Introduction
The following study will examine whether there is sexual objectification of women in international marketing communications. The author will focus on several academic papers related to the sexual objectification of women in advertising including:
‘The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective’.
‘The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on Women’s Self-Objectification, Mood, and Body Image’.
‘Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements’.
An Alternative View.
A scrutinisation of the documentary ‘Killing Us Softly 4’ by Jean Kilbourne will be made.
A critical evaluation/conclusion will also be produced.
According to Heldman (2012), sexual objectification can be defined as “the
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It is at the discretion of advertisers to undertake more moral responsibility in relation to the portrayal of females in advertisements. Consumers are often unable to view the product or service being advertised as the focal point centres around a semi naked female protagonist. It has been proven that sexual advertising grab’s consumer attention and marketers will push the boundaries to sell a brand. The investigation discovered that young, educated women accept the objectification of women, where previously this demographic was the most critical of such practices. Objectifying women has become socially acceptable and most consumers will not find these adverts surprising, alarming or dangerous (Zimmerman and Dahlberg …show more content…
Serious implications of the thin ideal are widespread in Western women, who are constantly bombarded by such images. The task of paying attention to oneself’s body image causes other cognitive and behavioural functions to suffer. It has been considered that extended exposure to such advertising can lead to women living vicariously through the models and actresses displayed in magazines and on television. The study proves that media pressure has inundated much of the young female population who will stop at nothing to achieve the perceived ‘perfect’ body image (Harper and Tiggemann
One aspect of an author’s argument is their ethical character. This is important in assessing how credible and fair the author is being when considering their subject. [Transition] Jean Kilbourne has spent most of her professional life studying and analyzing women in advertisements. She has produced the award winning documentaries Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women (1979) and Slim Hopes, serves on the Massachusetts Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Abuse, and is a senior scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College (420). Kilbourne appears to be qualified to speak on the matters of women and advertising and a reader can trust that she has done the necessary research to have an informed opinion them.
Nowadays, not only in the advertisement industry, but everything has sexy appealing and everywhere. For example, on television, the internet, magazines and poster. In the article, “ master of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising” Jack Solomon agreed, “ Sex never fails as attention-getter, and in a particularly competitive, and expensive era for American marketing, advertisers like to bet on sure thing” (172). The aspect of advertising can be anything and there are no limits.
Annotated Bibliography Introduction: Examine different kinds of advertisements and the problem at hand with how they perpetuate stereotypes, such as; gender, race, and religion. Thesis: The problem in society today is in the industry of social media. In efforts to attract the eye of the general population, advertising companies create billboards, commercials, flyers and other ads with stereotypes that are accepted in today’s society. Because of the nations’ cultural expectation for all different types of people, advertisement businesses follow and portray exactly what and how each specific gender, race, or religion should be.
Notions such as “sex sells” are not necessary true, for the observers recognize the damaging images in which women are portrayed. Advertisements that depict possessive and violent men toward women are should not be selling. For example, “no”does not mean “convince me”, when taken otherwise may lead to sexual abuse. Despite that both genders can be objectified, it is women who are more at risk due to the already established idea that women are more vulnerable.
In his article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women,” Steve Craig describes how sellers differentiate and analyze sex by trying to use the buyers’ fantasies to match the expectations of ones’ age and sex which allows them to use their marketing funds more efficiently. According to Craig, we are living in a patriarchal society, where the man are the ones placing these advisements in society and creating trends. His analysis of four distinctive television advertisements is going to still try to largely uphold a patriarchal social structure. Although, on the surface these advisements may appear to be empowering both genders, it is still copying culture’s ideology of gender. Craig contends that advisements portray men in a masculinist perspective by
From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed
This issue has been researched numerous extensively over the years. However, very little or no sources have been written on this topic of gender manipulation in advertising. Thus, an investigation is supported to supply this topic with answers that unfold the truth about the advertising industries behavior towards their target market and their purpose for doing so. In today’s culture, advertisements in the media have polluted our tech-generated society.
“Advertising contributes to people’s attitudes about gender, sex, and violence,” states Jean Kilbourne in her article, Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt With advertising agencies standing by the notion that “Sex Sells” it isn’t uncommon to find sex tied into a number of advertisements seen everywhere on a daily basis. “Sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women …” (Kilbourne, 271). The objectification of women in our society is more prevalent than many would like to believe. Women being portrayed as passive, easy, innocent, needy, submissive and dependent beings create an understanding that women are less human than men.
Advertisements sell values, images, love and sexuality. Over the years advertisements have attempted a wide variety of advertising approaches like humor, sex, emotions. Advertisers use one of these appeals to ensure that the targeted audiences receive their message. The media’s framing of women in highly restricted and negative ways is a global phenomenon that cuts across all cultures and has endured a long passage of
Kilbourne argues how sex in advertising, subconsciously promotes violence against women. With ads about alcohol, skimpy clothing, and even one about an elevator, Kilbourne reveals that these kinds of ads can signify violence, when paid enough attention to. These ads play on the media so often nowadays, that society is numb to them and no longer pays close attention to what the ads are implying. Not only does sex in advertising objectify women, but when a man is objectified, the woman is blamed for not so being innocent, which is what Kilbourne argues as further poor treatment towards women. Sex in advertising seems to allow dominant and forceful men to get away with violating the passive and playful women because the women are teasing.
Yet, in the realm of advertisement, there seems to be a fundamental difference in the way men and women are portrayed. The women are portrayed as a sexual object, fragile, and exotic whereas men are portrayed as dominant, powerful, physique, tough, independent, and aggressive. The advertisement today 's plays very important to influence the customer decision, and through various research evidence that gender, sexuality, and advertising are
(Banks, 2001). These questions are answered in the running text. The theoretical framework has showed that ‘sexualization’ can mean making something sexual in character, and also the public expressions of sex in media and culture. Yet, these definitions do not tell us which things, or images, are sexualized.
The definition of Sexual Objectification is given as “A person is sexually objectified when her sexual parts or sexual functions are separated out from the rest of her personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or else regarded as if they were capable of representing her.” (Bartky 1990). As explained by Tracy Moore, in her book The Sexual Objectification Scale: Continued Development and Psychometric. Objectification takes women 's sexuality away from her and makes it the viewer’s property. Moore also concludes that “it is predominantly women who are reduced from subject to object.”
Generally, towards the print ads, copywriters unhesitatingly used nudity pictures to draw attention from specific advertisements to their sponsoring products. Yet, despite its presence in advertisements, sexuality in advertising can cause negative consumer perception, decrease brand recall and prevent women from buying a product. However, they are lucky because all of these effects will be prevented as supported by the scholars which is state that sexual appeal in advertising are attention grabbing, likeable, arousing, effect inducing, memorable and somewhat more apt to increase interest in the topic advertised in comparison to non-sexual appeal ( Severn et al., 1990 ). This research aims to primarily understand the sexual appeal in fashion advertisements is by further conducting a critical analysis of its effectiveness. Finally, provide literature overview regarding the effectiveness of sex appeal in fashion advertisements in female magazine, the effects of sex appeal in advertisements on consumer buying’s decision and consumers perception of the sexual appeal in fashion advertisements in female
This research paper presents a content analysis on the portrayal of women in advertisements. This paper is written to better understand the stereotypes of women in advertising. The paper will also include the harsh realities female receivers have to face due to the portrayal of unrealistically thin and technologically perfected super models. Many women are portrayed as sexual objects and are constantly being degraded. Few examples of using sex appeal will also be discussed in this paper.