Degrading Women In Ads - Essay Example

? RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ABOUT DEGRADING WOMEN IN ADS Introduction Advertising is more than hundred billion dollar annual industry and influences all of the people’s thoughts throughout their lives. People are exposed to more than two thousand advertisements (through television channels and shows, magazines, movies and newspapers) every day, constituting an extensively influential educational force of the society. Most Americans spends larger percentage of the day viewing TV advertisements. The advertisements sell an extensive number than brands. Advertisements sell messages, reputation, morals, images and achievements, personal worth, sexuality, affection, prominence and status quo. In addition, they inform people about themselves and their ideal character and sometimes, ads sell addiction. The critical objective of media is to bring viewer to marketers, the same way TV shows deliver commercial to viewers. In efforts to fulfill their objectives, ads, magazines and other commercials oppress women. The paper seeks to investigate how advertising commercial degrades women in their work. Discussion Various feminist and other scholars assert than diverse television commercials, magazines, newspapers, and other media outlets are degrading and disrespectful to female body because they hyper-sexualize women, or portray women as sex objects or a weaker sex. Advertisements influence people thoughts and emotions such as adolescents who are mostly vulnerable because they are weak and inexperienced clients, and the main targets of various ads. Teenagers are in the learning stage – realizing the responsibilities and values and building self-concept, (Skinner, 2003). Various adolescents are increasingly sensitive to adverse influence and experiences some challenges to resist and question the powerful cultural messages reflected and reinforced in these advertisements. Advertisements are a form of national peer influence that ruin privacy and personal standards and values of women. The main message people learn for media advertisements and commercials are stereotypes about men and women. Advertisements create an imaginary environments where by people (women) are never obese, ugly, poor or disabled. Advertisements portray women in different degrading roles (as sex objects and house helps). As homemakers, women are pathologically preoccupied by hygiene, debates the virtues of product cleaning with herself and minds of the ring on the collar. Women feel guilty of being ugly and for not making a better mother or wife. Similarly, this advertisement portrays a typical woman as long-legged, slender and tender, (Gunter, 2002). All attractive females in magazines (such as minority females), irrespective of viewer and products, correspond to this principle. Consequently, women are mainly pressurized to copy this idea, and feel guilty and worthless if they fail. Such advertisements degrade women because they instill in them a notion that their lovability, desirability and beauty lies on their physical perfection. In Kellog’s PEP Vitamin paper, the advertisement portrays a degrading image of a woman. The advertisement heading proclaims, “The more a woman works, the cutter (beautiful) she appears.” The message from the images is that the secret of a woman’s beauty lies on her housekeeping prowess, (Skinner, 2003). The husband exclaims, “Gosh honey, you are better on cooking, hygiene and house dusting.” Similarly, the female body answers, “Vitamin.” The woman always get vitamins for the husband – this implies she must fulfill a man’s ego desires to achieve her beauty. Sexuality of women is utilized to market all market brands. For instance, products of men, to appeal sexually to a woman and entice men to purchase products and for women advertisements attracts men so as to reconsider their images as they read the advertisements and watch a TV commercial. Various magazines entail advertisements and images where females are assured that live, breathe and work to satisfy the male species. In Leggs article, he wears pants and the head of woman inscribed to a rug of a tiger-skin. A man triumphantly steps on the head of a woman, and the headline reads, “Having a girl in the house feels gratifying.” The message from the image is that although a tiger, her heroism could not save her; the man has authority over her. Having girls around the house, as ‘sex object,’ feels satisfying for men. Males manipulate women’s power and subdue them to attain their desires, sex, (Kilbourne, Jhally, Rabinovitz & Media Education Foundation, 2010). Similarly, in Van Heusen advertisement, a Van Heusen magazine advertisement selling ties portrays a man comfortably lying in bed with fluffed pillows, folded in bedding, with his hands behind the head and a kneeling woman giving him food from a serving table (one may assume the woman is Van’s wife). The title asserts, “Inform her that this is a male body world.” This implies that males are responsible of the world and whatever they instruct goes. The female race, therefore, exists to appease and serve his husband, the male race. These images are just made to market ties, but the impact of this ad is eroding women from the list of consumers. Similarly, images portrayed in part four of the TV show “Killing Us Softly” send unethical messages about women. For instance, the BMW part sends an implication that men will rather love the BMW than the other significant people. In words, a man thinks more about his car than his spouse. Covering a woman’s face with magazine entitled “the ultimate attraction” truly degrades women, (Lazarus, Wunderlich, GilliganSteiner-Adair, Dines, Steinem, Richards, Cambridge Documentary Films, 2000). The magazine compares a woman’s body to a lucrative car, BMW. Men think that it is ethical for them to be humorous, and women may either despair and admit it, or feel insecure, but they have to do everything to gratify men ego. The advertisement shows an image of a woman lying down as if it is suitable for her to lie down, while it is not. Teenagers in the society emulate the advertisement when sending love messages and strive for perfection like model images they view, when they are put down as these models. In other words, women have to attain and seek the status of luxury objects such as sports, cars and other things to entertain their men because women are, but just luxury objects that men use to please and entertain themselves. Advertisements employ fears to guarantee achievements with the buying of some products. Advertisements are sources of adverse stereotypes about females. They offer impossible images of typical body for females to work towards, and, unfortunately, most women do. The impacts of such prejudices and images are extremely powerful, (Gunter, 2002). The woman body is manipulated, and many teenage girls, in a bid, to achieve these distorted images, develop drastic eating complications, from makeup lingerie, food, perfume and household objects. Advertisements convey a message to females that they are unattractive, not sexy, and therefore, unacceptable. The woman body is always objectified in advertisements, and every time a person is converted to an object violence always follow. Raped and violence mainly result from women dehumanization as witnessed in Killing Us Softly film. Similarly, in this film, a woman is portrayed as an object and powerless person even though, a ‘tiger” like a man. Teenagers may acquire a fantastic deal of sexual attributes and characteristic from magazines and advertisements. The strategy of advertisements to sex is degrading; the approach reduces women to an item and focus on personality and human behavior. Similarly, this diminution of sexuality to a filthy game and women to an object is a true culture of obscenity. Even though, the sexual sell, manifest and conceal, is at an intensified level in most advertisements, at the same time, sex as a crucial and significant human activity manifests, (Lazarus, Wunderlich, GilliganSteiner-Adair, Dines, Steinem, Richards, Cambridge Documentary Films, 2000). In most advertisements such as Van Heusen’s advert, a new or modern ideal woman is portrayed as a superwoman - she manages to perform all her duties at home and work (assisted by a product), or as a liberated person, who owes her liberty and self-esteem to cosmetics she applies. The new female body does not reflect any true progress, instead, created a progress myth, a vision that decreased complicated sociopolitical challenges to dull personal ones. The message and image used in Heusen advertisements has two crucial impacts. Such as reinforcing gender roles, that is the function of a wife as a homemaker and the ideal body image and worth of females to men, (Pettit & Showalter, 2000). Advertising images may not lead to these challenges, but they indirectly or directly contributed to the limitations by establishing an atmosphere that the marketing of female bodies –sell and dismemberment of sexual body, manipulated ideals of body images and use of women as sex items – is viewed as acceptable. For instance, Van Heusen and the movie “Killing Us Softly” markets distorted female body as a sex object and luxury objects that men uses for entertainment. They create a perception that women can use their bodies (as tools) to get what they desire. Similarly, the message of women bodies as tools to attain their desires in life is an absurd message communicated by most food and beverage advertisements, jeans beauty brands and many other objects, (Skinner, 2003). Viewing these images more repeatedly, women and teenagers cannot help feel misplaced, and isolated from the society. The perception is that because their bodies and images do not conform to the set standards in the advertisements, they are excluded in the society’s standards and expectations of ideal females. In addition, tobacco product advertisements should involve producers’ crucial warnings explaining how harmful the brands are to the health of users. Media advertisements and images are as detrimental to the health of women as the tobacco consumption is to users, and should include the producer’s caution that should caption the world ‘Caution’. This is because such images are detrimental and disrespectful to the physical and psychological health of women. The main challenge is that various women internalize and accept these stereotypes and admit their limitations, therefore, creating a self-fulfilling prediction. If women accept, the myths in these degrading images they later actualize them. Most women fail to understand that these images are artificial and can be attained artificially, and that beauty of an individual emanates from within herself, (Lazarus, Wunderlich, GilliganSteiner-Adair, Dines, Steinem, Richards, Cambridge Documentary Films, 2000). Therefore, curiosities to conform to a typical and difficult standard, most women make spectacular efforts to distort and alter their bodies and facial looks. A woman is compelled to perceive her face as cover and the body an item as things more crucial and separate from the real self; therefore, she needs changes, enhancements and disguise to attain the “ultimate attraction” displayed in BMW film. This is because the advertisements make her dissatisfied and ashamed of her looks. Therefore, objectified constantly by the advertisements, a woman learns to objectify herself to fit the marketer’s standards. Some scholars believe that most advertisements and images have crucial information to communicate to the society. For instance, they serve to strength the idea of roles and responsibilities of men and women in the society and perpetuate stereotypical notions concerning women. These are demonstrated in the women’s picture in ads. Advertisements for home items mainly use an attractive model that stresses the significance of the woman’s outer beauty, (Pettit & Showalter, 2000). The house, which is, “the man’s world” should have attractive objects and product that appease the male ego, and a woman is not excluded from the list of household objects and products. Experts agree the most essential messages that magazine images conveys to women is that they should show “beauty, pliant, slim, wrinkleless, sexually available and different from men. In fact, most young women are told by advertisers and media images that the most crucial thing about women is their perfume, dressing, attractiveness and beauty. Psychologists confirm the above arguments, and suggest that the main message sent by most images in advertisements is that a woman has a pressing desire, and requirement for personal adornment to assist her appeal and hold her husband. The idea woman image portrayed in magazines and media outlets is hard and expensive to attain and difficult to maintain because no woman is flawless, and all are aging. According to adverts, advancing in years is a powerful taboo, (Kilbourne, Jhally, Rabinovitz & Media Education Foundation, 2010). Advertisements and images encourage teenagers to maintain their youthful age (since innocence is extremely sexier), submissive and rely on men and never advance in age. The contradictory information, sensual and innocence puts women in a dilemma; partly they are expected to be super sexy and virginal, naive and skilled, chaste and seductive. Feminist argue that the maturity disparagement is insulting, degrading and frustrating to older females, and the implication that young women are seductive and sexy is detrimental to children. Some fashion advertisement such as Dolce and Gabanna ads, which sells women products, has detrimental and degrading images that have women oppressed by men as other men sit back and watch, (Gunter, 2003). These images have been repeatedly used in enhancing and condoning rape. Females will not purchase products marketed in such a manner where the hidden information is threatening their existence and insulting women population. With the current trends in marketing and advertising of products, most advertisements and images have adverse impacts on young women and teenagers. These advertisements need people’s attention (mostly women); they should be eliminated because growing women constantly question their personalities, self-image and self-concept. The images are a vital message of female actions and thoughts. Teenagers and young girls internalize and practice the message and the girl child will go downhill if the media continue to promote these images and advertisements. Otherwise, advertisements are endangering the existence of the female race. Therefore, formulating and implementing code of ethic for the advertisement media might achieve crucial results in promoting respect and honor for the female species. This is mainly true for TV shows and magazines that emit homogenous images to people at their houses and all over the globe. However, challenging the adverse impacts of the emerging media on the female body needs focusing on the wider spectrum of representation of media that restrict, disrespect and degrade women such as internet. This is because internet advertising is expanding every day, and the agent is extensively intensifying the media corporation influence, and the potential of pornography pointed out by various feminists as insulting to women, (Skinner, 2003). Women can influence change in methods of advertising and image display through a process of cause and effect. Marketing is the influential force underlying the media in America as it settles bills. Similarly, marketers are going to design images that draw community’s attention. Therefore, if women as consumers decline to the advertisements, then marketers will change their ads and, fundamentally, the images carried by magazines and TV shows and presented to people will change. Feminist agree that women have made significant progress in the past centuries and thus they do not have to depend on their sexuality or other “perceived weaknesses” to achieve their needs. It is a masculine world, yes, but female body does not have to hinge on male counterpart for survival. It is increasingly unfortunate and totally tormenting that marketers still portray women as weak and indecisive. More so, it is absurd that women models accept to be used by advertisers in such a pathetic way, (Kilbourne, Jhally, Rabinovitz & Media Education Foundation, 2010). Thus, the current advertising is eliminating the female species softly. It is eliminating their self-esteem and hopes. Therefore, women must stand and pressurize marketers to get their heads off the sand and focus on the broader picture. Conclusion Media portrayal of both male and females has a dramatic effect on cultural and gender beliefs in the society. Roles and prejudices of gender are attributable to exploitative images and reputation of both genders. In most cases, advertisers to promote products sell and create reputation and preference for products to male gender exploit the female body. This has created and reinforced the degrading and insulting of women in various adverts and media images. In other words, media images and adverts are degrading tools by men to subdue and oppress women. References Gunter, B. (2002). Media sex: What are the issues?. Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum. Kilbourne, J., Jhally, S., Rabinovitz, D., & Media Education Foundation. (2010). Killing us softly 4: Advertising's image of women. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation. Lazarus, M., Wunderlich, R., Gilligan, C., Steiner-Adair, C., Dines, G., Steinem, G., Richards, A., ... Cambridge Documentary Films. (2000). Beyond killing us softly: The impact of media images on women and girls. Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge Documentary Films. Pettit, A. G., & Showalter, D. E. (2000). Images of the Mexican American in fiction and film. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Skinner, E. (2003). Women and the national experience: Primary sources in American history. New York: Longman. Read More