Nike’s “My body” Campaign Essay

Women within the western culture reflect the hypersexualization of those images within the context of a global market in which the mainstream of sexual objects of women has increasingly been accepted as the norm. In the book Women in Popular Culture: Representation and Meaning, Marian Meyers’ states, hypersexualization is the representation of women as highly sexual objects (p. 6). Hypersexualization among women in the media has affected the way society represents women by portraying them as fragile, passive, vulnerable, less intelligent, and powerless figures, compared to men. This paper will focus on the way women are stereotypically portrayed and will emphasize the pornogrification of women as sexual objects in advertising; and bad effect in reality. Hence, women in the media are represented as hypersexual objects that differ from women in reality. However, people in the society are strongly advocating abolishing the society phenomena that promotes hypersexualization of women. There is scholarly evidence to support the thesis in addition to class discussions on Wesleyan College and Charles University will stand as sources, which includes: the women in popular culture by Marian Meyers, Philosophy

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

Gender is a sociological idea, in which it is not based on biology. While there is some biological differences between the sexes, the “meaning” of being male or female is based on social norms. Like race, these “biological” differences provided a system of enabling inequality between the sexes. History offers many examples of the gender norms over time. Women, for centuries, are few as the homemakers and often viewed as intelligent. Despite living in the twentieth century with greater equality, one does not need to go far to see how society and media influence our perception of gender. Advertisements in various media persuade its audience to buying their products. However, the means of attracting and persuading the audience can have underlying messages. Even in entertainment for young girls these underlying messages are prevalent. One example is the popular film, The Little Mermaid, in which the main protagonist is a young female. The protagonist gave up her identity to satisfy her lover. Even traditional gender roles are at work; the film showed young girls that to be happy and successful one had to find a husband and must relinquished one’s identity (Wood 1994). The generalized perception of male and female are polar opposites. Males are viewed as masculine, strong, authoritative, powerful, and devoid of emotions. Females are viewed as beauty, fragile, nurturing, emotional and sole purpose is to please men. These ideas can lead to sexism, which can have negative effects on

“The Codes of Gender” is a documentary by Sut Jhally. He looks at how today’s culture creates and support gender roles for our society through mass media. The documentary analyze how men and women are taught to conform to look and behave a certain way to meet society expectations of what is ideal to being a male or female. Sut Jhally uses references points from Erving Goffman’s book titled Gender Advertisements, about how advertisements broadcast women in the most bizarre positions; These advertisements display women in awkward and unnatural poses, making them appear submissive, unbalanced, childish, delicate and vulnerable. These attributes are shown through their positions; tilting their head, bent knees, touching themselves, and looking out in the distance. Whereas positions for men are opposite; they appear alert, dominant, confidence and powerful. This can be

This essay seeks to analyze Nike’s recent “equality campaign” commercial that was released in February 2017. Nike, the American sports brand giant who makes up 31% of the athletic footwear market (Keady, 2011), has been noted for creating political statements alongside the consumer goods that they produce. As seen in the short black and white filmed advertisement, famous American athletes Lebron James, Megan Rapinoe, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams are depicted standing up against social inequalities experienced by racial minorities and other marginalized groups; other marginalized groups include those such as the LGBT community as represented by soccer star Megan Rapinoe. The basic idea behind the piece is to illustrate that if equality

A Greek would say, "When we go to battle and win, we say it is Nike." According to Greek Mythology, The Nike was the winged goddess of victory. Daughter of the titan Pallas and the river Styx, Nike sat at the side of the omnipotent Zeus for the duration of his plight with the titans. The goddess Nike came to be an everlasting symbol of victory and dominance on the battlefields of ancient Greece. In light of her conquests, a popular footwear company of the 20th century designed products in her name to push new levels of achievement in athletes worldwide. The Swoosh logo at the side of each shoe is intended to represent the wing of the Greek Goddess Nike. The vibrant spirit of this ancient goddess has bridged the gap between

When we think of men in society, we think of someone strong and dominant. We think of the gender that is in charge. But what do we think of when we think of women? Do we see them the same way? Usually that’s not the case. When we think of women in society, we think of someone who does what they’re told without question. Maybe we think of the celebrities that advertise our favorite products. But, nobody every really looks deeper into the way women are viewed in society. However, Jean Kilbourne does. In her article entitled “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” she dives into how women are really viewed and what seems to be the “cultural norm”. In society, women are viewed as objects or as property. So in turn, men think

The Black female student-athlete body is a topic of great interest with little research in athletic administration. In explorations of women and how they view their bodies, and the bodies of others, based on visual frames in the media and advertising, the research either inaccurately represents Black females, or fails to include their unique experiences into the discussion. Meager research on Black female student-athletes creates a problem when trying to draw accurate conclusions. This paper explores the sexualized visual framing of Black female athletes, how they are invisible and hyper visible, and the knowledge gap that exists regarding Black female student- athletes unique experiences. (Cranmer, Harris, & Lancaster, 2006; Mowatt, French,

In order to portray female athlete as a commodity, the media decreases the athletes’ confidence. They give an idea that the athletes are merely “second-class citizens, if not objects” (Liang, Inquiries 2011, vol.3). An athlete must use her body to the demands of the media and public which means that she is not true to her identity. The media’s sexualisation of female athletes takes away their self-esteem and individuality from sports.

During the 2012 London Olympics Nike Launched their “Find your Greatness Campaign”. This Campaign was meant to make the everyday athlete strive to their personal goals and achieve greatness. Nike tried to differentiate itself from competitors by featuring amateur athletes compared to professional athletes. Nike intended to propose their idea of greatness, trying to show it’s not restricted for only the chosen few. But rather, it is something we are all capable of. Their message was to inspire anyone who wants to achieve greatness and that Nike products, from shoes to watches to shorts, would help you achieve this, as well as helping to motivate yourself to do more. In the commercial titled “The Jogger”, a part of the “Find your Greatness” campaign, proves to be convincing through intense emotional appeal, the strong credibility from Nike, and the logical feeling that we can all achieve greatness.

According to Laing, “The sexualization of female athletes reduces their self-esteem and identity by dehumanizing and pressuring them into an unhealthy obsession with body image” (page: 3). This leads to the media making women self-conscious about their bodies. Athletes often hear people say of other athletes, “She is too big, she’s not muscular enough or she is too skinny about female athletes.” Because of the way in which the media portrays a particular set of females, all females tend to strive for this “perfect physique”. This can lead to serve cases like dissatisfaction with their appearance and eating disorders. Some may argue that women like the sexualized manner in which they media portrays them because it increases their self-esteem

Providing an influence like this in to today’s society will change the morals of those who has a negative view on body image. “My life is full of drama, and I don’t have time to worry about something as petty as what I look like (Marlen K, 2015).” Even the interactions with siblings, relatives or even coworkers can influence the body image development. But most and foremost everyone must be able to prove this myths society has made wrong and instead challenge them to prove the thoughts/theories wrong. These are the ways I came up with to help others develop a positive body

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

The female body image is highly influenced by the mass media and the media’s portrayal of women, ‘70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines’ (University of Massachusetts & Stanford University, 2006), the portrayal of women in the media has an unrealistic approach and brings out body dissatisfactions and this results in eating problems and disorders.

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