We are bombarded with images shown to us by the advertising industry, an aver- age of over 3,000 ads per day. It’s all too easy to say that we are unaffected and that we don’t pay attention to advertisements, but only eight percent of what we see is actually processed by our conscious brain. The rest is held and reworked in our brain’s deep recesses. Advertising is a very powerful force, and it is important to analyze the messages that the media is sending us and how these messages may be shaping our beliefs. Although not always present, there are many sexist themes prevalent in advertis- ing. Through both subtle and overt strategies, the advertising industry promotes a sex- ist society through female objectification that has various consequences.
The advertising industry shapes how we feel about ourselves through a con- cept of normalcy. When we see advertisements, they tell us what we should be, what we should want and how we should feel. Unfortunately, this influential environ- ment is not used to promote a healthy image of women. The focus on females in ad- vertising is generally on ap- pearance. Appearance is seen over and over again as the most important piece of fe- male identity.
Women considered attractive are used to sell every- thing from food to clothes to cars. Unfortunately, the attractive women in these advertisements are usually objectified through techniques like body fragmentation, where a woman is reduced
to just one sexualized part of her body, direct objecti- fication, where her body is turned into an actual object such as a beer bottle, or her body is exposed through re- vealing clothing and panned over in a sexual way.
All of this focus on female appearance can’t help but have consequences on how we view women in other as- pects of society. First of all, high expectations are created from the unrealistic portray- als of women in advertising. Images are so photoshopped that you can sometimes be looking at three different women together in one im- age. Impossible proportions are created, all flaws are re- moved, and the image is so distorted that it may not even resemble the original model. All of this can lead to unreal- istic expectations for women and men of what a partner should look like. This in turn can lead to self-confidence issues that results in mental illness, especially for women. Depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem are three of the most common mental health problems for women, and this is only encouraged by the limited view of beauty expressed in the media.
The objectification of women in advertising can ultimately lead to a conse- quence of violence. “Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person,” states Jean Kilbourne, creator of the documentary series Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Im- age of Women. When women lose their identity in advertisements and become sexualized objects, the perception of women in general as people with feelings, emotions,
and dreams is lessened, and a rape culture is created. Often times, direct violence is even portrayed in advertisements. There is an ad for the Ford car company, in which a spacious trunk is illustrated through a man that has three women tied up in the back of his car. Other fashion ads show men stepping on or choking women. These kinds of portrayals eroticize violence and create desensitization about the im- portant and persistent issue of violence against women. In these ways, the media force- feeds us unhealthy images.
Men are definitely eroti- cized in advertisements too, and sometimes an advertise- ment’s focus is solely on a male’s unrealistic appearance, which is an issue that should not be overlooked. However, the difference between the two is the implication. The difference is what these im- ages are telling our society. For men, appearance is not their only valued trait. Also, when sexualized, men are shown in a position of pow- er, as compared to women, who are sexualized to appear weaker and more vulnerable. The majority of men don’t live in a world where they are likely to be beaten, catcalled, harassed, or sexually assault- ed, whereas women do. This is the consequence of a sexist society encouraged by our media system.
The best way to combat this deeply ingrained system is simply to become educated and aware of the gendered norms that advertisements are promoting and the messages that they are sending. When viewing an advertisement, critically evaluating it can shine a new light on the messages that we see every day and take for granted.