The Backwards Depiction of Women in Advertising

Written by Stephanie J. Gilley 

          The prolific use of sexualized women in advertising is of deep concern for modern society. As we have learned since evolving significantly from our original state of bacteria, and as most of the world has openly acknowledged, women have much to offer beyond sexuality. Sadly our society uses the images of women sometimes subtly, other times in an over the top exploitive way to sell everything from T-shirts to TV programs.  

          The manner in which this is carried out usually involves the combination of several characteristics. The youthful expression of innocence, perverted as dizzy or vacant wide-eyed expressions combined with a visual display of the body often accentuated by computer enhancements. The resulting caricature is reminiscent to the offensive images used by propagandists against ethnic groups in the past. Groups were vilified for political and social reasons that society has since realized as absolutely unacceptable. Examples are unsavory depictions of Jews, Blacks, Irish immigrants and Arabs. The sexualized caricatures of women used in advertising, encourage marginalization of the female gender and promotes the idea of dependency on male approval for a woman to survive in our society.  Is this offensive advertising worth it just so corporations can make a quick and easy buck?

          It may be hard for some to understand the leap from ethnic group to gender. This may be because of several reasons. There are some men from almost every culture and ethnic group who are OK with the exploitation of women because it has been the norm for so long now. It’s accepted and expected almost everywhere. Women will sometimes object to being protected from exploitation because they have been conditioned by our American popular culture to seek approval from men. This approval is not merely a pat on the back.  Many women are unfortunately dependent upon the approval of misogynistic men in order to maintain a decent standard of living.  For instance a woman might be expected to agree, parrot back and participate in upholding this caricature or risk possible unemployment. If the man is her husband and she doesn’t comply, a woman could face the financial hardship of living life in America as a single mother. So when we allow the depiction of women as dizzy sexpots to become main-stream it reverberates through our society and into family groups. As these images permeate our culture it creates an unacceptable amount of collateral damage. It weakens us all when we allow the bashing, exploitation, or degradation of any group.

          The origin of these psychological ramifications, from widespread advertising that exploits the image of women to generate sales, is not complex. In America having high sales, making money, creating a business is seen as a great accomplishment and using sex to sell something, to obtain that goal is almost expected. Marketing using these images is just what American businesses do. Our women and girls feel the impact and the rest of the world has noticed, albeit disapprovingly, our blatant disregard of the problem.

          Is it because women are not seen as an ethnic group? Throughout history women have had to curry the favor of men; often regarding other women as a threat. This has much to do with our forced dependency on men.  We have been seen through their eyes as an accessory, for a large part of recent history. Like it or not women had been conditioned to seek the approval of men, and we are still playing that role to surprising and disappointing degree.

          What harm is done if a particular type of woman is used as a sexpot to sell T-shirts? Some say it shouldn’t insult all women. We have had competition for “a man” as part of our existence for so long some do not realize it is a big problem. We continue to be manipulated against our own best interests of real independence, equal treatment as people with human dignity. Women need to come together and improve the state of the world by insisting on an outward level of respect for all females. We are not merely an accessory for men. We have much more innate worth than to allow the sexualization of female images to be openly exploited for profit. As liberated as we like to think we are, these images are still here to the delight of capitalist profiteers. For too long now women have had to try to learn to just ignore them.  The use of these false caricatures is as offensive as the now socially unacceptable propaganda images of ethnic groups. And instead of hurting one group disproportionately these caricatures harm all of humanity. It is self-destructive on every level for the human race to allow exploiters to continue to demean the image of woman.

          It is important to look at this phenomenon critically and understand the true state of inequality facing women. Difficult as this may be it must be done. We need to look at the reality of it and disregard the backward attitude of those who benefit from the status quo.