A Look Inside a Woman’s World Essay example

Jean Kilbourne is an advocate for women and is leading a movement to change the way women are viewed in advertising. She opens up the curtains to reveal the hard truth we choose to ignore or even are too obtuse to notice. Women are objectified, materialized, and over-sexualized in order to sell clothes, products, ideas and more. As a woman, I agree with the position Kilbourne presents throughout her documentary Killing Us Softly 4: The Advertising’s Image of Women (2010) and her TEDx Talk The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women (2014.) She demonstrates time and again that these advertisements are dangerous and lead to unrealistic expectations of women.

In advertising, there is an attempt to see empowerment trying to be displayed, but in reality there is women are often displayed as actively seeking and enjoying sex as a way to sell products, not because they are fulfilling sexual empowerment. These advertisements are not trying to help men and women, but rather set a standard of sexuality. However, these images are used for business because sex sells. Many feminists are able to recognize the use of language and imagery that actually contradicts empowerment (Stock, 2015). Even though the definition of sexual empowerment varies men and women should continue to push for more positive views of women and men in the media so that there can be an end to the acceptance of sexual

In Jean Kilbourne’s essay, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, she paints a picture of repression, abuse, and objectification of women. Kilbourne gives an eye-opening view to the way American advertisers portray women and girls. Throughout the essay she has images that depict women in compromising poses. These images are examples of how often we see women in dehumanizing positions in advertisements and how desensitized we have become. Kilbourne implores us to take the media more seriously. She is putting a microscope on society and showing that the objectification of women is acceptable.

In “Two Ways a Woman Can get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” the author Jean Kilbourne describes how advertising and violence is a big problem for women. Although her piece is a little scrambled, she tries to organize it with different types of advertisement. Women are seen as sex objects when it comes to advertising name brand products. Corporate representatives justify selling and marketing for a product by how a woman looks. Kilbourne explains how the media is a big influence on how men perceive women. Kilbourne tries to prove her point by bashing on advertising agencies and their motives to successfully sell a product. Kilbourne’s affirmation towards advertisements leaves you no doubt that she is against them.

Kilbourne’s support for her argument relies on the Appeal to Authority she makes, citing specific ads of big time companies and businesses to demonstrate how these ads are encouraging sexual aggression and violence. She alleges that ads affect us on an unconscious level stating we’ve become immune to the fact that these ads affect us (417). At the same time, she declares ads are pornographic, since they encourage rape and sexual assault. Kilbourne maintains that all women are vulnerable because “in our culture there is widespread objectification of women’s bodies, glorification of disconnection, violence of women, and blaming of the victim” (433). It all refers back to Kilbourne’s main claim that ads depict individuals as things which encourages sexual hostility.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, depicts the way the females are shown in advertisements. She discusses how advertisement sell concepts of normalcy and what it means to be a “male” and a “female.” One of her main arguments focuses on how women aspire to achieve the physical perfection that is portrayed in advertisements but this perfection is actually artificially created through Photoshop and other editing tools. Women in advertisements are often objectified as weak, skinny, and beautiful while men are often portrayed as bigger and stronger. Advertisements utilize the setting, the position of the people in the advertisements, and the products to appeal to the unconscious aspect

In the article “Two Ways a Women Can Get Hurt,” by Jean Kilbourne she writes about how women in our society are depicted as a sex other than a human. According to Jean, it’s the fact of showing women as objects in the media, which generates most of the violence or mistreatment women experience in our current society. Kilbourne later mentions recognizes that the role given to men and women in advertisement is such a representation of what is a norm “the popular culture idealizes a template for relationships between men and women that is a recipe for disaster: a template that view sex as more important than anything else, that ridicules men who are in control of their women”. Proving that Jean believes that if women are abused today, its only

The documentaries Dream World 3 and Killing Us Softly 4 examine the exploitation of women within the media. The media, such as advertisement and the music video industry, relies heavily on the seductive image of female sexuality. Evident in not only every genre of music, but also every form of advertisement, the videos and advertisements expose and, subsequently sexualize the female body. Such sexualization inevitable leads to

“Sex in advertising is more about disconnection and distance than connection and closeness. It is also more often about power than passion, about violence than violins” (491). Media has developed an abusive view on women, particularly on their bodies and their sexuality. Not only does it judge women on their bodies and sexuality, media also undermines women’s intelligence and glorifies rape and violence. Media has made girls and boys think that it is okay to rape and be violent in a relationships. Media has also formed the idea that sex is the most important thing in a relationship, which is ruining relationships. The article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” by Jean Kilbourne examines how women are portrayed in

Sexualizaton and objectification in the advertisements we see and the media we watch has become a very strong issue in our society. With the idea that “sex sells”, consumers don’t even realize that they’re not viewing the advertisements for what they are, but for the women (or men) that are being portrayed in a very erotic way, posed with whatever product they were hired to sell. Many articles have been written so far to challenge and assess this problem, but one written by Jean Kilbourne (1999), “”Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence” holds an extensive amount of authority. Using her personal experience with the subject, as well as studies she has conducted herself on the topic of sexualization, she talks about how the amount of sexualization in advertising affects how society views the culture and products consumers buy. She also notes that because of the quantity and prevalence of these ads, the rate of all forms of sexual assault, specifically rape (mostly towards women of all age), increase, as well as other forms of assault. It is important to examine Kilbourne’s use of rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, and how effective these devices make her article. This way, it can be examined for its validity and her understanding of her own research. Kilbourne’s article is very effective through her uses of pathos and ethos, but at the same time, it loses its effectiveness through her absence of a counter-argument, as well as a lack

Throughout the advancement of advertisement rape culture and sexual coercion is still a prevalent theme in modern day ads. From high fashion ads depicting gangrape like scenorios to slogans for beer like “‘the perfect beer from removing “no” from your vocabulary,”’ these images continue to influence and corrupt the mind of adolescents today. In a direct comparison between a 1960 men’s jean ad to an ad in the 2000’s about a flavored alcoholic beverage--cult shaker--you can still see startling similarities to sexual coercion and rape. Furthermore, in the 1960’s girls are shown in a vulnerable and intimate state with the caption “it’s a game,” displayed over the image, and in the 2000’s the picture displayes a female with her head in the men’s

Advertising is a billion dollar market with a sole purpose to persuade the consumer to purchase some type of product or service. Companies use many different methods to convince the public to spend money on their products with most of their advertising focused around the idea of “sex sells”. This idea promotes a hunger in the consumer for gaining personal pleasure or acceptance of sexuality by the eye catching effects of publicly baring flesh. These ideas are promoted through TV commercials, billboards, magazines, radio ads, or any type of media targeted at the mass majority of people. Every where a person looks there seems to be some type of advertising based on sex. The illusion of making one feel they want, need, or cant live without

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

Whether for procreation, as with early humans who knew that a large group meant more protection and a better chance at survival, or for pleasure, as many current societies interpret and present it sex has driven decisions and cultures throughout history. However, modern technologies and interpretations of sex, in particular the way it is portrayed in advertisements and entertainment, have begun to alter the way that society views individuals—particularly women. With the creation of the internet, a person’s access to sex in the form of pornography has sky rocketed. In addition, many companies have begun to increase the number of advertisements produced that contain sexual images or themes—subscribing to the notion that sex sells. Massive amounts of sexualized images, particularly of women, are available for free consumption. Overall, the increased prevalence of pornographic images, particularly violent images, both through advertising and entertainment media, has led to changes in how society perceives women and gender in a modern setting.