Women may have always been self-conscious about their bodies, but advertisements have only exacerbated the problem. Professor of Psychol\u00adogy Amy Marcus-Newhall notes that \u201cadvertising has a persistent message that subjugates women, whether they are aware of it or not, and all women are affected.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the 21st century, our ex\u00adposure to ads has become even more pervasive\u2014in magazines, newspapers, on TV, the radio, buses, street signs and billboards. The average Ameri\u00adcan views more than 3,000 ads a day, many of which present sexist images and messages. Jean Kilbourne ex\u00adplores the influence of modern ads in the film Killing Us Softly 3. <\/em>She dem\u00adonstrates that advertisements, which are designed primarily to sell products, also define beauty; the beauty they depict is the only acceptable form, and women must buy their products in order to achieve this ideal.<\/p>\n As Kilbourne says, \u201cadvertis\u00ading tells us who we are and who we should be.\u201d However, the \u201cperfect\u201d women depicted in advertisements are unrealistic; advertisers retouch images of women as well as create computer-generated models. Because this unreal image is unattainable for most women, it negatively affects their self-esteem. As a Body Shop ad shown in the film states, \u201cThere are 3 billion women who don\u2019t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreover, women\u2019s bodies are often objectified, which can be sexist and result in violence against women. Sometimes, only one aspect of a woman\u2019s body is shown in an adver\u00adtisement, illustrating that women are mere \u201cthings,\u201d or a part of a thing. The depiction of women as objects is com\u00admon in advertisements, where they are sometimes nude or shown with their legs spread open (as exemplified in the Tom Ford ad showing the lower half of a woman\u2019s body with a fragrance bottle strategically placed.)<\/p>\n Killing Us Softly 3 <\/em>also notes that the repetitive appearances of ads that naturalize violence against women only worsen the situation for women. The message of these advertisements is that abuse is acceptable, which Marcus-Newhall views as a very seri\u00adous problem. \u201cI would argue that it\u2019s problematic for two reasons: One is that women perceive themselves as one option.<\/p>\n By being represented as sexual objects, women then perceive themselves as a single dimension and this becomes a prominent part of the schema of their identity. The second is that others, such as men, then have a very narrow stereotype of women (who they are, who they represent, and the power they should or should not hold).<\/p>\n Others perceive them that way, and the expectations of others, such as men, almost become self-fulfilling prophecies or a narrower window of how to view themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Jean Kilbourne in Killing Us Softly 3 <\/em>also points out that \u201cwomen of color are often literally shown as animals, dressed in leopard skins and animal prints. Over and over again the message is, \u2018Not fully human.\u2019\u201d Sex and near-pornographic images sell, but the objectification of women in adver\u00adtisements, especially women of color, reflects a serious problem in society\u2019s view of women.<\/p>\n Another message portrayed in ads is that women should be sub\u00adservient to men because men are the more powerful sex. Kilbourne says: \u201cThe obsession with thinness, I think, is really about cutting girls down to size, silencing them. So not only do we have images of very thin girls and women, but we also have many, many images of girls in ads with their hands over their mouths. Or worse, with her lips sewn together. Or silenced in many other ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, ads often present men as being dominant in a way that seems erotic and appealing, as seen in the Dolce & Gabbana ad. The repeti\u00adtion of such a message in advertise\u00adments might result in the belief that men truly are more dominant than women. Kilbourne concludes that \u201cadvertising is one powerful force that keeps us trapped in very rigid roles and in very crippling definitions of femininity and masculinity.\u201d<\/p>\n She urges our society to not only reform media messages, but also change our culture\u2019s attitude toward women and men. Perhaps this is too idealistic. Even so, we should be aware of the skewed depiction of women in advertisements and not al\u00adlow repetitive sexist ads to affect our individual perceptions of women and ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Women may have always been self-conscious about their bodies, but advertisements have only exacerbated the problem. Professor of Psychol\u00adogy Amy Marcus-Newhall notes that \u201cadvertising has a persistent message that subjugates women, whether they are aware of it or not, and all women are affected.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,234],"tags":[132,154,157,155,156,66,153],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature","category-vol-1-issue-1","tag-advertisements","tag-amy-marcus-newhall","tag-films","tag-jean-kilbourne","tag-killing-us-softly-3","tag-media","tag-michelle-gloster"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}