Advertising Advertisements And Body Image

Agliata, D., & Tantleff-Dunn, S., (2004). The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image.

Since the emergence of advertising in American culture one thing that has remained constant is the visible truth that men and women are portrayed differently. In consideration to the evolution of man kind gender roles have evolved immensely throughout time, although advertisements have not kept up with this process of evolution. Companies to this day use their tactics and skills to reach out to specific genders such as pretty fonts with a stylish message, while advertisements towards men portray the character as strong and intimidating. The typical viewer can easily spot the difference in the portrayal of genders. Men are portrayed this way because the viewers look up to these characters, they want to be

Contemporary visual media contributes to the social construction of gender in that the way that men and women are portrayed in advertising is vastly different.

The use of sexualization also reinforces a pattern of gender roles that are currently circulating throughout advertisements. More often than not, women who are used as ploys in ads are seen doing household chores like vacuuming, changing the toilet paper, or making coffee. Females are rarely ever seen in a work place, and definitely not in a powerful position. In fact, the directors of most of these ads place women below or behind the man to show who has the power in actuality. Women are seen as skinny, fragile, and immobile in high heels, while men are strong and powerful. By setting up such a strong binary between the two different groups, it is obvious that the majority of the American society will not be able to fit into these roles, and it leaves a sense of rejection for the average person. This rejection, accepted by the viewers, manifests

Gender role bias in advertisements has been so prevalent for so long that the untrained eye wouldn't even discern it. All the same, these biases, for the most part, put women in subordinate positions and men in dominant ones. This assumption on both the genders is unfair and demeaning. These ads portray women as subservient and play toys for men. Not only do the models depict an image nowhere near close to reality, but their bodies are scantily clad and what few clothes they are wearing are very revealing.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

Over the years the size of female models in advertising has decreased significantly. Today the average model ways up to 23% less than an average women. The use of Photoshop adds to this by creating perfect skin unattainable even with makeup, along with making the models appear even thinner. Given that these women often set the standard for beauty wouldn’t this lower women’s self-esteem. These “perfect” and unrealistic models in advertising negatively affect body image (the way we see our own body) and distort our idea of beauty. Negative body image can lead to depression, the development of eating disorders, or the abuse of weight loss drugs or anabolic steroids.

The media is one of the leading causes of self esteem and body image issues in not only women but men as well. This is due to the fact that thousands of advertisements contain messages about physical attractiveness and beauty. Examples include: commercials for clothes, cosmetics, weight loss, hair removal, laser surgery and physical fitness. The effects of advertising on body image have been studied by researchers, psychologists, marketing professionals and more. Researchers, Mary Martin and James Gentry found that teen directed advertising negatively impacts self-esteem. The advertising industry is setting unrealistic expectations for teens about their physical appearances by using models with "perfect bodies." The modeling industry today has put many pressures on models, causing them disorders of both mental and physical illness. These disorders then creating the look of the “perfect body” have now lead to unrealistic expectations of body image for society.

Advertising regularly uses gender roles to promote products. Gender-role stereotyping has been a prominent subject in advertising and throughout the media. It is the concept that gender stereotypes influence and reinforce stereotypical values in society, which can lead to negative consequences, particularly for men. As for advertising effectiveness, research shows that stereotypes can be supportive or detrimental, depending on several factors, such as the gender attitudes of the audience.

Advertisements can be found all over in our society. They are on television, in newspapers, on the Internet, and even on the sides of cars and buses. Advertisements greatly influence the way people shop and view products. Many companies use gender stereotypes as a strategy to advertise and sell their products. These advertisements show that men still have a more dominant role over women. Ads are openly sexist and objectifying towards both women and men and usually have a clear gender difference. After looking at many different ads for different products, one thing became clear. The advertisements used for adults and children help guide our society into the stereotypical gender roles we currently have and teach us that objectifying both men and women is acceptable.

In Craig's article, the author explores how advertising views men and women as separate consumer markets and appeals to both of them at separate times. Gender roles are heavily influential when creating commericials for each respective market. Craig details this through an analysis of beer ads

For centuries, businesses have used advertisement as a means to market their products or services. A good advertising company can be key in a business success rate. Many hours are invested in research and development of each advertisement ad that we see in television ads, commercials, magazines, and billboards. A marketing tactic that continues in popularity is women used to grasp the attention of the viewer, which ultimately would hope to result in higher sales. Over the past 60 years, women have been shown in stereotypical gender roles that are usually portrayed as younger, actively fit women, not the typical middle aged women we see every day.

Advertising’s role of creating gender stereotypes then follows children into their teenage years as adverts continue to have an effect on how children’s identities are constructed (Frith and Mueller 92). Advertisements continue to use visual images of men and women to persuade people to purchase certain products (Cortese 57). Advertisements take a product, remove the meaning associated to that product then insert a new meaning in order to create a new cultural meaning ( McFall 66). Advertisements create a new meaning of what it means to be attractive as women shown in advertisements stereotype beauty or attractiveness to be associated with young, slim and perfect flawless body shapes (Cortese 59. This is a problem as advertisements present unrealistic beauty norms by using intensive retouching tools to create perfectly proportionate models (Frith and Mueller 92). Although a very small portion of women actually have the body shapes shown in advertisements, women are

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

On television commercials, billboards, the radio, public transportation advertisements, planes, the internet, and almost everywhere people go there is always directed broadcasting of advertisements for companies to sell their product; a product that is never promoted for all of the general public to use, but instead to emphasize on specific categories of consumption . Whether it may be categorized in the decadent, the money saving, health, cleaning, cooking, automotive, or whatever sub category it may be; and bigger roles that play in to commercialism are gender roles . Men and women have very different lifestyles, what they buy, do, consume, and produce. As stated in Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, “Popular conceptions of femininity