Jean Kilbourne

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

She compares the few tasks that civilized women are able to perform with the wide variety of tasks that men routinely perform in order to illustrate how little autonomy the modern woman has. For instance, while a male soldier can “march and counter-march” and manipulate the senate to work for them, women do not have any of these opportunities. Men have so much more power; they govern everything that goes on outside the house, and have a lot more freedom in what they do. Even in a relationship, the man is “responsible” and the women is reduced to a “cypher,” she claims. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult for a woman to get a job that pays enough so she can be financially independent of her husband;

Gay sees herself as an intersection of the black, woman, and feminist communities, making her a hybrid of the three, giving her a distinct community to identify with as well as broader groups. She identifies as a woman and acknowledges all of the expectations and stereotypes that accompanies. On the other hand, her fundamental views on gender equality gives her the ability to empathize with the feminist community. Nevertheless, in every group of people, everyone is a distinct individual with a distinct number of characteristics, both physical and emotional, that sets them apart from the person next to them. As a woman of color, Gay has a list of additional concerns and interests that pertains to her specific experience that are not necessarily included throughout the entire group of feminists. Gay could be branched off into dozens of more sects and factions that pertain to specific

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.

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.

Roxane Gay, author of the article entitled “Bad Feminist”, is a very accomplished American feminist writer. Her publication of “Bad Feminist” in 2012 gained national public attention (1). Feminism, as defined in the dictionary, is “the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes” (2), but Gay explains throughout her article that being a feminist is not just as simple as agreeing with this need for gender equality. The feminist label is too narrow and because of this the feminist movement is breaking apart. In this piece, Gay addresses how our society currently defines feminism and explains why this definition does not encompass everybody that it should.

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

She does this by describing advertisements for different products. One example she uses is an ad for Possession clothing. She describes the ad by saying “Sometimes it’s ‘all in good fun’ as in the ad for Possession shirts and shorts featuring a man ripping off the clothes off a woman who seems to be having a good time” (492-93). This is an example of how most men in society see women as their property and how they can do whatever they want to them whenever they want. As well as describing the ad for the Possession clothing line, Kilbourne uses an example of a Pepsi commercial featuring Cindy Crawford. The commercial is of Crawford getting out of her car to go buy a Pepsi while being checked out by two young boys (502-03). This is showing how even from a young age, boys are taught that it is okay to view a woman as something that can just be stared at and thought about in ways that are nothing but sexual and objectifying. Kilbourne also makes a point to explain how if the roles were reversed in some advertisements nothing would change. She does this by using an ad for jeans. The ad shows a little boy lifting up a woman’s skirt and looking up it (507). She states “it may seem that I am reading too much into this ad, but imagine if the genders were reversed. We would fear for the little girl who is unzipping a man’s fly in an ad” (507-08). She does this to explain that no

Michael Kimmel and Jean Kilbourne both set out to show how culture and cultural myths shape the roles that women and men play in personal relationships. Michael Kimmel is the author of “Bros Before Hos: The Guy Code” which was written in 2008. Kimmel gives an analysis on the code of masculinity that guys are expected to follow. He does this by providing examples of the rites and values that are given to young men that are passed down through generations. Jean Kilbourne is the author of “Two Ways A Women Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” which was written in 1999. Kilbourne argues that ads affect individuals in profound and damaging ways. Kimmel’s analysis of American masculinity shows that boys from an early age are told to control their emotions, do not submit to weakness, and that to become a man they must suppress all the feelings that are associated with the maternal. Kilbourne gives examples of how certain ads shows violence and dehumanization of women which can lead to sexual aggression.

The issue of sexuality in advertising has been raised in the last ten years (Brooke, 2010; Bradley, 2007; Phillips, 2005; Kent, 2005 & Levy, 2005), hence the concept of raunch culture raises the question of whether women are being empowered or victimised. This essay will discuss whether raunch culture represents a wave of new feminism, focusing on whether women’s sexuality is being celebrated in a healthy and empowering manner or preyed upon by marketing’s misogynistic and exploitating image of the good life laid out in various media forms, from billboards to sex videos to television advertisements and movies. It will also identify the role and responsibilities of marketers in relation to the stakeholders involved. Subsequently, followed

Moreover, this makes them not want to commit to a single woman because they don't find a valid reason for why they should. TV shows and magazines flaunt gorgeous women for their sex appeal while also objectifying who they are, this makes it much easier for men to see women as a source of pleasure rather than love and fulfillment, therefore further pushing juvenile views of sexuality to become more status quo. Kilbourne’s examples of advertisements that she gave in her presentation clearly help identify to women how men view them. This lifestyle that these young men have developed has been described as a recession against the feminist movement, they have further been influenced by the type of marketing that Kilbourne explained to her audience, which stemmed from a common issue in the feminist movement as well. The conclusion that both female authors are trying to come to is that, once again, this juvenile influence of these media on the minds of our current generation will continue to be detrimental to the progress we have made. As a society, we are supposed to advance, but in place of that we are reversing our social

In the essay, “Bad Feminist,” by english professor and novelist, Roxane Gay, examines the “myth” of “essential feminism,”which means that there are right and wrong ways to being a feminist. Through her own personal experiences as a feminist, she argues the expectations, and labeling due to cultural stereotypes for not living up to feminist ideals. She claims that there is no certain way to being a feminist. Throughout her essay, Roxanne does an astonishing job at appealing to her audience with strong, emotional context by going into detail with her own thoughts are about feminism. Also, her references such as, popular magazines,

Mass media plays a great part in our lives. Television, newspapers, magazines surround us everywhere every day of our lives. All of them are stuck with different kinds of ads. But how often do we pay attention to the real sense of those ads and the ways the advertisers try to sell various products to us? We see dissoluteness and challenging behavior every day in life and we got so used to it in, at first sight, such small pieces of film, and apparently of our day routine, as advertisement, that we hardly notice the big picture. For over twenty years, Jean Kilbourne has been writing, lecturing, and making films about how advertising affects women and girls. In her essay, "‘The Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt':

Feminist theory analyzes the gender inequality that women have faced throughout the years due to a patriarchal society. Women were expected to fit the traditional female and conform to the gender norms that society has constructed. According to A Brief Introduction to Critical Theory, “Feminism embodies a way of reading that investigates the text’s investment in or reaction to the patriarchal power structures that have dominated Western culture” (227). Patriarchal power has oppressed women economically, socially, and politically. Women were associated more with domesticity than with politics and financial situations. They were not provided the same educational opportunities as men. These issues have been addressed by people, such as Mary

The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following