Jessica Hopper reveals, “some feel that the ads still rely too heavily on using sex to sell” (1). However, I feel as if these are just criticisms from others who are bitter. With the model’s hands placed assertively placed on her hips, her smile lights up the whole ad. She completely breaks the stereotype that in order to
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
In the 1997 article Listening to Khakis, published in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell effectively paints a vivid picture of the thought and science that goes into advertising campaigns. Gladwell begins his paper by focusing on the Dockers’ advertising campaign for their line of adult male khaki pants, which he labels as extremely successful. This campaign was the first line of successful fashion advertisements aimed directly toward adult males (Gladwell, 1997). This campaign was cunningly simple and showed only males wearing the pants being advertised with the background noise filled with men having a casual conversation (Gladwell, 1997). This tactic was used because studies showed that Dockers’ target market felt an absence in adult male friendships. (Gladwell, 1997). The simplicity of the advertisements was accentuated as to not to deter possible customers by creating a fashion based ad because, based on Gladwell’s multiple interviews of advertising experts, males shy away from being viewed as fashion forward or “trying to hard” (Gladwell, 1997).
Other aspects strengthen the advertisement design's sexual appeal. The foreground woman's strapless swimming suit, highlighted in red, is the most notable example. Her chest prominently resides above horizontal boxes in both th...
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously over the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between the 1900’s and 1920’s, did the roles of women change dramatically here in the United States.
It guilt’s women and enforces unfair body expectations on them, while shaming those who cannot meet them. “Messages abound telling women that they are not good enough or beautiful enough, encouraging us to constantly change ourselves, often through the use of various products and practices.” [2] (Pg. 232) In this advertisement we
The objectification of women is a huge issue in society and is often led by advertising. However, many men still believe that the adverts depicting women in a sexual and often passive posture are not very offensive, but rather very funny or sexy. However, how would they feel if it were their daughter or sister being advertised throughout the world as a sexual object? The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60.
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
Cohan overall leaves a strong impression on the reader that change in women’s advertising is very important and necessary. He effectively shows that women’s advertising is often unethical and ultimately needs to stop degrading women and move to more positive ways of advertising. Although, upon digging deeper in to Cohan’s specific claims on idealized imagery advertising, a gap emerges. Cohan calls the women in the ads who have been idealized “perfect” “ideal”, women that the “average women” will never be able to look like/be (327), but in all actuality, how can advertisements, or anyone for that matter, define what is “perfect”, “average”, “pretty”, “ugly”? Cohan overlooks this phenomenon, of the ever evolving, never definable term: beauty, therefore creating a need for deeper analysis.
There are so many forms of propaganda that surround our lives on a every day basis, and these negative messages persuade and shape our thoughts of perfection, of who we are, and who we ought to be. The beauty industry and its’ advertisements is one type of propaganda that ultimately characterizes the way we think of ourselves. The media is relentless in reminding us every chance they get why women need to be perfect and what we need to achieve that. There is endless pressure as women to have a perfect body and appearance. The beauty industry’s aim through advertisement is to make women feel as if we need to buy the beauty products in order to look and feel like the models on television, magazines, and in commercials. The beauty industry is very successful because as women, we often feel compelled to buy whatever is necessary to look “perfect.” In years past the beauty industry has been solely focused on the obvious beauty tools such as makeup, hair accessories, lotion, etc. However, we have become more intrigued by even more aspects of the beauty world such as undergarments and everywhere in between. In other words, media propaganda is more interested in the “selling of sex” now than ever before. An unfortunate yet accurate depiction by actress Helen Mirren reads, “Flesh sells. People don’t want to see pictures of churches, they want to see naked bodies.” Just as Mirren knows this to be true, so does the beauty industry and they have taken it and ran with it.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
Often times, companies use a social group in society and turn them into objects to enhance the impact of their advertisement. A social group that is commonly targeted is women, as they are used to attract both men and their own gender to different products. In Burger King’s ‘Seven Incher’ burger advertisement, American woman are objectified. Burger King is attempting to reel in customers through standard appeals, diction, and images, but in turn is blatantly marginalizing women.
In 2013, the American woman can vote, be the CEO of a business, start her own company, and wear pants. Many would say that a woman has the exact same rights as a man in today’s society- and is treated the same as well. However, in addition to glaring economical evidence provided through data stating that women still earn 77 cents to every man’s dollar (Basset, HuffingtonPost.com), we find that women are still entrapped socially- by sexualisation and objectification of them. Sexualising and objectifying women in advertisements leads to the de-humanisation of them.