Stereotypes Of Women

In the 21st century, women are expected to be hairless, poreless, ageless, thin and most importantly beautiful. One of the most powerful ways in which the media portrays this image is through advertisement.Advertisements are meant to subliminally and some times obviously get you to adhere to them. For example if throughout someones day, all they saw were cold glasses of milk in the form of pictures, or people passing by. Towards the end of that persons day, its guaranteed that they would crave a glass of milk. There are studies that have shown advertisements cancel out free will and are able to appeal to anybodies subconcious. Some advertisements are even targeted to 5 year olds, so even young children are able to identify with advertisements.
In advertisements women are altered to the point of no longer looking like themselves. Extreme alteration where women no longer looking like themselves makes outsiders believe that those perfect images are reality. Believing that an altered look obtained through digital media can be obtained forces individuals to have a false sense of self and lowers self esteem. By exposing womens bodies to make product more appealing causes men and others to feel as though they can degrade, devalue and disregard that women are more than their bodies. According to Jean Kilbourne Cindy Crawford once said “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.” Advertisements are meant to sell, but its sad when its at the expense of women and their public
According to the Social and Cultural Effects of Advertising, "Advertising does contribute something by reconstituting meaning, rather than merely reflecting it. The devoured cultural contents retain their affectivity, but are stripped of their context and are "sold back" to the consumer as a new cultural system -- with new, commercial values replacing the original noncommercial values. For example, women are commodified to sell almost everything: cars, perfumes, etc. Their bodies, sexuality and mystique are traded. Today's mass advertising has less to do with products than with lifestyle and image, not reason but romance. Therefore, it is a cultural system instead of an informational system. But it is an incomplete cultural system, since the real values of its noncommercial contents have been drained out, leaving only their affects attached to commodities. Furthermore, only the pleasant side of life is shown, not the unpleasant and painful experiences with which a complete sociocultural system must cope (O’ Sullivan, R) People feel that advertisement depicts reality and the truth is, its the opposite. Trying to obtain the images seen in advertisement are impossible. As a result eating disorders are more frequent in young girls than they used to be. There are anorexic and bulimic websites praising skinny and these girls on the websites are trying to get rid of every ounce of fat on their body completely in order to