Sexual Objectification Of Women In Advertising

Advertisements ceased to simply sell products decades ago. As consumer culture has spread, infiltrating almost every aspect of American life, the way products are advertised has transformed. Consumer culture bred into typical Americans’ mindsets the desire to own. Consumerism skyrocketed after the great depression, and selling a product became a process of selling an identity. From as far back as the 1920s, sexual images have been used to advertise products to both men and women. However, as second-wave feminism began to fight the sexual objectification of women and proclaim the right that women have to their “own” sexualities and bodies, the idea of selling empowerment for women in advertising became popular. In her article, Supersexualize

During the “second-wave” of feminism, women fought against the images of sexually objectified women, arguing that women had a right to their own bodies and sexualities. The second-wave of feminism began with Miss America Pageant protests in the late 1960s, where feminists proclaimed that a woman is more than a body and that items “for women” such as bras, heels, and beauty products were nothing more than ways to maintain the oppression of women in a patriarchal society. Second-wavers operated off the ideas that the “personal is political” and that women could be empowered (Freeman, 1975). Kate Millett wrote about how women possessed a sexuality that was their “own” and was not connected to the social institutions of marriage or motherhood in her book Sexual Politics (1969). Objectification of women in the media was criticized by second-wave feminists, which resulted in a shift in advertising away from blatant sexual objectification of women toward a much more subversive sexual portrayal of women—subjectification. Subjectification, a term coined by Michel Foucault, can be seen in media response to second-wave feminism in the way that the portrayal of women shifted. Women became desiring subjects who chose to be seen in subordinate or objectified ways because it was empowering or liberating (280). Ultimately, subjectificaiton

The women modeling the bras serve to be seen as the idealized woman with a “sexy body.” The advertisement aims to make women want to look like the hyper-sexualized, unattainably thin models in lingerie, suggesting that loving one’s body is possible with the right bra—and of course the right body. As the ad campaign rose in popularity, Victoria’s Secret released a second commercial titled “I Love My Man’s Body,” in which the same models discuss their favorite aspects of a man’s body. The commercial begins with just showing parts of a model—her hip, her tattooed wrist, her smile and arms covering her breasts, before showing the full model. This sexualizes the model, giving importance to her attractive features rather than her whole self. The original “I Love My Body” commercial shows the models faces from the start. In the spin-off, the models’ voices are not heard until almost thirty seconds have elapsed, full of images of either just women’s body parts or of the models doing “flirtatious” or sexual motions toward the camera. The models then describe their favorite physical attributes of men; when some attributes are mentioned, the corresponding attribute on the model is pictured. This commercial starts with the words “I Love My Man’s Body” as the slogan, yet the final image of the commercial is the