Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising

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In recent times, the portrayal of women in advertising has been raised as an increasingly prevalent issue in the society with the sexual objectification on women in both print and digital advertising. According to Carr, E., & Szymanski, D. (2010), sexual objectification occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire. It is especially with instances such as advertisements by Dolce & Gabbana, where the female model is pictured as a sexual object, controlled by four other men , clearly suggesting a scene of gang rape and sexual violence(The Huffington Post UK,18 March 2015). This advertisement makes use the gang rape concept to draw …show more content…

In the case of an advertising campaign by Lush, “Go naked!” , the advertisement pictures four naked women without showing their faces.Lush’s intention of the advertisement was to highlight the excessive packaging used for many products and to promote positive body image(Daily Mail, 8 October 2015). Although the advertisement contained elements of sexual objectification, it was not the main message centering the advertisement. The company also received positive feedback from customers throughout the campaign that outweighed the negative elements of the advertisement (Daily Mail, 8 October 2015). Therefore, in this case, it is untrue that advertising causes us to perceive women, as sex symbols and that it can also be a platform to promote a positive message. However, my stand still prevails as cons of sexual objectification in advertising far outweigh the pros as advertisements more often that not, maybe with the excuse of attracting the attention of audience, casually making use of women, baring their body parts, portraying them as the weaker party, without any power, to ‘advertise’ (Business News Daily, 7 June

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