Advertisements

When flipping through a magazine or newspaper, or even driving down the street, people can learn a lot about societies views on gender are. An overwhelming amount of advertisements objectify women and exhibit male dominance. Although the media and advertising industry attempt to show society how men and women should be have some aren’t affected by it. Within these three specific advertisements there are several differ degrading issues that are references to women.

Over the years, women have been so consumed into what they look like. Being “skinny” is some people’s definition of beauty. Advertising agencies generally use young, white, skinny, and attractive girls to promote a product. By them doing this it makes it seem in order for you to be beautiful you must be skinny; however, very few women are this size. Over the past few years, plastic surgery increased, and eating disorders became more of a problem. In this particular advertisement, Ralph Lauren uses a very thin model to show the message of “skinny is beautiful.” The comparison of the two photos shown is very extreme. Although some women will look at this and strive to be this size, other women will be somewhat disgusted by how extremely thin she is. Focusing on the female physical appearance is what causes the amount of women with eating disorders to increase. Nearly one-tenth of young American women and one-fifth of female American students are on some form of a diet because they are trying to mimic the “beauty” image that advertisers are presenting to society.

Men are often seemed to be more dominant over women, and some advertisements portray to people the roles that gender play in society. It is rare that a woman is the dominating figure over the male in advertisements. In this specific advertisement, the male is positioned in front of the female and she is behind him. Also, it speaks on how women are supposed to be the “household providers” (such as the cook, cleaner, etc.).

While the previous advertisements bring into effect the myths of beauty and normative gender, this specific advertisement works against them. This advertisement shows that not everyone is so consumed in the “ideal” image of beauty. Also it shows that everyone is not extremely thin. The description on the side gives the advantages of having a big butt and how proud this individual is because of it. I would include this in my own advertisement to get the attention of a different audience and to show that it is ok to have curves and be confident with your body.