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Stereotyping of Women in Media and Society
The role of advertising on childrens behaviour
Stereotyping of Women in Media and Society
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In the year 1999, $120 billion was spent on marketing products to consumers (Killing Us Softly 3). Along with products, the advertising industry sells the intangible: “Ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of success of worth, love and sexuality, popularity, and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions” (Kilbourne, Beauty and the Beast). When the average person is bombarded by 2,000-3,000 ads a day (Kilbourne, address), it is impossible to remain unaffected by the aforementioned concepts and stereotypes (Still Killing Us Softly, video). Ads use insecurities to promise betterment with the purchase of a certain product. They are breeding grounds for stereotypes; most, if not all, are negative. They provide impossible body images for women to strive towards, and sadly, many women do. The repercussions of these images and stereotypes are quite serious. The female body image is distorted, and many women and girls, in effort to reach the distorted image, develop serious eating disorders. The perpetuation of sex in ads creates a casual attitude towards sex. Sex is used to sell almost anything: from lingerie to makeup, perfume to food and household items. Advertising tells viewers that if they aren’t sexy, they are not acceptable. The female body is repeatedly objectified in advertising, and whenever a human is turned into a thing, violence is going to follow. Rapes and beatings often result from the dehumanization of women (Still Killing Us Softly, video). Advertising creates unhealthy and even dangerous stereotypes and mindsets in the people of today’s society.
Advertisements play upon people’s insecurities, promising the viewer that, with the help of the product in question, the viewer can become a better person. There are many insecurities taken advantage of, but the most obvious and frequent is beauty. Women are strongly affected by this. After all, how could they not be when media is promoting a body type thinner, taller, and sexier than their own? Less than 10% of the female population is genetically able to be as thin and tall as the women used in the ads (about-face.org). Advertising sells an impossible image for most women. Many times there is an indirect message such as a beautiful woman wearing the makeup the ad is selling, but sometimes it’s more blatan...
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...ols to combat media’s flippant use of sex in ads, and media literacy classes to teach young people, girls especially, how to see through the techniques of the advertising industry.
Friedrich, Abby. “All of Your Insecurities Wrapped Up In a Thirty Second Spot.”
Giedrys, Sally Anne. “Creating a Curriculum To Help Girls Battle Eating Disorders.” The Harvard University Gazette. Harvard University. 11 February 1999.
Kilbourne, Jean. Address. Viterbo Presentation. April 22, 1996.
Kilbourne, Jean. “Beauty…and the Beast of Advertising.” Media & Values Winter 1990. Center for Media Literacy. Issue 49. 3 March 2004. .
“Killing Us Softly 3”. Video. Cambridge Documentary Films. 2000.
“Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women.” Video. Cambridge Documentary Films. 2000.
Thomas, Jennifer. “Websites Promote Anorexia and Bulimia as a ‘Lifestyle’.”
HealthScoutNews.
Udovitch, Mim. “A Secret Society of the Starving.” New York Times Magazine. 8
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Zarchikoff, Rebecca. “Sexual Images of Women to Sell Products- ‘Fascism’ and ‘Bodyism’”. University of Victoria.
This thought has been held on for far too long. In a consumer-driven society, advertisements invade the minds of every person who owns any piece of technology that can connect to the internet. Killbourne observes that “sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women,” (271). Advertising takes the societal ideology of women and stereotypes most kids grow up learning and play on the nerves of everyone trying to evoke a reaction out of potential customers, one that results in them buying products.
Thus, we can assume that the audience itself, the members who believe in the content of ads and its sincerity, as well as, people who agree with the portrait of the women that is being created are the only prisoners in this particular situation. “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 868). On the other hand, according to the Jean Kilbourne, author of “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” what is not mention to the public is the fact, that many women from the very young age during the process of finding out the truth and being blinded by the “light” are fighting with depression, low self-esteem, eating disorders and sexual harassment. “I contend that all girls growing up in this culture are sexually abused – abused by the pornographic images of female sexuality that surround them from birth, abused by all the violence against woman and girls, and abused by the constant harassment and threat of violence” (Kilbourne
In “Beauty… and the Beast of Advertising” Jean Kilbourne argues that advertisements sell a lot more than just their products: “They sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy” (1). Kilbourne states that in advertising there are two types of women, “Housewives” and “Sex objects”. Kilbourne calls the sexually objectified women “a mannequin, a shell” because their beauty is flawless, they lacks all of the imperfections that make people appear human (2). Kilbourne also states that these women are all skinny, often tall and “long-legged”, and youthful (2). She claims that all “beautiful” women in ads obey this “norm” (Kilbourne 2). Kilbourne strongly states that advertisements lack the sense
Advertising is so prominent in American culture, and even the world at large, that this media form becomes reflective of the values and expectations of the nation’s society at large.
Katharina Linder. 2004. “Images of Women in General Interest and Fashion Magazine Advertisements from 1955 to 2002.” Sex Roles 51:409-421.
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 throughout the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between 1900’s and 1920’s, the roles of women changed dramatically here in United States.
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 a brilliant update of the Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne explains the dangers of advertisements and how they objectify women. Advertisements intelligently portray women in a sexual and distorted way in order to attract the consumers’ attention. Media sets a standard on how young women view themselves and puts them at risk for developing an eating disorder. Kilbourne’s research has led her to educate those who have fallen victim to achieving the “ideal beauty” that has evolved in today’s society.
Jean Kilbourne’s “Two Way a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” is a section of a book titled: “Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising” that was originally published in 1999. It is about the images of women that advertisements illustrate. The central claim or thesis of the document is that: “advertising helps to create a climate in which certain attitudes and values flourish and it plays a role in shaping people’s ideas” (paraphrase). The author wants people by all genders and young children to acknowledge a right attitude towards what is shown in the advertisements so that the standards of behavior will not be influenced. As a result, it enables the negative contribution from the advertisements to be limited or eliminated.
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
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
7) Wanless, Mary Wanless. "Barbie's Body Images." Feminist Media Studies 1.1 (2001): 125-127. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.
The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising has a negative effect on women's body image, health, and self-esteem.
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983: