The Role Of Women In Advertising

Mass media plays a very significant part in our society and lives, it provides entertainment to a vast audience and broadcasts information at a fast pace. Everyday we see about 2000 advertisements. These vary from the commercials we see on billboards to the ones we hear on the radio. These commercials convey a certain type of message to the targeted audience and can manipulate people’s attitudes and opinions. As these advertisements play a huge role in our daily lives, we would expect them to be very close to reality but unfortunately these advertisements are very far from reality. More than half of the world’s population comprises women, this contributes to fact that advertising industry includes a lot of women. Furthermore the women these

Commercials which aim to sell beauty products display a women with the perfect flawless face without pores and a perfectly shaped bodies without any fat. These commercials change beauty standards, deep down the women feels that to be desirable she has to have a size zero accompanied by a flawless face. A research has proven that in reality only 5% women can actually look like women which the media portrays in advert whereas 70% of the women are pressured into looking like the women they media depicts. The co founder of the Body Confidence Campaign, Jean Swinson says “ Pictures of flawless skin and super slim bodies are all around, but they don’t reflect reality”. Women certainly can not fit the ideal of the advertising industry as the women depicted in the adverts have been edited and retouched. These deceptive images create a lack of confidence for women they believe they have to fit into the perfect image these adverts create which is physically impossible. These advertisers claim to make these women look better by using these products but in reality they are making them feel even worse. The L’oreal statement “You’re worth it” is an appeal to your emotions. Which makes one believe that you should and definitely can be much better than what you are. In reality this a very unrealistic and imaginative view of beauty in which the

These adverts have women who are scantily claud to gain physical attention from men. These adverts aim towards appealing to the emotions and desires of women. The advertisers make women believe that if they buy their products their desires will come true. What all women desire in advertising is men appreciating them and following them. This technique is useful and offensive at the same time. These adverts create an image of women wearing lingerie and depict them as mindless creatures trying to impress men. In the Victoria’s Secret commercials women are portrayed as merely sexual objects. In the real world women do not go around wearing lingerie and pleasing men. Furthermore they have changed the image of feminine beauty over time. Currently as a result of these stereotypical commercials a slender physique is considered ideal whereas once pleasantly chubby was considered attractive. Women’s dissatisfaction `with their bodies is considerably increasing which has caused eating disorders among women, this is due to the increasingly slender ideal the media portrays as. Women will judge their own body figure as larger after viewing these adverts which depict women merely as sexual objects . These images are very far from