Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt Jean Kilbourne Summary

Jean Kilbourne’s essay Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt is a powerful piece of work that brings the problems of the sexualization and objectification of women and children in advertising out in the open. Kilbourne states that this pornographic advertising is promoting male dominance over women, and in return promoting male violence against women. Domestic abuse and violence against women have always been a problem, but the media may be making it worse. Her audience is middle-aged and younger women who are most likely to experience male violence. She does try to include a little for a male audience, but her main focus is on strong and independent women who will understand her point about the use of degrading pornography in ads.

Kilbourne’s support for her argument relies on the Appeal to Authority she makes, citing specific ads of big time companies and businesses to demonstrate how these ads are encouraging sexual aggression and violence. She alleges that ads affect us on an unconscious level stating we’ve become immune to the fact that these ads affect us (417). At the same time, she declares ads are pornographic, since they encourage rape and sexual assault. Kilbourne maintains that all women are vulnerable because “in our culture there is widespread objectification of women’s bodies, glorification of disconnection, violence of women, and blaming of the victim” (433). It all refers back to Kilbourne’s main claim that ads depict individuals as things which encourages sexual hostility.

Claudia Bobadilla English 101S Professor Manukyan November,4 2014 Essay #2 Battle of the Sexes As it mainly is, women are known to be loving and caring while men are known to be the strong and dominant ones. These roles are seen everywhere, whether it is on television shows, music, or advertisements, there is a clear expectation from society although it has a twist to it. Women and men’s characteristics are put into a different perspectives and seeing this from that point view, we tend to copy what we see, but keeping in mind that not all us do that. We then see this as a harmless act because it can be put so easily into the media.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

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.

Lips, Neck, Breasts – all logical body parts to be shown in advertisements for cologne, right? Sadly, in today’s society, the answer is yes. We are bombarded on a daily basis with thousands of advertisements. They are impossible to avoid and even more impossible to ignore. Whether consciously or unconsciously what we see in these advertisements affects us as a culture. In many of these advertisements women’s bodies are dehumanized. In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt,” she argues, “ads affect us in far more profound and potentially damaging ways. The way that ads portray bodies – especially women’s bodies – as objects conditions us to seeing each other in dehumanizing ways, thus “normalizing” attitudes that can lead

It is 2017 and media users and viewers continue to see women being used to sell nearly any product. The women used in these advertisements are more often than not beautiful, picture perfect women. Media consumers are building angst as they wait for more realistic advertisements of women. The use of these women brings success to companies, but more notably they bring self-esteem issues, eating disorders, and other serious issues to the women who are consuming this media.

In Jean Kilbourne’s essay, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, she paints a picture of repression, abuse, and objectification of women. Kilbourne gives an eye-opening view to the way American advertisers portray women and girls. Throughout the essay she has images that depict women in compromising poses. These images are examples of how often we see women in dehumanizing positions in advertisements and how desensitized we have become. Kilbourne implores us to take the media more seriously. She is putting a microscope on society and showing that the objectification of women is acceptable.

Sex has been used in selling products for decades. It turns out that it was the key of success for advertisers. Pictures of attractive and charming women have appeared on advertisements for products such as food, alcohol, cigarettes, and many other products. It's no secret that sex sells especially for men; however sex leads to a "glorification of rape and violence" (595) in the mass media that convey an implicit concept of men overpowering on women. In fact, the typical image of "men conquer and women ensnare"(594) is glorified in every advertisement, which leads to the normalization and the acceptance of violence among people.

Humans are undeniably trained and wired to judge others based on race, gender, and appearance. Unfortunately, women are stuck in all categories of judgments. Jean Kilbourne, an award-winning producer on documentaries about images of women in ads, explains that when media and advertisements exploit femininity for personal gain, women are at risk for much harm because it promotes objectification, which eventually will led to violence. An African American feminist, Joan Morgan, expresses her further disturbance about the constant sexism in rap lyrics that endorses violence and anger towards women. “’Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence,” by Jean Kilbourne and “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos,” by Joan Morgan reveals

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

The objectification of the female body is constant through every form of media within our culture. Societal and cultural ideals place pressure on women of all age groups on what their ideal body should be and much of this is done through the advertising industry which is dictated by males. Advertisements, are a announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event. Through advertising we have depicted an ideal culture, with values, moral, and beliefs. Our western culture has evolved along with use of advertisement, the use of new advertising mediums, mass consumption of advertisements and the depiction of gender, in particular representation of women. On average Americans encounter 3,000 advertisements a day, and at the center

Not only advertisers use sexual images, but also language that puts women down. For example, The Virginia Slim slogan, “You’re Come a Long Way, Baby,” was critiqued for infantilizing woman (Frith and Muller). Additionally, woman’s body parts, which have been exposed in advertisements, have also been criticized as portraying woman in violence. These sexual terms being used in advertisements allow men to think women are okay with this kind of behavior. Boorish it can lead to rape crimes, but additionally sexual abuses and domestic violence in

It has always been noticed, since the beginning of advertisements, that women have often been objectified and in some upsetting cases put down, insulted, or degraded. Over the years the advertisements better but we still see some major flaws in the way the media portrays women. We see advertisements with semi-naked women which sexually objectifies them. We perceive the idea of the “perfect women” which does not exist but gives women the mindset that they are not good enough if they do not look like the photoshopped women in the advertisement. Also, females in the media are often shown as being weaker than males which again, can cause some insecurity issues in a women. Finally, advertisements use

Advertisements are considered as an art to try to persuade people that certain products can make their lives better. Advertisements have been around in the United States since 1841. Advertisements influence society on what to buy. Advertisements lures society into buy their products. The basic role of advertisements is to provide people with basic information about a product. Companies hire celebrities to be in the advertisement in order to get more consumers to appeal to the advertisement. In Jean Kilbourne’s article, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” she discusses ways how advertisements sexualize women and make them act a certain way to appeal audience to buy a certain item. Advertisements