Women’s Role in Advertisement
Introduction
The advertisement is probably the most influential means of promoting the product and the service to the customer. The target customers are informed about the product and service of the business. Through effective and catchy advertisements, they are encouraged to consume the product or the service of the business. That is why the advertising industry has been researched by many scholars. One of the major and common research areas in the field of advertisement is the projection of female body or the objectification of women in advertisement. It is a serious issue that has been discussed by many people from time to time. The stereotype presentation of women is propagated in advertisements, which is most of the time wrong. Through advertisements, the misconceptions are spread about female physical and intellectual and social factors. Intellectually most of the time, she is portrayed as a “creature without brain” or “a dumb creature”. Her social status in advertisement is inferior. She is presented as a typical housewife, caretaker who takes care of her children and serves her husband. Very seldom, the women are shown handling executive and professional post in the advertisements. Physically women are commonly portrayed as a sex object. This is called objectification. Sexual objectification thus takes place when the woman as a human being, is separated from her body part/s and she is viewed as a physical object of male sexual desire (Szymanski, Moffitt & Car 2011). In short, female body is presented in an unethical way in advertisements. The paper aims at arguing how unethically the woman’s body is portrayed in the advertisement. The focus of the paper is majorly upon presentation of women as a sex object.
Commercials with Women Objectification: Yesterday & Today
Figure 1: journal108team16 2015
According to some experts, the sex started in advertisement in 1960s. But before that also the women were presented as sex object (see fig. 1). The women have always been the object in the last century as well. In yesteryears advertisements also, women were shown as the sex object. The women objectification continued even after the feminist movement. Let’s start with the discussion on women presentation as a sex object in 1940s. The typical trend of 1940s was to beautify the chubby or fat women. Unlike modern trend, the trend of 1940s was different. The 40s advertisements used to convey the message that the skinny women are not attractive and if the woman wants to be sexy and pretty, she must gain her weight (See fig. 1). Later on the trend changed and in modern era now, the skinny models have gained immense importance. Being skinny is supposed to be beautiful. In short, the physical appearance of the woman had been given excessive importance and her intellectual capacity is always overlooked. Cortese (1999) states, ‘through advertising, the face becomes a mask and body becomes an object.’ The capability of the women in advertisements is shown through their physical appearance. The women have to be attractive and men should call her attractive. Her only job was to allure men through her sensuous body. The above advertisement is indirectly conveying the message that if the woman succeeds in attracting men, and trigger them sexually, she really will attain her objective. In short being sexy is the ultimate objective of the woman as depicted in advertisements. Such image of women as a sex object has still been prevalent and popular in advertisements regardless of the product. Sometimes some products really do not need the presence of women. They can be shown without the objectification of women. But still sometimes, unnecessarily, woman’s body is used to promote the product.
Figure 2 Objectification Of Women 2016 Figure 2 Wasim 2016
The traditional gender roles are always propagated by the advertisements. The message given in advertisements is simple; if you are a woman, be perfect in cooking and household chores and also be a good sexual partner of your husband. Some advertisements aim at promoting sexuality through their brand. It promotes how the woman should be good in sex and what she should do to satisfy her husband. She does not need to be clever, intelligent, and rational minded, but she just needs to wear sexy attires and she should have sexy looks to attract her male partner (see fig. 2). In this advertisement, the target audience has been conveyed a message to use lingerie of a particular brand and that is all to be a beautiful woman.
Unnecessary Projection of Woman Body in Advertisements
If the advertisement aims at promoting lingerie, it is at least justified to show female body, but sometimes there are certain products that have no direct or even indirect connection about female body. Even in the advertisement of male products also, the appearance of female body is inevitable. Lynx Shower Gel is the product made for men. The advertisement could have been without the appearance of female body but the female body is portrayed in a very peculiar and somewhat vulgar manner (see fig. 2). The face of the model is missing in the advertisement. The torso part is shown in a dirty way. Her body is projected as a sex object. The gel is for men so the target customers are the men. The purpose behind targeting female body as a sex object is to attract more and more men to look the shaped body of the woman and thus buy the product. The ad seems to be less about the product and more about sex.
The companies use female body to promote even the technical and automobile products as well. Even the leading car manufacturer company BMW also cannot resist its temptation to show woman as a sex object in their advertisement. In the print advertisement of BMW the woman is shown lying on bed under her male counterpart, who is ready to have sex with her. Her face has been masked with BMW car. The message conveyed in the ad is that driving BMW is like having pleasure from woman body.
The woman body is used in any product. Even the public awareness ads also are no exception. “Save the boobies and don’t let cancer steal the second base”, it was the breast cancer campaign slogan. In fact, the breast cancer campaign is to make people aware of the breast cancer. Cancer is such a dreadful disease that the campaign should be serious and rational. But while making people aware, the objectification of human body is seen in the advertisement. The advertisements as said by Green (2014) use human bodies to sell anything from A to Z. The various parts of her body such as her eyes, lips, breast and other parts of body are used to sell jewelry, wine, clothes, soft drinks, consumer products and even automobile products such as car.
The women objectification and their Impact
When woman is presented as a sex object in advertisements, it has a long term consequences on the women and in general on the society. According to the objectification theory, many women are sexually objectified or treated as an object by men (Szymanski, Moffitt & Car 2011). Their value is no more than a thing or an object to be used for some times. The consequences of women objectification in the advertisement have many adverse effects on social, cultural, physical and behavioral level of the people as well as the women.
Physical health
A certain image of an ideal woman is formed in the advertisements that create lot of confusion among the ordinary women. As discussed above, according to the 40s trend, for being beautiful, the woman has to put on her weight, according to the modern trend spread by media, the beautiful woman should always be skinny. For fulfilling this condition of beauty, many young women and girls put themselves on rigorous diet. They even do not think that keeping themselves on fasting, they are spoiling the health of their body. The women look at themselves through the mirrors of others. They never see themselves and judge themselves from their perspectives. They tend to reject themselves on the flippant and impractical parameters of beauty. Consequently, they are likely to get victimized by many physical diseases and disorders. The sexual objectification leads to self objectification in which women sometimes leads to the physical disorders such as dizziness, lack of hunger or other physical disorders.
Social impact of Women Objectified Advertisement
The media is most influential weapon to penetrate the audience. Advertisements are one of the forms of media. Advertisement influence the people especially the small children and the young generation. The children get encountered with numerous commercials on daily basis. When they are at home, they watch TV that is occupied with hundreds of commercials. When they go out they come across various hoardings containing advertisements of various products and services. Children are very tender in their thoughts and they are likely to get influenced by the content shown in advertisements. When they see the objectified women in the advertisements, they develop the same perception about women. They are likely to develop perversity in their behavior and it can affect the girls and women around them. It is because they are likely to perceive each and every woman as a sex object. Thus indirectly and gradually the advertisements and other forms of media are spoiling the future generation by disseminating wrong message of women objectification.
In the conservative countries especially, the women tend to be in full dress. When such advertisements are seen by the people, they make them more provocative and curious about the woman body covered in the veil or cloths. They see two different forms of woman; one is shy, blushing and covered and another is the naked or half naked triggering their sexual desires. It makes them confused and sometimes this may result into rape or sexual molestation.
There are several women, who have carved their niche in various fields with dedicated work and immense intellectuality. They are enjoying top positions in assorted fields. But this image of women is never projected in advertisement. Hence the common man tends to perceive that woman doesn’t deserve to be on top position or to make bright career. She can only be the object to fulfill the sexual desire of man.
Psychological Impact of Women Objectification
The virtually depicted ideal image of female body is very hard to obtain in real life. The female body is shown in an exaggerated manner. The women especially girls and young women are likely to be victimized by the false perceptions of feminine beauty. The women objectification leads to self-objectification. If the body does not fulfill the established parameters they start feeling ashamed of their body. This leads to disorder in eating in college girls especially. It moreover, increases the risk of many psychological problems that include eating disorders, bipolar depression and sexual dysfunction (Cortese 1999). A feeling of being rejected can develop among the women, who do not think themselves sexually attractive.
Conclusion
Presenting female body as a sex object is not a recent phenomenon in media and advertising. It has been there since the emergence of print commercials. From 1940s to till date, the women objectification has been going on. The female presentation in advertisement and media is very linear. For advertisements, a woman is no more than a housewife, caretaker and sex object. The media is not still ready to show the dynamic side of the women. The women are not yet portrayed as the major contributor in the development of society and nation. The image shown in the advertisement is definitely very wrong and it has a great impact on women’s physical and mental health. By objectifying women, advertising industry is shaping the future generation with so many wrong conceptions. The advertisements and other forms of media, on priority basis should stop humiliating women and they should project the half of the population of the world in a respectful manner; then only the real ideal society which we are dreaming, will be formed in real sense.
References
Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul. 1999. Provocateur. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Green, Laci. 2014. "Sex Object BS". Everyday Feminism. http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/02/sex-object-bs/.
journal108team16,. 2015. 1940S – Women & Body Image In Advertising By. You Song Kim. Image. https://journal108team16.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/1940s-women-body-image-in-advertising-by-you-song-kim/.
Objectification Of Women. 2016. Image. Accessed March 14. https://www.pinterest.com/aarriaga6549/objectification-of-women/.
Szymanski, D. M., L. B. Moffitt, and E. R. Carr. 2011. "Sexual Objectification Of Women: Advances To Theory And Research 1 7". The Counseling Psychologist 39 (1): 6-38. doi:10.1177/0011000010378402.
Wasim,. 2016. Lynx Shower Gel Get Dirty. Image. http://www.ad-review.co.uk/view/image/item/lynx_shower_gel_get_/1291.
