Sexism In Advertising Essay

993 Words4 Pages

Bodies possess the highest price on the market. In advertisements, women’s bodies are highly valued and bring in its audiences in herds. The media often incorporates sexism towards the female population with images of naked women, women in submissive positions, innuendos of violence (verbal and physical), and dehumanization. This People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) ad exploits the sexual appeal of Pamela Anderson by positioning her to her side with breasts in view, body almost naked, “butchered” like an animal, and even called an animal all to advertise for a meat free diet. Advertisements and the media appropriate women and like to exploit their bodies in an effort to institute shock value to sell an idea or a product. The first …show more content…

The light baby blue hue is the same shade as her bathing suit and attracts your eyes back and forth between her body and the text, creating a relationship between her and PETA. However, the link between animal rights and human rights are not correlated in this ad and place animals on a higher podium than humans, particularly women. The advertising industry often does this act of placing women on lower levels of decency than men’s and even animal ads. Because of this hypersexualization of women’s bodies the audience translates the ad to apply to real life where women are then told how to look, act, and be treated by others. Men are subconsciously told that you can not objectify animals or consume them, but women’s bodies are allowed to still be objectified and consumed by the eyes and minds of men. The other visual besides Anderson is a silhouette of a cow with a heart imprint inscribed in its side and surrounded by the words “Have a heart. Go Vegetarian.” Because the cow has no distinguishable features and is significantly smaller than the main picture of the model, the heifer becomes impersonal and attracts no attention to the cause PETA is trying to advocate towards. Therefore the focus becomes the “consumption” of Pamela Anderson’s body by our