How A Woman Can Get Hurt : Advertising And Violence

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.

Advertising is one of the most popular ways to promote a product. Through advertisement the creators of these products can make millions of dollars, depending on how successful their advertisements are. But are the advertisement selling a product that will help them or are they selling violence and sex? Many ads can influence people in different ways. One of these ways is to show women as objects of rape and sexual abuse. In, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” Kilbourne talks about how many ads use women and portray them only as sexual beings. Some of these ads can influence violence against women. Kilbourne described violence in ads, “as in pornography, usually power over another, either by physical dominance.” (269). The Dolce & Gabbana

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

Dominance over woman is also a huge role in violence in advertisements. The dominance over women is brutally shown in this advertising of the women in the diagramed picture. In a society in which violence against women is normalized, this ad is accepted and considered. This means that it has become a normalcy to see a women naked in an advertisement. In places where this ad is shown, millions of women and girls are raped, beaten, and trafficked

“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

Killing Us Softly, a short film produced by Cambridge Documentary Films, graphically and effectively depicts the harm caused by modern day media and advertisements. I was personally affected by this movie, for Jean Kilbourne paints a vivid picture of how advertisement influence individuals perceptions of themselves and the world around them. Kilbourne describes how current advertisements present one type of women; tall, Caucasian, and almost always very skinny. This portrayal of beauty in media and in the fashion industry has set unrealistic expectations for young woman all throughout the country, and has consequently lead to widespread body image dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the objectification of women in these ads has had profound effects on increasing violence against women. I found the information explained in this short film to be thought provoking, and Kilbourne’s analysis was insightful. I find myself now hyper aware of the messages that advertisement agencies are sending out, and the more I pondered the impacts they have on society, the more I realize how large of an issue this really is. Kilbourne mentions early in the film that while her Killing Us Softly campaign began forty years ago, and even though the topic of media literacy has gotten more attention, the issue itself has only gotten worse. The key take aways from this film, such as the impact of a singular type of woman being portrayed as beautiful, the objectification of women, and how that

Media presents us with many types of negative messages. Mass media tells us how we should look and behave in society. Adds in the media sell more than product they are selling an image. Violence is persuasive and now a troubling aspect of the new world. Media shows us that women need to have the newest trends and ultra-thin bodies to be considered beautiful in society. It tells us that the most important thing is our image. Jean Kilbourne talks about how the image of woman has changed so much over the last twenty years. Woman’s bodies haven’t changed what changed is the ideal body. Media creates a climate where there is a wide spread of violence against woman. Ads don’t always directly promote violence but when they turn a human into an

In today’s society, you see advertisements everywhere you look, on the drive to work, on the internet, in the morning newspaper, etc. Although most people simply glance past these advertisements without a second thought, if evaluated one can find that all of them contain underlying messages. I have chosen to focus my analysis on the ways media in our society represent women and the effects individual media sources can have on advancing a patriarchal society or fighting the gender norms set for women. Though all these advertisements highlight the same social group, each individual advertisement delivers completely different messages regarding women in our society. As explained in “It’s Dude Time”, in the past women have been represented rarely in media, and when represented in a manner that often oppressed them. It also states that in recent years there has been an attempt to eliminate our sexist society and change the gender norms that have been set by past generations. It also discusses how recently women have been depicted in more respectful ways than in the past (Cooky, Cheryl, Messner, Musto, 2015). But through my analysis I have found that advertisements still continue to degrade women by sending messages about how they should look, as well as representing them as a weaker gender, and promoting a society where women do the housekeeping. Although I have found one advertisement empowering women the majority of the advertising industry has not

Two articles address a great social issue of showing sex and violence to demonize women. Both use similar strategies to convey their message. The first article is titled "Two ways a woman can get hurt": Advertising and violence, by Jean Kilbourne, displays the potent effect of negative advertisements, showing women as a sex object. This article shows using vulgar and sexual advertisement men as dominant and irresistible whereas women as sexually receptive to men and towards the products they are using. The second article "from Fly-girls to Bitches and Hoes" author Joan Morgan explains how the Hip Hop culture has demeaned women and created a violent environment for African American Women. Kilbourne was very blunt, direct and used lots of references to successfully deliver her message. Morgan uses personal experience and knowledge of her community to identify the problems and effectively deliver the message to the audience. Both use rhetorical strategies to retain the essence of their message. The comprehensive analysis of statistics, examples and citations are often used to validate the message.

Gender issues are reflected very heavily in today’s advertisements. Often, these advertisements will propagate a number of negative stereotypical practices, including overtly sexual portrayals and violence against women. The way the media attempts to convince women to act is often outright dangerous to their wellbeing, and focuses on training them to be appealing to men. As stated by Jean Kilbourne, a noted activist, these kind of advertisements “dehumanize and objectify people, especially women”.