Advertising

In our society media plays a big role in forming public opinion, values and norms. It supports old standards of life and creates new ones. Advertising is one of the instruments of media that has been used to create and maintain gender stereotypes in a mass consciousness. Often gender relationships are presented with sexism towards women. Unfortunately, women’s access to press in order to express their opinions and interests is limited, despite the huge amount of women’s magazines in the market. But if you analyze press about women, it becomes obvious and very disappointing that there are just two dominant images of women: sweet and dull housewife or simply a seductive sexual object. (Kilbourne, 122).

The main topics of those magazines are how to look pretty and stay always young, how to loose weight and how to please a man in bed. The main women’s problems remain to be how to put make-up on, how to get a beautiful body and how to keep a man. For entertainment women get some food recipes to surprise their husbands, astrology advice for every month that of course helps to take control over your destiny and celebrity outfits and rumors so there is something to discuss with your girlfriends. The question remains open: how doesn’t it become boring??? From issue to issue, from month to month it is all the same. Why do women still buy it?

It seams that women have some sort of obsession with beauty; they became addicted to idea of perfect look and therefore to all those products being successfully sold. Perhaps, the idea of beauty as the only women’s power to control men stays really strong. Women have to be born beautiful, than stay pretty, slim and young forever in order to succeed in their lives. This mission is impossible. However, we have to admit that women’s press has a big influence on women. It follows requirements of the market, spreads unrealistic images and makes women feel weak and constantly unhappy with their bodies and faces, it feeds their fear of getting old and creates impossible desires to change their appearance. “Women’s magazines for over a century have been one of the most powerful agents for changing women’s roles, and throughout that time – today more than ever – they have consistently glamorized whatever the economy, their advertisers, and, during wartime, the government, needed at that moment from women” (Wolf, 64). In other words, women’s press dictates the standards of beauty and sexual attractiveness. And sexually oriented representation of women limits their rights and is discriminating.

Kilbourne says: “But the ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions” (Kilbourne, 121). So basically advertising brings social status on a product. It doesn’t tell you to buy something, but it offers you to treat yourself, reward yourself and get yourself “the best” or something that “you deserve”, like self-confidence, good health, positive mood or sexual attraction. In other words, it sells all those things that impossible to get for money. Ads aimed not just to promise a pleasure from buying a product, but also to create a desire to buy it. That’s why it is much more attractive to buy perfume and sexuality, than just a perfume.

Advertisement concentrates on symbolic presentation of femininity and masculinity, on stereotypes and gender differences. And we believe in what we see. Man’s behavior in ads is not just about gender; it is also about his status and personality. It represented through age, power, dominance and life style. Woman’s behavior in ads is mostly sexual; it is all about how she looks. One of the strongest stereotypes about women is that they always have to choose between being beautiful and being intelligent: “women are allowed a mind or a body but not both” (Wolf, 59). Women’s nakedness and sexuality is used not just for the underwear or body products ads, but also for computers ads, cars ads, sports goods and even food ads. 

Is this really necessary?

 

When it can be like this.

                       Or like this.

 

Since the advertising uses stereotypes to point at gender differences, there are more and more ads that use aggression and violence towards women to underline men’s dominance. Advertisers are trying to present it as art or fashion, or even hide it, but sometimes it gets too obvious.

t takes a lot of time to break stereotypes in mass culture. But it doesn’t mean it is not possible. As more positive images of women and men we see every day, as faster there are some changes will happen. We are so absorbed by the media industry in a very entertaining way so that we don’t see some real problems or just don’t take it seriously. But the media still carries its educational function. And as more hidden the media messages and images are, the more influence they have on everybody’s subconscious mind. So it is really a time to choose what ads we are looking at by changing them.