Advertisements Effects on Women
Maria Jaryi
ENG 701
Alessandro Braidotti
12/07/10
Advertisement’s Authority On The Marked Woman
In our culture, our standards for how women must look and act are important to us. So important that they’ve become damaging to our well-being. Women have no way of escaping being judged on what they wear or how they do their hair. There is no “regular” female, free of standards, unlike a male. Nowadays, media and even language have influenced our ideals for gender conventions, mostly unconsciously. Pressure on females to fit into these conventions is higher than ever. Media—ads, television, movies, magazines, and celebrities—is something we cannot escape. It surrounds us almost every minute of every day. Involuntarily, the average American sees “3000 ads in a day, and spends 2 years of their life watching television commercials (Kibourne).” The disadvantages of female conventions have become bigger than ever before, and have come to driving women to extremes.
Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne is a remarkably eye-opening documentary about how media affects our values, concepts, and ideals. As I’ve already stated, we cannot run away from advertising. Most people believe they’re not influenced by ads, but everyone is influenced by ads, whether they like it or not. Media shows us ideals of what we should be, what everyone should strive to be. They do more than try to sell us products. What we also don’t realize is most of the images we’re fed through advertising are an unrealistic ideal. Computer retouching, also known as Photoshop, is more popular than ever in advertising, and the women on ad’s we’re comparing ourselves to, are computer created. Nobody looks like that, but we continue to compare ourselves to them. In doing so, it creates an absurd amount of pressure on women. Our self-esteem is affected greatly.
Advertisements drive women to extremes, such as plastic surgery and eating disorders. Plastic surgery is more popular than ever, and 91% of it
ENG 701
Alessandro Braidotti
12/07/10
Advertisement’s Authority On The Marked Woman
In our culture, our standards for how women must look and act are important to us. So important that they’ve become damaging to our well-being. Women have no way of escaping being judged on what they wear or how they do their hair. There is no “regular” female, free of standards, unlike a male. Nowadays, media and even language have influenced our ideals for gender conventions, mostly unconsciously. Pressure on females to fit into these conventions is higher than ever. Media—ads, television, movies, magazines, and celebrities—is something we cannot escape. It surrounds us almost every minute of every day. Involuntarily, the average American sees “3000 ads in a day, and spends 2 years of their life watching television commercials (Kibourne).” The disadvantages of female conventions have become bigger than ever before, and have come to driving women to extremes.
Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne is a remarkably eye-opening documentary about how media affects our values, concepts, and ideals. As I’ve already stated, we cannot run away from advertising. Most people believe they’re not influenced by ads, but everyone is influenced by ads, whether they like it or not. Media shows us ideals of what we should be, what everyone should strive to be. They do more than try to sell us products. What we also don’t realize is most of the images we’re fed through advertising are an unrealistic ideal. Computer retouching, also known as Photoshop, is more popular than ever in advertising, and the women on ad’s we’re comparing ourselves to, are computer created. Nobody looks like that, but we continue to compare ourselves to them. In doing so, it creates an absurd amount of pressure on women. Our self-esteem is affected greatly.
Advertisements drive women to extremes, such as plastic surgery and eating disorders. Plastic surgery is more popular than ever, and 91% of it
Cited: Killing Us Softly 4. Dir. Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation, 2010. DVD. Tannen, Deborah. “There is No Unmarked Woman.” ENG 701 Fall 2010 Course Packet. Ed. Alessandro Braidotti. Temple University, 2010. 68-70. Print.