The Impact of Advertising on Women

Everyday of our lives, we are exposed to dozens of advertisements, whether it be on television, the radio, in magazines, on billboards or signs, or anywhere else that companies try to reach us in an effort to promote the products they sell. Advertisers appeal to our hopes, dreams, wants and desires, and exploit our insecurities in an effort to sell us a product, ranging from cars, to household appliances, to a bottle of shampoo. Advertising affects everyone, whether they acknowledge it or not, and it often promotes something that is out of reach to the average person, such as great wealth, or a perfect body. Advertising often carries an overload or excess of meaning, such as statements of power, wealth, leisure, and sexual allure, and they also convey meanings of race and gender. (“Introduction: Media Studies”) As this paper will demonstrate, advertising is an extremely powerful tool which has the ability to change the way we perceive ourselves.
Of particular interest is the effect that advertising has on women. Women are continually bombarded by advertisements in which they are told, directly or indirectly, that they must be thin in order to be beautiful, and they are marketed products that they are led to believe will help them achieve their desired body image of being thin. Women become convinced that they must look like sexy all the time, when in reality, it is almost impossible. Women often begin dieting in order to attain the perfect body that they are striving for, and they occasionally undertake more extreme measures to lose weight, such as bulimia or anorexia, all because they are led to believe, by advertising, that they must have a perfect body. Women are also sexually objectified in advertising, and viewed as merely sexual objects. This paper will explore in depth how women are portrayed in advertising and, more importantly, the impact which it has on them.
In western culture, a slender physique has come to be regarded as the standard of feminine

References: Dahlberg, John & Zimmerman, Amanda. (2008) The Sexual Objectification of Women In Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective Eating Disorders: Body Image and Advertising. Healthy Place. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2008 from http://www.healthyplace.com/COMMUNITIES/eating_disorders/