“Women are allowed a mind or a body but not both.”
-Naomi Wolf
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| This is a well known ad from the 1960's to promote kitchen appliances. This ad displays a clear use of sexism in advertisement. |
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| This image is an example of sexism, racism, and power hierarchies by portraying 'the bride' as a prized slave to the dominant male. |
The purpose of the examples above is to reinforce the dominate patriarchal system within the household which is problematic in itself, but I think the bigger issue is that it does so with the disguise of a happy submissive woman/wife. Because advertisements are literally everywhere, the house is no longer a safe place where a woman can use as an escape from the poisonous messages in ads. These messages include instilling the idea "in
consumers the cultural assumptions that men are dominant and women are passive
and subordinate” (Cortese 53).
The purpose of these ads are to maintain the power struggles between men and women. It does so by oversexualizing women and turning them into objects for men. “Ad deconstruction reveals a pattern of symbolic and
institutionalized sexism” (Cortese 45). “A woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask
and her body as an object, as things
separate from and more important than her real self” (Kilbourne 122). Pervasive images in advertisements have unintended but highly detrimental effects on women. This relates back to Berger's idea of how “the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him” (64). Women internalize this way of thinking as it is represented in the media and as a result the cycle is only perpetualized.
“Aggression is a learned behavior. Media violence teaches us aggression as children" (Cortese 67). Cortese suggests that violence is portrayed throughout advertisements. However, learned behaviors via ads is not only limited to violence. The anorexic models that are glorified on magazine covers make thinness the ultimate desire for women although is it unrealistic and extremely unhealthy. The lack of alternative body types make women think that it is even more critical to fit into this literally tiny, tiny category. The images that make it onto covers most often are not natural. “Advertising creates a mythical…world in which no one is ever ugly,
overweight, poor...The image is artificial and can only be achieved artificially" (Kilbourne 122).
"Authority figures were almost always male, even in ads for products that
only women used” (Steinem 113). Changing this would be an effective first step to breaking down the patriarchal society that we are surrounded in. I think that if more women in the advertisement industry are getting a say in how women are portrayed in the media, there will be a greater chance of change. Secondly, the models in front of the camera need to look more realistic and look truly natural as oppose to how men want them to look. Ads “are really projecting gender display-the ways in which we think men and women behave-not the ways
they actually do behave. Such portrayals or images are not reflective of social
reality" (Cortese 52). This idea of our media being reflective of social reality is key to rehabilitating the advertisement industry because is directly affects the messages being sent to the audience. We should find models that are at a healthy weight and find other ways to pose that do not glorify sex. If there is an abundance of realistic advertisements, that will slowly become the norm.
Sources:
John Berger,
Anthony J. Cortese, Constructed Bodies
Jean Kilbourne, Beauty Beast
Gloria Steinem, Sex, Lies and Advertising
Naomi Wolf, Culture
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