As a result, female objectification serves as a debilitating factor in the progression of gender equality in current society. Female objectification is often displayed within social media platforms. This phenomenon used in advertising platforms makes them more appealing to the male gender. Objectification plays to the desires experienced by men. Advertising’s main function is to create a need and then provide a product to fulfill that need.
Advertising is displayed all around the world for everyone to see and it sometimes gives a bad message to the viewers. Advertisements tell us that there is only one dominant way to be feminine and only one dominant way to be masculine and if you do not conform to these gender codes that is not considered normal. Unfortunately, I have caught myself following these gender codes that are shown in advertising, it has affected me with the way I see people and myself. By using a sociological perspective I have started to look into the advertisements that I see and understand how women are portrayed as helpless and weak while men are portrayed as powerful and dominant. I also looked into how advertising supports hegemonic masculinity, which is the idea of masculinity being dominant.
Sex Sells: Motto Gone Wrong The feminine body has been extremely exploited throughout advertisement history. Advertisers have been using the female body to sell magazines for years. Nowadays all though irrelevant, many products are being linked with explicit sexual body imagery of women on the verge of pornography. This concept has rapidly turned into a stereotype that portray women as sexual objects. Not only women have been objectified, but also the average female reader has been forced to face an unrealistic misconception towards the female body.
As being the subject of male gaze, women are submissive; prone to sexualization, etc. In short, women in media are subjected to visual pleasure by both men and women. Even a woman gazes at other women as they are a part of the audience of the said media. For example of male gaze is found in films such as Baywatch, 007, and many more. In the film Baywatch, male gaze is seen when one of
The male gaze is even a construct in advertisements that cater to women, as illustrated by the Vogue advertisements in the essay. Women are always subliminally told that they are always on view, and to view themselves through the eyes of a man. The fundamental construct of the male gaze in seen not only in advertisements but also in films. The film, Rear Window, is a perfect example. The vantage point of the entire film sets the stage for the gaze of the movie as the male gaze of the audience, through the eyes of the main character, Jeff.
There is a consistent message that runs throughout advertisements that suggests that women are lesser than men, and that they exist solely for the benefit of men. Countless advertisements feature thin, beautiful women as either over-sexualized objects, or as subordinates to their male counterparts. The mold created by society and advertisers for women to fit into is not entirely attainable. More often than not, models are Photoshopped and altered to the point that they don’t even resemble themselves. W. Charisse Goodman suggests, “The mass media do not
This causes women and especially young girls to see themselves and use their bodies as objects. The sexualization of women is apparent in all aspects of media, but I will be focusing on music, advertisement, and film. In our society, women are portrayed as highly sexualized beings that evoke feelings of fantasy and desire that are shown in all aspects of media, but is perhaps most often used in the production of advertisements. For example, we can see the use of women in Axe Deodorant ads. In the Axe ads there is a male model that is accompanied by an attractive female, who seems to be attracted to the male simply because of his deodorant.
Furthermore, according to Mulvey, when women are displayed on screen, they possess a quality called “to-be-looked-at-ness,” which means that a woman’s appearance on screen is constructed to be put on “visual display” and she is expected to“exhibit herself to our gaze.” Ultimately, Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze can be summarized as the idea that women are always viewed through the eyes of men, who act as dominant observers. The male gaze is seemingly perpetuated to the tee in Mad Men through numerous devices such as imagery, film techniques and dialogue, however on closer inspection the certainty of this notion becomes less clear as the characters don’t act in exact accordance with the principles of the
"Male Gaze" In "Ways of Seeing" Berger suggest that the representations of men and women in visual culture propose different "gazes", different setting in which they are looked upon, having men with the capability of examining women, as well as having women examine women. The video "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman". Rob Bliss the creator of the video presents how he believe women have the right to dress the way they want and that men play a major role, where they should not make disgusting comments and gestures, but instead lower their gaze. These two works both highlight the "male gaze", the way visual arts relate the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of men 's attitude. At the start of "Ways of Seeing" John Berger
“It is like being raised in a red room, pulled out of the red room and being asked to describe the colour red!” These words were spoken by Caroline Heldman at the Tedx Youth conference in San Diego as she was attempting to make a point about sexual objectification being more amplified in the media yet the young people have lost the ability to identify it. Sexual objectification is seen as the norm in today’s society. The new culture has increased the objectification of women in Television, Movies, Magazines and Videogames. In which Heldman believes technology is to blame for the hyper-sexualisation of women. In her speech, pornography was not mentioned as an objectifying medium in media.