Advertising : The Negative Effects Of Advertising On Women

Magazines are popular in the United States; they can be found in stores, offices, and houses. They are popular for advertising. Television, news, radio, billboards and online websites are just a few forms of media that companies use to advertise their products or services. Companies use advertisements to influence the consumer to either buy or use their products and services. Advertisements are used to manipulate consumers in many ways.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you like what you see? In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Hurt,” she discusses the sexualization of women in advertising and how it plays a role in violence against women. Elline Lipkin discusses the causes and effects of negative body images in her article, “Girls’ Bodies, Girls’ Selves.” Although I agree with Kilbourne that advertising and violence can be related, it is important to consider Lipkin’s argument about how advertising shapes body image in a negative way because while a lot of women experience violence, everyone experiences the effects that advertisements have on body image.

In society, women are held to a very high social standard. The pressure to look as perfect as all the models in magazines have driven many girls to an impossible fixation. Not only is it seen as a social norm, but also people do not even realize the degrading images of women in our everyday surroundings. After watching “Killing Us Softly”, this ideal was brought to my attention more that almost every advertisement piece that involves women promotes sexualization, objectification, and reinforces the feminine gender roles in America.

In 2016, the United States spent 190 billion U.S. dollars on advertisements, almost double the amount of money on advertising than the next largest ad market (Statista). These ads advertise a multitude of different products. The ads are exposed to society in many different ways, from the breaks in between songs on the radio, to the ads shown online. Ads are targeted to a specific group of people, usually, the target demographic the brand wants to buy their product. Brands will often use women’s bodies in a sexual way to get people to stop and look at their ads. Over the last few decades, speakers and activists have seen advertisements becoming more sexual and more demeaning towards women. Activist Jean Kilbourne has been analyzing ads and has been bringing awareness to this issue for years through her four documentaries. In her documentary, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne asserts women’s bodies are often dismembered, portrayed with an unattainable, “ideal” body type, and despite advances in the women’s movement, the objectification of women in ads have gotten worse. The two images below illustrate these ideas.

Next I am going to talk about advertising focused on gender roles as a form of negative media. For women, the media is always focused on how they look. It constantly degrades women’s self esteem by telling them to be skinny, vulnerable, powerless, and silenced. In addition, the media turns women into objects or things instead of beings, which encourages violence towards them. This teaches women it is okay for people to use them. Men are also negatively impacted by the media as they are scrutinized for having feminine qualities such as compassion, nurturance, cooperation, empathy, sensitivity, and good communication skills. Men are told they must be violent, brutal, and ruthless, especially towards women. The media’s perspective on what it means

The main thing that is being addressed is the issue of gender stereotyping in advertisements period, not just is the advertisements in magazines but the advertisements that are presented in between television

Hi everyone, thank you all for coming to this event. Today I’m here because I have an important message for you all. Did you ever watch an advertisement on the Internet or on TV? The answer will be yes. Now, did you ever try to copy the idea of the advertisements to look like the celebrities or as cool as the people presented in this ad? I will let you think about that question because we have all tried to buy something or to change something to look like those faked models in advertisements. Not only that, but ads started telling us how to think, how to act and even how to live our private life and that is really dangerous for our society and our future. For example, it’s been a while that we are fighting for the equality between men and women,

Objectification of women is on the rise in society today. The underlying message is that women are living in a sexually gratified atmosphere. From advertisements to television and magazines etc. Woman are exploited as sexual objects while men believe depicting images of women in a sexual manner is funny or sexy but why not offensive or degrading? Therefore, advertisements influence the core of the sexualization of culture.

The media uses its influence to spread its own idea of the perfect body type which is hurting our society but mostly, our youth. It uses sexual advertisements and commercials to get its point across which causes our society to become brainwashed because no one is willing to stand up to it. This causes the youth to become depressed and full of emotions that cannot be expressed because of fear of rejection. Advertising and Violence, “two ways a woman can get hurt,” as stated by Jean Kilbourne, an award winning author, speaker, and filmmaker who is globally recognized for her work on the image of women in advertising and her studies of advertising, in her essay, “Two ways a woman can get hurt.” In this essay she talks about the discrimination and misconception that is

Advertising has been engrained in our lives since birth. It is something that is everywhere, whether be on a wall, on TV, or on a billboard on a busy highway. You might not think you are aware of its effects, but it triggers something subconsciously. Advertisement has been sexualized in a way that appeals and affects people in an unconscious level, it may also influence one’s view of gender roles. In the film Killing US Softly, Jean Kilbourne discusses how advertising has changed the way not only women, but also how man view themselves. A woman must look beautiful, be sexy and thin, while a man must be attractive, muscular and powerful to achieve the “perfect look” and in doing so, both gain acceptance.

In today’s society companies are using advertisements to sell their products and get the word around to have consumers buy their products. Companies have been getting really competitive with their advertisements to make them stand out and pulling people in to get them to buy stuff. The advertisements that stood out were the one’s objectifying women and portraying them to be the house wife or considered “easy”. They are also showing women to be less intelligent or less important than men are portrayed in the advertisements. Advertisements today have been targeting women to be the face of their product and having them wear less clothing to have it be appealing to the right audience.

In all, the depictions of women through advertisements are negative and oppressing. The advertisements allow us to see hidden key points that attribute to the inequity of women in their representations in the advertisements, which ultimately shows what kind of society we still live in. Women should not be afraid to take upon challenging male dominated industries in leadership positions, solemnly because that’s what society persist on sending its message to the female population. Women should not attempt to be someone who they are not simply just to look and feel accepted by others just because they repeatedly see the medias ideal standard of beauty. Every one is unique and different. Women must challenge society’s norm and advertisements, and seek refuge in change through women

When watching Jean Kilbourne’s documentary titled, Killing Us Softly I learned a lot of hidden secrets about advertising and what it does to women. Kilbourne touches on many topics like, women's role in society, how they are used in ads, and how it affects women. She starts of her talk by

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

In terms of women and sex appeal, the world of advertising has changed a considerable amount. Many of the advertisements which are seen in newspapers, magazines, and television fail to portray women in a more positive light. The image of females in numerous advertisements are merely viewed as fascinating "objects" while they are also being displayed in a fashion that is supposed to appeal only to men, i.e. exploitation of the body. Though these types of advertisements are very effective at selling their products to consumers, it seems as if the minds ' of women, especially younger women/teenage girls are being corrupted as they are pressured to live up to the ideal image: sexy and thin with a little extra curves.