Women Affected By The Oversexualization Of Women In Advertising

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

There are countless advertisements in the media, weather videos, newspapers, magazines articles, or even billboards that have the face or the body of a women display as the main background of the advertisements. Hardees advertises their food by showing an oversexualized woman eating a burger or sandwich. This is just one of many examples of the way advertisements, ads for short, oversexualize woman in the media.

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.

Halloween. A joyous time filled with free candy, scary movies, funky costumes and… sexy cats? Do women really like the idea of going out in skimpy skirts with exposed bellies in the cold Fall winds or is there an underlying cultural standard at play? If you look at any forms of media outlets today, you will most likely come across a theme of hypersexualization of women. Whether it is advertisements, movies, celebrities, or even the lovely holiday that is Halloween, female objectification is so common that we as a society has started to see it as the cultural norm. Not only are women constantly being objectified, hypersexualization of women in media contribute to the psychological oppression of women because it emphasizes the importance of appearances of women, reinforces society’s unachievable beauty standards, and promotes a male-dominated view of how women should look and behave.

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

In recent discussion of the drastic marketing campaigns that companies utilize a controversial issue whether the massive growth of popular culture in today’s diverse society has created a need for mass advertisement and marketing. From this perspective, advertisement and marketing companies continue to exploit the slogan “Sex Sells.” Advertisement campaigns continue to target women as a sex object for men’s sexual prejudice. The main idea behind this campaign is that men’s needs are more important and significant, and women’s are not. Advertisement and marketing campaigns have gone too far and they devalue women. As Steve Craig said in his article “Men’s Men and Women’s Women”: “Advertisers therefore portray different images of men and women in order to exploit the different deep-seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity” (189). What Steve Craig refers to is that

The so called housewife draws her bath settles in and thinks of the many duties that she has to do for the day, she calls her husband and tells him about her wonderful bath and the amazing soap she is using just like everyone else would. This is a 1950s dove ad, an ad that sexualizes and characterizes the women as something she is not and creates a stereotype of a stay home mom and skinny women who have nothing better to do. The appearance of people in ads has changed a lot over time, in the 1950's women were degraded and sexualized throughout advertisements to be skinny. Whereas now some companies are fighting to change this vicious cycle. Although many companies still portray the same perspective as they did in the 1950's, there is now hope.

In today’s society companies are using advertisements to sell their products and get the word around to have consumers buy their products. Companies have been getting really competitive with their advertisements to make them stand out and pulling people in to get them to buy stuff. The advertisements that stood out were the one’s objectifying women and portraying them to be the house wife or considered “easy”. They are also showing women to be less intelligent or less important than men are portrayed in the advertisements. Advertisements today have been targeting women to be the face of their product and having them wear less clothing to have it be appealing to the right audience.

In conclusion, advertisers have cashed in on female sexuality, the appeal of youth and the objectification of women to sell us products. Is it wrong for advertisers to do this? The decision comes down to the consumer. If a person believes an ad is objectifying women or the beauty myth, the consumer can always choose a different product to

We live in a world that bombards us with over-sexualised images to aspire to. This sets standards for both women and young girls which are unrealistic and unattainable. Society is becoming more and more sexualised, leading to future generations becoming obsessed with vanity and looks. "Our children should no longer be sacrificed on the altar of the obsession with celebrity culture and the 'beauty' industry it has spawned."

Gender roles are a conception of femininity and masculinity. The gender roles for men and women in society are partially constituted of individual thinking. These conceptions and gender roles are not completely biological but also social and cultural. Women are earning advanced degrees and are entering careers which have been traditionally dominated by men. But women are still depicted as images of beauty and sexuality in movies, video games and advertisements. This paper explores the ways in which women continue to be depicted in society; specifically how women are portrayed in advertisements, the negative impact they make on women and the patriarchy that they depict. Highly sexualized images of women’s bodies put them on centre stage to be looked at, judged and evaluated. Not only does it put women in vulnerable positions, but hypothesizes male dominance. Women are being objectified and taken advantage of in advertisements by being presented as a “fantasy element”.

81% of ten year olds are afraid of being overweight. That doesn’t sound right does it? Well this terrifying statistic is true. In almost every ad that contains a women her body is usually unattainable. Due to this most girls grow up to have confidence issues because their bodies are not “perfect” or like the model in the ad who is most likely starving herself.

In the video, Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women, the way women are portrayed in advertising is explored in great detail. The video exposes the gender stereotypes that are depicted in advertising on a regular basis. The effects of mass advertising are also explored particularly the effect of objectification of women on young girls. Young girls and women are affected by these constant and never-ending advertisements sexualizing women and marginalizing them to a desired look, which is unrealistic for most women. These advertisements send a message to women that if they don’t look like the women that are being portrayed on TV, they are not worth much. Young women and teenagers are influenced even easier. Media pushes the message to young kids that their self worth is determined by how they look and what they wear.

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 objectification of women is a huge issue in society and is often led by advertising. However many men still believe that the adverts depicting women in a sexual and often passive posture are not very offensive but rather very funny or sexy. However how would they feel if it were their daughter or sister being advertised throughout the world as a sex object?