“Do You See, What I See?”

     Sexism and objectification of women in advertising has always been a problem in the history of American culture.  Women are continuously objectified to market a products from clothing, to beauty, diet and even children’s toys, while the public; male and female, consume the messages these marketing efforts convey.  Women of all ages, race, shape and size conform and ingest the negative messages these images give off.   However, “advertising is the foundation and economic lifeblood of the mass media.  The primary purpose of the mass media is to deliver an audience to advertisers” (Kilborne).  We all know the potency of mass media and the influence it bares, nonetheless society continues to be saturated with these expressive messages of objectification and degrading of women.

      Before the popularity of ads, women were also objectified in the world of media and arts.  John Berger said “you painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.”  In his analyzation of the objectification and sexism of women in art and media, Berger speculates that it has major affects on our intuition, opinion and ideology of how women are portrayed within a society.  In his 1972 documentary, Ways of Seeing, he examines the differences between nudity and nakedness, whereas nakedness is pure and natural and nudity is objectifying and a woman is treated like a commodity for audience consumption. 

     In 1893, Edouard Manet’s painting, Luncheon on the Grass created quite the controversy as it was a depiction of nudity of women and their portrayal of objects of desire.  In this era, affluent men commissioned painters to capture eccentric pictures of their mistresses and/or lovers, which were for their own viewing pleasures hence representing them as sex objects.  “The prize is to be owned by a judge…  The nakedness is not, however, an expression of her own feelings; it is a sign of her submission to the owner’s feelings or demands.” (Berger)

     Why do we continue to subject ourselves to these devaluing images when all they create is misperceptions of women?  It seems that the ideology of advertising is unavoidable in a society where patriarchal values still exist.  We can still assume that, “patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation.”  It is this system of patriarchy and phallocentric behavior that continues to manipulate how women perceive themselves physically and emotionally. 

     The repercussions these images create are quite disturbing.  Sexual violence is the most common because the objectifying images provoke the offender into thinking he has the right to abuse women because she is an object.  Other severe consequences are how these images create unrealistic standards of beauty of women.  The struggle most women face with their body image is manifested from the conceptions the ads emanate

          Fast forward 43 years after Berger raised society’s awareness to sexism and objectification of women in media and the problem continues to exist.  How do try to fix a problem that has gone on so many centuries?  It is an effect, which causes women to scrutinize their bodies under a microscope, as if the media has some kind of authority over their self-esteem and their dignity.   

     There are ways we can help women embrace the bodies and beauty they were born with.  We can begin by working with the education systems to put together programs that can help empower women.  We can also empower the women in our lives.  The media also has a tendency of creating animosity between women and that is another thing women need to work on.  We are all the same and sooner we realize that the media influences most or maybe all of our decisions, we can work together to prevail of these negative images.

Women don't hate on Women

    

Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.

Kilbourne, Jean. Beauty and the Beast of Advertising. 1999. Kilbourne Copyright. Print

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze.” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992: 115-31. Print.

Jhally, Sut, Jean Kilbourne, and David Rabinovitz. Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image of Women. , 2010.

Hooks, Bell. "Understanding Patriarchy by Bell Hooks." Arizona. N.p., 25 July 2004. Web. 14 Mar. 2015.