PSY of Women-4620-01
Activity 2
8 March 2013
Did you know the average American views 3000 advertisements per day? That ends put being 3 years of watching nothing but television commercials. (Killing Us Softly 3) Advertisements are found everywhere, on the internet, the radio, television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and even bumper stickers. Everyone sees/hears the advertisements and they are affected by them. Advertisements are meant to sell a product but they end up doing more than that. They end up selling values, images, concepts about love, sex, but most importantly what it is to be normal. Advertisements tell women what it means to be beautiful and where “their place” is. Advertisements typically show a hyper sexualized woman with very little clothes on and they are focused on a particular part of the body. Women are projected as being passive and inactive and men are projected as being power full and aggressive. This is the same for boys and girls too. Boys are shown active or aggressive and girls are shown as passive and innocent. As boys and girls get older, these girls are becoming sexualized in advertisements while boys are still shown as active and aggressive. Now men are subjected to being sexualized and are undergoing some scrutiny that women have been under for years now but advertisements still show men being dominate over women.
This affects our youth, our selves, moreover our society. By showing images of a man grabbing ahold of a woman’s face aggressively is teaching our society it is okay to put your hands on a woman. By showing a young girls face and the text, “Love’s Baby Soft Because innocence is sexier than you think” is appalling and teaching men and women to look at our youth and view them as sexy when no child should be thought of that way nor should they think it is okay to be thought of that way. For advertisement to show women lying on the ground while touching the man’s feet as he stands over her, is showing society women are beneath men. Images of naked men and women that are skinny/muscular and flawless are giving men and women an unrealistic view of what beauty is. Eating disorders and other body disorders are extremely common among adolescents and adults. This has clearly already damaged our society.
Advertising is the foundation of the mass media, advertising is everywhere we turn and it seems to be getting much worse. Advertisements are meant to sell a product so why do we not put the product on the advertisement instead of the sexualized and demoralized images of men, women, boys, and girls? I do not have an answer but am hoping one day there will be a change and our society does not have to be subjected to this type of advertisement.
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