Objectification of Women Through Advertisements Essay

The protrudes of advertisements reflect the social and cultural aspects of a society. These images define the values and establish attitudes of the people in a society towards the imagery projected in the advertisements. One of the highly utilise imagery in the advertisement across al most(prenominal) all the cultures is that of women. By apply this imagery in the advertisements, one of the critical attitudes established among the audience is that of women are objects. There are advertisements where women are accustomd as a subjective image but mostly women are displayed as a commodity or an object.Objectification relates to the imagery of an entity which is a person but is seen or displayed as an object. Women have been used as objects to be desired by advertisers for years now to increase the sales of the products and this strategy has worked wonders for producers for example magazines like Playboy and Hustler would non snitch at all if it is not for the sexual display of wom en. It is argued that since the women who take part in such advertisements give their consent towards the kind of image the advertisements project.However, objectification of women is not besides the concern of the models involved in the advertisement but the whole population that views that advertisement because it affects the value system and culture of the masses. For example, the Excessive use of blonde women in the advertisements during 70s and 80s projected to the masses that blonde women are more attractive and desirable to men. However, when surveyed, 70% of women thought that blonde women are more desirable to men and tho 35% men actually expressed their preference for blonde women.This way advertisement has used women as objects to establish false beliefs of peach, independence, and power. Sigmund Freud, one of the greatest psychiatrists, excessively developed a theory which could be well related to the objectification of women in advertisements as a source of desire. His theory of the unconscious mind states that it constitutes of the largest part of a persons mind and contains desires and memories which are not readily available to the conscious mind of a person.However, there exist different stimuli which may, if exposed to a person, bring these unconscious desires and memories to the conscious mind. Therefore it could be argued that since sex is seen as the most basic element of our social take aways, it is often suppressed in our unconscious mind and the objectification of women in advertisements bring these desires to our conscious mind. In the light of the theory of unconscious mind, it could be proposed that the exposure of women in most of the advertisements today only acts as a stimulus to invoke the hidden desires of the audience till it becomes a need.And once it becomes a need people look for ways to fulfill this physical need disregarding the subjective elements involved in the process. The idea of women empowerment had taken a g reat flight since post WWII with the help of the media. When most men were fighting during the WWII, women had to take up the roles of men back at home. After the war ended and the men returned, women had to go back and adapt to their roles as housewives and m new(prenominal)s. This was the time when the media hit them and promoted the message of women empowerment with the use of women in their advertisements.The magazines communicated to the women that they had the potential and capability to build careers, acquire achievements and shift their role from that of housekeepers. From that time onwards, media has played a massive role in promoting the concept of power and empowerment for women by displaying women more often in their advertisements and with slogans like Just do it, the idea of obstinacy, and take control. The use of women in advertisements has not only made women powerful in the eyes of the male population but in any case disposed(p) a boast to the self esteem of wome n and has made them more authoritative than ever before.More so, the use of womens body in advertisements and movies has established the detection in the minds of the population that women may use their bodies to get things done and achieve success. Through advertisements using women, the society has also created a wrong perception that beauty is a prerequisite to the independence and success of women and also that it is through the beauty and consumption of certain products that women can excel in their careers and lives. The highly explicit use of women in the advertisements has also direct to meetry between different brands of a product.The rivals try to get the most popular celebrities and models for their advertisement and expose them more than their rival to gain more attraction from the target market and therefore increase the sales. It is seen these days that many companies hire brand ambassadors for the sole purpose of attracting the market and understand people associa te the product with the sexual desire created by the presence of the brand ambassadors no doubt it increases the consumption. For example, the famous perfume Chanel has hired various leave celebrities as there spokes-model like Nicole Kidman and Keira Knightley.In fact the perfume was initially brought to fame by Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s. The display of zero-size models with slender frames and nicely tuned body parts has led to an increased dissatisfaction of body image among the women. The dissatisfaction is measured by difference between a persons body image, which is a persons perception of his/her body, and the ideal body type displayed in the form of models in advertisements. Although, this dissatisfaction has always existed amongst the women, it has grown rapidly since last 25 years.This is because the media has increased its standard of what is a normal body size. For most of the women this ideal body size portrayed by the media is the gateway to happiness. It is through these advertisements in the media that women have established in their minds that they need to achieve that ideal body size, shape and weight in order to find a good spouse, a great career, and be acceptable to family, friends and public. The models with abruptly shaped bodies are depicted as glamorous, rich and powerful in the advertisements and therefore a perfect body is seen as the passport to happiness.However, women do not know that only 5 % of all the women have the potential and body-type to achieve the ideals displayed by the models in the advertisements. Conclusion Today, the objectification of women has reached great heights almost e genuinely other advertisement is using this concept to promote a product. What needs to be realized is this behavior has not only degraded the status of women but has also hurt the moral values of the global society. It has also given false hopes to millions of people and has distorted the image or reality for many.And the consequences are a lso very apparent in the form of the kind of treatment women get from men and the number of women suffering from anorexia for example. All the aspects discussed on the objectification of women call for strong system which could find the activities of the advertisers to more ethically sound principles.References1. Onyejekwe, C. J. (2005). Advertising and Exploitation of Female Sexuality. Retrieved from http//www. quietmountainessays. org/Onyejekwe. html 2. Body Image. (2009). Body Image. Retrieved from http//www. snac. ucla. edu/pages/Body_Image/Body_Image. htm 3. Media Advertising. (2010). Women in the Media. Retrieved from http//www. 123helpme. com/view. asp? id=18401 4. Lukes, S. A. (n. d). The Gender Ads Project. Retrieved from http//www. ltcconline. net/lukas/gender/pages/power. htm 5. Gladen, N. R. (2008). Media Objectification of Women. Retrieved from http//medialiteracy. suite101. com/article. cfm/media_objectification_of_women 6. Boeree,C. G. (2009). temperament Theories. Retrieved From http//webspace. ship. edu/cgboer/freud. html