Building Industries with our Insecurities

Every time you flip a magazine, change channels, or go online, you are struck with images of models who are super skinny with flashy outfits and have excessive make-up on. Ads not only try to sell their products, but also promote how females should look like. These models are airbrushed and photo shopped which is false advertisement. The media progressively encourages a thinner body image as the ideal for women. We see advertisements every day. Some of these ads use manipulative strategies that influence our choices and spending habits. For example, “One in every three articles in leading teen girl magazines included a focus on appearance, and most advertisements used appeal to beauty to sell their products.”(Teen Health) To grab the viewers’ attention, especially females, they include

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

As women watch these ads , they gain a sense of ambition to want to be as beautiful as the lady promoting the product. In the truth about beauty, an article written by Virginia postrel, it reveals an average woman in a photo, the woman goes through countless layers of make-up and hair transformations, after this another photo is taking. Then, technology programs that manipulate the picture until the woman was absolutely stunning were used on the photo. This is an example of how cosmetic companies give women a false sense of hope through advertisements, They are using beautiful women to promote a product and tell how great it works for them when in reality the women have yet to use the products.The media tends to capitalize on the insecurities of the people. A quote from Susan Bordo's "the empire of image in our world of bodies " demonstrate how the media use beautiful women with perfection in the areas that most women are uncomfortable with to highlight those insecurities " im 56 . The magazines tell me that at this age i can still be beautiful. -they mean cher, goldie , faye,candace. ( The Media takes these women who are generally in the same age group as Susan and exploits her insecurities turns around tries to capitalize on them by using these beautiful women as

Do you remember the last ad you saw in the past 24 hours? Do you remember what they were selling? It was definitely not the item that was mentioned at the bottom of the ad. For years, marketing has been using people 's temptations to make them interested in the ad, or commercial; not necessarily in the product. In Judith Lorber’s piece, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, it becomes evident how many different ways a woman can be negatively affected by the media’s idea of how a sexy woman is supposed to look and be treated. Lorber’s research explains how women are negatively affected in the workforce and within their daily lives due to the constant objectification of women in ads and commercials. Women are forced to

Images of females are everywhere. The image of females portrayed through advertising for the most part gives off a negative message to girls who struggle with body image and even women who want to look a particular way. The most negative message that advertising portrays is objectification of women and violence towards them. Women and girls need to recognize the true meaning behind the advertisements that we see in all aspects of media. They should not allow themselves to be objectified in any way, nor accept that this is the way the female gender is portrayed.

In week ten of our class discussions we were asked to watch a video titled “Killing us Softly” in which Kilbourne discusses how advertisements are programmed into our subconscious minds after being continuously displayed. The movie notes that only a small percentage of an advertisement message is taken in by your conscious mind, the rest will be reworked deep into your subconsciousness (Jhally, 2010). Sadly, a lot of these advertisements carry negative messages that impact the way women view their natural beauty thus lowering their self esteem and resorting to alternative means of getting the “ideal body”.

There are women who are not comfortable and confident with their appearance. Body image is typically related to self-esteem; self-esteem is defined as the amount of worth and personal value an individual feel they have (Davidson, and Cataldo 222). Women have been proven to be critical in castigating their bodies in comparison to men, but recent studies have shown that there has been an incline of men becoming more self-conscience of their bodies (Davidson, and Cataldo 223). Women tend to have self-esteem issues because the media has lured them into believing that they need to have a certain ideal body image to be loved and wanted. Television, magazines, and movies present illusory expectations of beauty, weight, and physical appearance that target women. These media outlets are promoting a body image that embraces one acceptable type and attempts to conform every woman to alter themselves into this form. Women who are unable to meet these exaggerated demands

The creator has to choose the right model for their ad, and the right model has to possess the perfect finesse to please the ad, but also possess the right finesse to please the intended viewer, plus other on-lookers who will have opinions on the portrayal of the ads. In Pozner’s article, she uses the Dove ad, and the backlash of this ad was based on a few things: First, the women used in the ad, were a good touch, but it is not allowing women to be completely comfortable in their skin, because the ad’s purpose is to create a solution for these types of women who have certain superficial issues. Secondly, the women used are too average, and they are showing viewers false hope, allowing them to think that it is acceptable to look out of shape, obese and other similar characteristics (Pozner 3). Third, men are superficial so the women placed in these, “female-targeted” ads must be a “fantasy babe” that allows for the superficial needs of men to be fulfilled, as said by Richard Roeper (Pozner

There are certain commercials and ads that target women and men. Makeup products and Health commercials like Maybelline, Lancôme, and weight loss commercials target women to make them feel as if they are not pretty enough or even skinny enough. There is an imaginary look that a woman should look like where models that are super tall and anorexic are the norm, so therefore they tackle women psychological because woman are concerned about being overweight or not looking beautiful. What is beautiful? What the media has proclaimed to be beautiful is the definition for women who watch these consistent commercials. Also, Commercials use Pathos for women “sentimental,” commercials that make them feel guilty whether

When the product does not make the women like the perfect model advertised, they feel contemptible. This directs to disorders such as bulimia, anorexia or depression because this perfection is never achievable or very difficult to achieve. Social media is also a factor in this because women are stalked by advertisements even on their social outlets. “Recent studies have shown that there has been an increase in depression among girls that is linked with both obesity and can be caused by social media” (Tran, 2015). An example of this would be Instagram, even though it is a personal social outlet, Instagram can clearly be seen as a big advertiser. Companies use perfected people and their photos to sell products, Makeup accounts and clothing accounts are most apparent cases. All in all, the unrealistic expectations the media forces upon women of today’s age cause them to have low self-esteem and many times leads to disorders.

Villines, Zawn. "How Advertisements Targeting Women Undermine Body Image." GoodTherapy. N.p., 10 July 2013. Web. 3 Mar.

According to Brown.edu “People with negative body image tend to feel that their size or shape is a sign of personal failure, and that it is a very important indicator of worth” (paragraph 8). We always see in the media how women are portrayed as they should look a certain way in order to meet society's’ needs. In magazines such as OK! and Life&Style show celebrities on the front cover that say “I’M BACK IN A BIKINI!” or “HOW I GOT THIN FAST”. These magazines make women reflect on their body image because they wonder how celebrities can look like that and they do not. When a woman is displeased about her body image, negative thoughts may come to her mind. Such as eating disorders, depression, and individual harm.This advertisement is a prime example of how women view themselves negatively, and are losing their self esteem due to the media. The way that others viewed them showed them that maybe the perspective of how they think about themselves is not always

Women spend their whole lives comparing themselves to others--judging how they look compared to others, thinking to themselves If I only looked as good as her?. Women always question themselves as to whether or not they will ever truly be good enough. Advertisements cause these types of questions to be brought to light even more so than usual. Advertisements for products can be observed everywhere. They come in a variety of forms, including billboards, commercials, testimonies, broadcasts, celebrity endorsements, etc.

Women are the main targets in magazine advertisements; they take advantage and manipulate the female beauty and their bodies by making it overrated. The societies expectation of women have harmed us and our generation. Consequently, there are over millions of magazine sold because of the way companies diminish the female gender. It affects women greatly by limiting their abilities to take bigger and risky steps in life. The advertisement images only teach us and influence little children that women should have little value, the ideal female beauty, and gain disrespect for women. In the American society advertisements expose the female body in a negative way because it influences women to body objectify themselves, lowering women's self esteem, and their ambition all for the male viewers.

One will see a white female with pouting red lips and the very petite body that resembles a thirteen-year-old girl. The extremely artificial women and the heavily photo-shopped pictures in these ad’s create a norm and make those women who look differently, feel insecure of who they are and make them feel as if they are less of a woman, for example they tend to over represent the Caucasian, blonde with bright eyes, white complexion and a petite body. This is an unattainable beauty for most women, which has caused many to develop issues such as eating disorders, depression and the very much talked about these days, anorexia.