A Woman Can Get Hurt : Advertising And Violence, By Jean Kilbourne

Michael Kimmel and Jean Kilbourne both set out to show how culture and cultural myths shape the roles that women and men play in personal relationships. Michael Kimmel is the author of “Bros Before Hos: The Guy Code” which was written in 2008. Kimmel gives an analysis on the code of masculinity that guys are expected to follow. He does this by providing examples of the rites and values that are given to young men that are passed down through generations. Jean Kilbourne is the author of “Two Ways A Women Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” which was written in 1999. Kilbourne argues that ads affect individuals in profound and damaging ways. Kimmel’s analysis of American masculinity shows that boys from an early age are told to control their emotions, do not submit to weakness, and that to become a man they must suppress all the feelings that are associated with the maternal. Kilbourne gives examples of how certain ads shows violence and dehumanization of women which can lead to sexual aggression.

This is the thesis set out by "Miss Representation", a documentary directed and produced by actress, activist and documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The documentary gives a good perspective on why the representation of women in the media is so important in our society. The message the film gets across to viewers is that the way women are often portrayed is damaging- to media consumers of all genders and ages. The way the media treats women is the cause of soaring numbers of women who develop eating disorders, the sexualisation of, and violence against women.

In “Two Ways a Woman Can get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” the author Jean Kilbourne describes how advertising and violence is a big problem for women. Although her piece is a little scrambled, she tries to organize it with different types of advertisement. Women are seen as sex objects when it comes to advertising name brand products. Corporate representatives justify selling and marketing for a product by how a woman looks. Kilbourne explains how the media is a big influence on how men perceive women. Kilbourne tries to prove her point by bashing on advertising agencies and their motives to successfully sell a product. Kilbourne’s affirmation towards advertisements leaves you no doubt that she is against them.

The objectifications of a woman have been known to be centered around the actions of a man. Cat-calling, slut shaming, and men being in a superior position while women are inferior or counted as their ‘objects’ are all parts of the dehumanizing nature of objectification. This indicates that women are centered around their appearance and feminine demeanor, and nothing else needs to be accounted for. However, there are other influences that have contributed to the vicious cycle society has on degrading women. Women objectify other women over similar matters as men, but not similar relevance in sociocultural context. Another contributor to women objectification is women’s self-objectification, in which they internally reflect on their appearance and demeanor to seek the approval of the observer. The last and most dominant factor that has been deemed the main culprit of turning women into objects is the culture of advertisement. Advertising has sexually objectified women for years, and is the backbone of the degradation of women in the real world. It also depicts unrealistic images of the female body and attitude that no female human being can actually live up to. The media has introduced the actions of sexual discrimination and harassment, and has influenced the ideas of how women should be treated. The combination of these three components are continuing the cycle of the objectification of women.

“The emotional, sexual and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It’s a girl.” Shirley Chisholm. Despite the statistics, being half the world’s population are in actual fact women. Nowadays in society woman are faced with many challenges, some being discrimination, margination and gender inequality. Though regardless of many attempts to eliminate these problems there are still many social media, advertisement and more indicating that woman are still extremely marginalised in today’s civilisation. Woman are still being marginalised in society through crude or sexist advertisements in the media; this needs to be readressed and changed. I will identify how woman are marginalised in current society through various advertisements where woman have been illustrated as sexual objects, sexist annotations and much more.

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

Sexualization of females has always been a problem. Many of the commercials from the 60’s to the 2000’s depict women as nothing more than sexual beings to sell a product. We often see commercials that deal nothing with the topic of sex use it as a means of a way to sell products. In my presentation I used two videos one with Paris HIlton and the other with Scarlett Johannson. They each are advertising two well known companies one fast food restaurant and the other a well known appliance. In my essay I will explain how sexuality in media affects adolescents, the percentage between men and women being sexualized and the affect it has on young girls.

Many people insist that a function of mass media is to entertain the audience; it does not play a significant role in shaping an individual’s attitude towards women and gender stereotypes. The primary purpose of using the sexualized images of women is just to attract the audience’s attention because they are visually pleasure. Media consumers do not really imply those pictures to something else. Other people might assert that the media does shape individual's perspectives and promote the negative gender stereotypes. Even so, those stereotypes embed by the media would only psychologically harm females in reality. The threats would not induce any form of physical violence against women. The illustrations of women do not have enough power to control over the human morality and

The objectification of women is one of the deepest rooted issues of the world. Mass media is the most powerful force of social influence in the world. "The average American sees or hears more than 1,500 advertisements a day," (CWID, 1997). Mass media and advertising affects the way everyone thinks. The problem with this is that the majority of media we view reinforces traditional gender roles and perpetuates the sexualization, commodification, and objectification of women. Consequently, this leads to the public's familiarization with the female body as a source of visual pleasure, which perpetuates the belief that "sex sells" (Brennan, 2014). Not only do sexist forms of mass media affect the way men see women, they affect the way women see themselves. "A seventh grade student attending one of MEDA's classes wrote: 'You want us to buy

Whether you’re in line at the supermarket or on the street and a bus passes you, you experience and view media that targets women. Magazines and advertisements use the image of a women’s body to sell the products of interest, the saying “sex sells” is taken to new heights in today’s society. “In Western culture, the advertising industry has found great success in using the sexual exposure and objectification of women as a vehicle for selling consumer products.” (Vance, 2015). The sexualisation and objectification of women and men impact negatively on society in terms of setting up young boys and girls for failure by not measuring up to the beauty and masculinity portrayed in the media.

Even if we claim to pay no attention to advertisements, they are shaping the world in which we live. Ads are impacting upon society and issues are arising because of this. The Women’s Movement has progressed since the 1900’s but ads such as these make it seem like nothing has changed. Dr. Caroline Heldman has noted through her studies that objectification creates a climate where there is widespread violence against women and that this violence is acceptable. More and more women are being affected by this objectification through violence and rape. When a person is demoted to an object, they lose all sense of being. They are stripped of their rights. They are dehumanized by others and by themselves. Today, women learn at a young age that their sexuality is for others. They begin to view themselves as objects of

To young college aged women: The stereotypical portrayal of women in media is a problem that needs to be understood and solved. This problem is often overlooked because it is encompassing a lot to deal with. Women are used as sexual objects in the media everywhere, and we need to understand how to deal with the issue. A large source of media that is used are advertisements, which are everywhere in our daily lives. These advertisements can make women feel degraded and objectified. Young women see media of models portraying these “beautiful” standards that are unrealistic and lead to eating disorders and negative implications. Girls grow up seeing media all over and learning the stereotypical roles of women which are considered the norm. No father wants to see his little girl grow up feeling like she has to conform to the roles of women. In the article, “Two Ways a Woman can get Hurt,” Jean Kilbourne states, “sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women… (420)” Jean Kilbourne compares advertisements to pornography which makes us realize it’s a large problem going on that needs to be solved. In the media women are also shown as typical house moms who clean, cook and stay home. This is a stereotype of women that has been around for a long time but is not true in all cases. There are some women who are stay-at-home mothers but there are also many who are in the working force. As college aged women, we can feel the pressure

For nearly thirty years, popular culture has been an ever transforming mosaic of human flesh, or more specifically female flesh. While it has been known for decades that ”sex sells”, this statement has taken on bizarre, and at times offensive aspects. It seems that the more modern we become, the more sexually explicit and objectifying media content becomes. This fact remains true across multitudes of media formats; today everything from vacuum cleaners to toothpaste is madly exciting by sex appeal. Ask any senior citizen about the content of television in past generations and you will likely hear them describe modern programs as inappropriate, even vulgar. Perhaps the perversion of sexuality and the objectification of women in the media

As we are developing language skills since infants, media has played a huge role in how we view and learn things. As media gives us a better picture of reality. But is it the reality? Or is what society wants us to learn? Since infants we have seen commercials, ads, and shows of how women and men are supposed to act, dress, and like. Let’s look at a study that recognizes television as the messenger of cultural norms that ultimately embeds in a culture of violence towards women Kahlor, & Eastin, 2011). This study helps identify how one mean of media can play in social construction. For instance, the television is a source of media that is used to support social construction of gender by relating significantly to first- and second-order rape myth beliefs among men and women. For instance, Kahlor and Eastin (2011) indicate that television adapts airs many overestimations of false rape accusations indicating labeling women as liars because beauty is all they possess. Also, Kahlor and Eastin (2011) indicate how television portraits a negative relationship between crime-show viewing and rape myth acceptance. Television has become one of the prime means of media that can serve as a significant predictor of rape beliefs. This social constructs that men should see women differently. As men should always hold the women and women as complainers. Television is one way that media plays a role in how the social construction of gender come into play today in today’s gender

In our society, gender roles have always played a major role in our lives. But the objectification of women is more widespread than ever. It's popularity is fueled by the media using things such as music, music videos, movies, and TV to promote female weakness and portray women as sex symbols. This is unfavorable to society in light of the fact that the media is making social generalizations for both men and ladies that can bring about undesirable social and physical propensities. The issue is particularly common on the grounds that the more the media utilizes sexual substance in regards to ladies, the more viewers appear to become tied up with them. Consequently, the media can shape the way of life's feeling of dating, sentiment, sex, and