Women in Advertising
Women in advertising is a vast and broad topic. This web page
concentrates mainly on the effects of advertising on women as well as the
representation of women in advertising throughout the course of history.
One
night in a club I was wearing my wonderbra and was getting quite a lot of
attention even to the point of two men came over to tell me what a wonderful
chest I had!! But the funniest thing happened, a chap was walking across the
room but staring so hard at my chest that he suddenly fell down the stairs much
to the amusement of myself and all my friends, but my Wonderbra certainly
attracted a lot of attention that evening!!! -- B J (2001-11-28)
History of Women in Television Advertisements
There are many different stereotypes of
women in advertising. Throughout history there have been many studies that
proved women were mainly portrayed on television advertisements as housewives or
occupations that are subservient to men. Studies also show the disproportional
ratio of women to men in TV advertisements. In the 70’s, it was reported that
women were found on camera only 21 % of the time. Allan and Coltrane conducted a
study that showed inversely, in the 80’s female appearance on TV advertisement
were 5.8% less compared to the 50’s! (Pierce, 1999) In 1996, the Kaiser Family
Foundation and Children Now calculated that women were on camera 42 percent of
the time. Though this was an increase percentage wise from previous decades,
gender inequalities still are rampant. This fact is proved a study conducted by
Professors Daniel J. Bretl and Joanne Cantor of the University of Wisconsin
(1995) which found that 90% of voice-overs used in advertisements were male,
despite some of the products were aimed predominantly to females.
(http://www.childnow.org)
Effects of Advertising on Women
Advertising has many effects on society as
a whole. As a result of not being in as many commercials, at very young ages
boys and girls conclude that girls are valued less than boys. The commercials
that females are mostly in are ones that portray them as them and thin and
beautiful while some how also being subservient to men. The negative effects of
advertising on women fall into a huge range of problems. The most common would
effect be the constant increase of women’s struggles with dieting and eating
disorders. As, Wilson and Blackhurst point out, “…fifty-six percent of all women
are on diets (Pipher, 1995) …and eighty percent of girls have dieted by the time
they reach eighteen (Brown, 1993).” Unfortunately as girls were raised, they
were always taught to be submissive and dainty. It almost seemed like they are
told their opinions don’t matter and that they should just sit there look pretty
or be fragile like glass dolls. Many ads use this to their advantage. They make
girls think that the only thing they should do is work on their appearance,
because their opinions don’t matter. This results in several girls falling into
depression or developing eating disorders. The inner struggles of keeping the
pain in cause some girls to want to commit suicide before wanting to be fat.
(Kilborne, 1999 p.132)
How Can We
Try to Put an End to the Negative Effects of Advertising on Women?
There are a billion
hypotheses on why advertising is so effective on women. The important question
is, what does one do to stop and try to prevent future generations from falling
into the struggles women past and present had to face? Start awareness groups -
that explain to pre-adolescent teens not to be manipulated by advertisers.
~ To ban pro-anorexia and pro-bulmia sites – many
of these teach young girls to practice eating disorder. A campaign perhaps to
banning such sites would be beneficial.
~ To place advertisements that
have positive effects - ones that get the message across to girls that they
should accept themselves the way they are.
~ As Kate Pierce points out
“Equal pay and equal portrayals in the media will not by themselves change the
status of women in America, but they can be catalyst for further change.” Though
it is human nature to care about one’s appearance, it should not be women nature
to scrutinize to the point of self-destruction.
The importance of the
youth obtaining this knowledge is crucial. Advertiser’s play out sex roles in
even children’s programming “The result is a continuum of limiting messages that
often tell girls and boys alike that female appearance is central, that boys can
do and achieve things girls can¹t, and that boys have more value than girls.”
(http://www.childrennow.org/media/medianow/mnfall1997.html)
The first step toward revolution is awareness, to educate the future
generations. It is not really possible for the present to make a substantial
change. People are set in their ways and practices they individual beliefs. The
fact is that there have been plenty of women in America that strive and have
overcome many obstacles but are not recognized at the same stature as men.
Hopefully, the future generations will learn and realize that every man and
woman is created equal, despite centuries of contradiction.
Women in Advertising
Media
& Eating disorders
Images of Women
in Advertising
Teen Girl Support
Bibliography
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