Women in Advertisements

It was not hard at all for me to find two advertisements that were exactly like the ones we discussed in class today. It wasn’t even necessary to scroll from page to page because I could have literally picked the first two and all I typed in the search engine was “women in advertisements.” However, it was interesting to me to see all the different types of pictures so, I looked through them until I found two that really made the ideas of dominance, sex and gender norms stand out most to me.

The first ad that stood out to me was an advertisement about voting. The first most obvious way that this add is degrading to women is the connection of the word choice on the advertisement “Voting is sexy” with the picture of toned, women’s legs in black, stiletto pumps. Clearly, the ad is using sex appeal to attract people to the idea of voting. They are demeaning a thing as important as voting by showing a stereotype of women who may choose to vote. This ad may invoke thoughts among women such as “If I don’t look like that, should I not vote?” Thoughts like these were demonstrated throughout all four readings; what we constantly see as beautiful is how we begin to actually think. Also, like we discussed in class, as if it’s not bad enough that they are making women into objects, it’s even worse that they are focusing on one part of that object which is exactly what they do in this ad; they focus in on the legs of a woman. Lastly, if we consider woman and voting in the past, we remember how long and hard feminists had to fight in order to earn women the right to vote. It is almost a slap in the face that they are now using the sexiness of women to draw appeal to voting when in the history, women were not even allowed near a voting poll.

In my second advertisement for Dolce and Gabbana, a woman is laid on her back and surrounded by three men. A fourth man is on top of her and is holding her down by her wrists as her legs are straddled around him. All of the men are above the woman; the three men standing up are literally looking down on her and she is lying on the ground making eye contact with none of the men. The background consists of a blue sky with clouds; it is a subtle way of sayi

ng “it’s a beautiful day and everything is okay.” This ad is supposed to be promoting a top of the line designer but instead all I can see is male dominance over a female and the idea of sex is being promoted more than the designer. The feeling that the ad gave off to me was very uncomfortable, not just because of this one ad, but because it made me realize how many ads are like this. Every time I flip through a magazine and ignore the messages that these ads are creating, the more I am conforming to these inaccurate views of our society.

This advertisement was very refreshing to see after looking through the pages and pages of degrading ads prior to this. It did not come easily to me, however. This ad took much more time because as I looked at all the ads that google pulled up, I realized that most ads are like the previous ones. This ad is for Microsoft Office and it has a normal looking mother pictured. It says that she is a “mother on a mission.” This ad portrays this woman as a successful, confident and goal driven woman who won’t stop until she has the tools she needs to complete whatever her mission may be. It does not give any insinuations as to what her “mission” is. It gives no indications that her “mission” has anything to do with being a female. If I made an advertisement, I would simply advertise what the product was and what it is going to do. That is all an ad should be anyway, something that is equally useful and directed at all people, no matter what their race or gender.