The Portrayal of Women in Advertising Essay examples

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.

Since the emergence of advertising in American culture one thing that has remained constant is the visible truth that men and women are portrayed differently. In consideration to the evolution of man kind gender roles have evolved immensely throughout time, although advertisements have not kept up with this process of evolution. Companies to this day use their tactics and skills to reach out to specific genders such as pretty fonts with a stylish message, while advertisements towards men portray the character as strong and intimidating. The typical viewer can easily spot the difference in the portrayal of genders. Men are portrayed this way because the viewers look up to these characters, they want to be

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.

The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.

People are so used to seeing ads that they have become immune to them, so advertisers blatantly use sex to sell their products. Most people, immune to ads, won’t even think about the deeper meaning behind an ad. They will notice the product, but because the product is in a sexual situation, they will associate that featured product with sex. The problem with this advertising is that it, more often than not, uses women in compromising situations where the man has power over the woman. Some of these ads she presents as evidence are extremely violent and aggressive. One ad she mentions is three guys blatantly attacking a woman and it’s advertising women’s jeans. I agree with Kilbourne when she states, “Male violence is subtly encouraged by ads that

From TV commercials and product placement to billboards and posters, thousands of advertisements bombard the average American every day. To be effective, an ad must attract the consumer’s attention, maintain the public’s interest, create or stimulate desire, and create a call for action. These advertisements can be small enough to fit on a three-inch screen or large enough to cover the side of a building. But no matter what the size, in this world of ever-shrinking attention spans and patience levels, ads have to be efficient in portraying their ideas. In order to successfully depict certain ideas, advertisements rely on shortcuts. These shortcuts usually involve stereotypes. In the media, stereotypes are inevitable because the audience

This ad is multidimensional in the way that it demeans women. The first layer is equating the women with inanimate objects. The women are being scaled down to the size of beer bottles as though they were barbie dolls, meant to be played with and molded by the hands of the viewer. The model lays with her legs spread and her chest pushed out in a hypersexualized submissive pose. She looks up at the viewer with a coy smile. Ads like these are meant to sell to an adult male audience. They are made by men with the intention of making money and the understanding that if you offer a typical American male the idea of sex with a physically attractive woman and equate that to a product, he will buy almost anything. This type of imagery also affects how women feel that they should act. Viewing images of women as sex objects in these submissive poses causes women to feel that they are only valuable if they fit the ideals put in place by the heterosexual male gaze.

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.

Interestingly, neither of these advertisements show a lot of skin; however, the images of the women in each of the advertisements portray women in a subservient role by placing them lower than the advertisements product and having open and waiting mouths. Therefore, these two advertisements construct a reality where women are only thought of sexual objects that can be acted upon, rather than having their own sexual agency, and are thought of as lesser. I find it interesting that the Skyy Vodka advertisement chooses to have the women sucking on the cherries, due to the fact that cherries are a symbol of virginity or the act of losing one’s virginity (“popping the cherry”). This conflicting message of virginity and losing one’s virginity in the same advertisement reflects and supports societies good-girl/whore dichotomy. A similar message is constructed in the Burger King advertisement due to the choice of a pixie like white women who symbolizes a good girl performing what appears to be a sexual act (to a sandwich nevertheless) and subsequently falling into the whore status. Therefore, from these advertisements women receive the message that in order to be beautiful and feminine one must downplay their own agency, particularly sexual agency, and assume a subservient role. In which these advertisements reinforce the patriarchy through displaying women as lesser than men and lesser than food and

It is also noticeable, that in a lot of ads women appear dominant and aggressive. They make the first move and men apparently play victims, or a "sex object", as Kilbourne noticed. Advertisements for the body spray for men, Tag, say, "WARNING, the makers of Tag Body Spray will not be held liable should your attraction to your Tag – wearing boyfriend cause you to engage in behavior that grandma may consider ‘unladylike'"; the picture is as impressive as the warning. The first thought that popped in my mind was "would only the grandma consider such behavior unladylike?" I do not think so. The second one was about the actual capability of a man to attract a woman. The real picture occurs if we reverse the subject and the object. Imagine a man on top of a woman, as it is shown in the ad, the result will be terrifying – it would look like a rape. Kilbourne says, "Although these ads are often funny, it is never a good thing for human to be objectified. However, there is a world difference between the objectification of men and that of women. The most important difference is that there is no danger for most men, whereas objectified women are always at risk," pointing out a very interesting fact: nobody would take seriously an ad where a woman abuses a man., but if reversed, it would be very realistic and true (464). Men are never concerned about daily protection,

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

The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most

Throughout history and today, we women are constant victims of stereotyping from our society. Certain “rules” have to be followed and certain “ideal” women images have to be kept. We are raised in a way to fill certain position where the society wants us to be and as a result, the opportunities are always limited for us and ideas of our importance in the society are diminishing. Even though women gained some independence, where women can work and take various position in society, the society’s idea of typical role of women never seem to change.

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

Marilyn Monroe, Marlboro Man, Hugh Heffner, Pamela Anderson, and The Rock are all examples of the society of idols whom the American public has looked up to in various media forms. In today’s society there are many gender and social stereotypes that remain a prevalent part of the advertising tactics of the media. In the particular ad that I have chosen are examples of gender stereotypes that I would like to analyze and discuss using Douglas Kellner’s article “Advertising Images”. Kellner states that the tobacco industry in both the past and present use subliminal messages with the intention of portraying lifestyles and choices to the American public. Cigarette ads in particular, Kellner argues, “contribute to identity formation in