YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?

What is Gender Objectification in Advertising? What are the Implications for Culture and Society?

Sharp slogans and rhyming jingles are the centerpieces of advertising language; they are made up with essential elements of compression and memorable patterns of repetition. Most people would say, that advertising uses poetic language to serve the practical goals of commerce, while “real advertising” is made in search of a kind of truth that is nothing like a sale (Benedicktus, R., & Andrews, M. (2011).

In advertising, and in business generally, the idea of creativity is associated with innovation or originality - to present products, ideas or services to the audience in a new way. The strong use of touching images, expressive language, and haunting music has a personal impact on people that experience them. Not only do they share the similarity in such strong images but also the underlying story behind them. Advertisements depict the image of life and death, family, business, travel, needs, desires, sex and success. Advertisements carefully select words for conciseness and clarity (Benedicktus, R., & Andrews, M. (2011). They consider a word’s and image’s emotive qualities, it’s influence. Advertisements, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly create significance from thin air (Benedicktus, R., & Andrews, M. (2011).

While the modern era continues to become more technologically advanced it has lead to an increase in the world of advertising. Exhilarating, audacious, erotic and sexual phrases and images that scream at you to BUY, BUY BUY! Their critical and persuasive use of language and imagery along with an underlying authentic emotional connection draws us into experiencing a “this could happen to you” feeling. It links the creators with viewers, emotions are incredibly powerful as they drive to our very core and create a personal impact that reshapes our own morals, ideals and vales.

Yet, what kind of representations is the advertisement industry producing? It creates an enchanted world in which no one is ever ugly, overweight, poor, working or physically disabled (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). Advertising uses gender identity – visual images of men and women, in a plea to seize our attention and persuade (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). They are projecting the ways in which we think men and women behave that are not reflective of social reality. Because traditional gender roles are so easily recognized by consumers, they blend conspicuously into the imagery of mass media, which in turn hits at the heart of individual identity (Anthony J. Cortese (2010).

In advertising, women are primarily depicted as sexual objects or agents (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). What are the consequences of living in a society that sexually objectifies the body, especially the female body, through gaze or “checking out?” (Anthony J. Cortese (2010) An ad for BMW sexually objectifies women and sexual relationships between men and women. According to the ad, “the ultimate attraction” is the BMW. While women are still displayed as an object of attraction and desire to men, the auto “the ultimate attraction” along with the placement of the flashy BMW picture on her face whilst having sexual intercourse is condescending and humiliating. Behaviour, which no women should succumb too.

An advertisement for Tom Ford fragrance for men resumes this theme of sexual objectification towards women. A woman is pictured in three compromising positions holding a bottle of his fragrance to cover the most intimate parts of her body provoking arousal and vulnerability. The bottle has been placed strategically so that the viewer “men” will look “there”. The way in which her skin glows and looks almost wet evokes feelings of lust and passion while her red fingernails and open mouth suggest desire, submissiveness and heat. The woman in the ad is portrayed as a sex symbol for Tom Ford’s fragrance. She is simply an item in which men could obtain and have if they endorse this product.

Mainstream advertising is constantly bombarding consumers, especially women with the message that they are inherently flawed – that what they are or what they have is not enough, too much, or not good enough.” (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). Sexualised images of anorexically thin women who are airbrushed to “perfection” and reduced to mere spectator fodder serve to destabilize women’s sense of self while reinforcing men’s sense of power over them (Anthony J. Cortese (2010).

Twenty years ago fashion models weighed 8 per cent less than the average female. Today, models weigh 23 per cent less, further alienating the normal female (Biedenbach, G., & Marell, A. (2010). The exemplary female prototype in advertising, regardless of product or service displays youth, good looks, sexual seductiveness and perfection. The provocateur is not human; rather she is a form or hollow shell representing the female figure (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). Accepted attractiveness is her only legged (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). Women are constantly held to this unrealistic standard of beauty. If they fail to attain it, they are led to feel guilty and ashamed. Cultural ideology tells women that they will not be desirable to or loved by men unless they are physically perfect (Anthony J. Cortese (2010).

Although the feminist movement freed women from oppressive social structure through control of reproduction, career possibilities, sexual freedom and challenged this “beauty charade”, the advertising industry revolted with a multidimensional attack in the arenas of mass media, medicine and cosmetics Langton, R (2012). With more than one million dollars spent every hour on cosmetics, only eight cents of that sales dollar goes towards ingredients the rest goes to packaging, promotion and marketing. Through advertising, the face becomes the mask and the body becomes an object (Langton, R (2012).

Although the social construction of gender is not fresh, this perspective has more recently been formalized in objectification theory (Langton, R (2012). Consequently, being raised in a culture that objectifies that objectifies the female body and sexualise women leads them to internalize this objectification. Internalizing cultural standards of feminie beauty leads to increased shame and anxiety about the body and appearance, partly because societal images of idyllic beauty are near impossible to achieve (Langton, R (2012). Self-objectification is directly related to an increase in the risk of physiological problems, including eating disorders, bipolar, depression and sexual dysfunction. Advertising not only encourages a fat-free diet but liposuction, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and cosmetic surgery.

So who gains by promoting this ludicrous image of the supreme woman? Advertisers have a huge financial stake in a narrow ideal of femininity that they promote. According to the Advertising Agency Industry Statistics Report from 2014 the U.S. annual revenue alone was forty-eight billion dollars (The Gale Group Inc. (2014). Additionally, cosmetic surgery is a three hundred billion dollar industry. The diet industry rakes in thirty three billion per year; while cosmetics a staggering twenty billion (The Gale Group Inc. (2014).

Advertising is not a new type of lie. Today’s women with ultra thin figures or breast implants are simply the contemporary versions of females of the centuries who have corrupted themselves in the name of female sex appeal (Anthony J. Cortese (2010). More important than the increasing number of advertisements, the beauty industry has devised the perfect provocateur so that it would be more arduous than ever for women to imitate, creating the anorexic- looking wafer-thin model. Advertising images simultaneously terminate and disgrace the very notion of “women’s liberation” (Anthony J. Cortese (2010).

So what are the effects of growing up and living within a cultural environment of omnipresent, ritualized and violent representations? The consequences are multifaceted, ranging from development to social, political, and psychological complications (Biedenbach, G., & Marell, A. (2010). Women’s bodies have been sacrificed for commercialism. While sex undoubtedly sells, the continual barrage of writhing, skimpily clad, skinny, attractive women posing in highly provocative positions undermines the confidence and self esteem of “normal’ women. It may well be too late for anyone to now make a stand against the subversive messages we are continued to be spoon fed by the advertising industry. Boundaries will forevermore be tested but how far will be too far? Until advertising serves some other purpose than to sell an idea then C’est la vie – such is life.

#body #women #sexsells #confidences #selfesteem