PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN ADVERTISING

SEX APPEAL IN ADVERTISING

In the mid to late 1960s, advertising executives discovered the road to fortune - this road is sex. Especially in present-day society, it is abundantly clear that sex is what sells. We find it on television, in magazines, billboards and even the radio. It seems that everywhere we look, sex is right in front of us. There is a struggle among advertisers, or at least there should be, on whether to use the sure way to sell the maximum number of products or to be true to a sense of morality. More often than not, greed takes over and morality goes out the window. To sell products advertisers target an audience and try to appeal to their senses and feelings. The problem is that sexual appeal seems to be showing up more often with a broader range of products and audiences. Females are more likely than males to be presented in seductive fashions or appear nude but males are now being portrayed as sex symbols more and more. Despite uncertainty over advertisement effectiveness, the use of sex appeal is still considered an effective method of selling products because of its ability to attract consumer attention to an ad. Advertising presents the images, ideas, and belief systems that a society holds. They have worked their way into what we read, what we care about, the way we raise our children and our ideas of right and wrong. Advertising is a social practice so the expression of sexuality continues to be an issue of social concern. Sex has spread throughout our entire society and has shown that there are very few limits.

The use of sex is most effective for those products that are consumed primarily by younger men. "Advertisements aimed at young male consumers will continue to become more explicit. Advertisers and agency executives say that they have to use graphic, sexually charged images to capture the attention of the consumer and to attract buyers who are bombarded by hundreds of product promotions every day" (Daly 1). Like most consumers, males see numerous ads every day in all forms of media and it is generally accepted that explicit sexual images will get men's attention. Most advertising executives think that "sex appeal is the most powerful weapon in their arsenal"and they will have to use even more graphic images to hold on to their audience (Daly 1). Sex provides an effective way of getting men's attention but it's a cheap shot. Advertisers attempt to blur the distinction between women's bodies and the product.

The increasingly graphic sexual images are not aimed only at young men. Sex is also used to sell a variety of products to women. Attractive male models are explicitly displayed as sex objects just as women are. An example of this is a Diet Coke commercial, which shows a bare-chested, muscular construction worker as the sexy bait for a group of female office workers. Another use is in perfume and personal care product ads that appear in women's magazines. "The common thread linking most products which are promoted with sexual images is that their use affects relations between the sexes and their perceptions of one another" (Daly 2). Perfume by definition is a sexual product, so there is a certain license to sell it that way but these ads implant unrealistic expectations in consumers about their bodies and relations between the sexes. "Sexualized imagery in advertising is viewed as power by young women, power being defined as self efficacy or a personal power enabling one to control one's own life. It has also been found that a young woman's perception of her body can be changed by just 30 minutes of television viewing"(Baldwin 1-2). This shows how strongly advertisements can affect society, especially women.

There has been a great deal of change in the portrayal of women in advertising. This might be because advertising has a powerful role of depicting women not necessarily how they actually behave, but rather, how society thinks women behave. This depiction serves the social purpose of convincing society that this is how women are or want to be, or should be. "It seems that only superficial cultural alternations are transferred to advertisements, while the underlying ideological foundation remains untouched" (Kang 994).

According to early work, physical attractiveness elicits positive emotional responses during initial contacts. "Attractive persons are typically rated as more desirable, socially acceptable, respectable, and influential than their less attractive counterparts. The physical attractiveness of a communicator determines the effectiveness of persuasive communication, and ultimately, physical attractiveness of the communicator influences overall marketing outcomes" (Lin 462). Nudity and erotic content will increase a consumer's attention to an ad, but it won't necessarily enhance positive attitudes toward the product. Attractive spokespersons create a more positive attitude toward ads in hope to give the consumer the impression that it is an attractive product.

"The past decade has seen an intensification in the pace of sexual revolution. Print ads appearing in popular general interest magazines seem to push the limits of eroticism and nudity for both male and female models" (Lin 464). Some of these bounds that are being pushed even include sexually intimate images between models of the same gender. An example of this is a Calvin Klein ad, where two half-naked men embrace one another. Calvin Klein has also pushed the limits with ads shown on MTV and in magazines that bordered on child pornography.

Advertisers must exercise caution when using sex appeals to target their consumers. Any misuse of advertising appeals could prove to be financially costly. "Advertising reflects a predominant form of socio-cultural reality from a marketing perspective, it is also important for commercial messages to be socially sensitive and culturally desirable" (Lin 473). Advertisers assume that their clients know that consumers are not looking for realism in advertising. They believe that instead the consumer identifies with an idealized depiction of themselves and their sexuality - a fantasy. Advertisers are leaders and not followers, and they often prey on consumers' sexual insecurities. Regardless of the purity and morality of their motives, it is clear that advertisers will continue to find sex as a marketing tool simply irresistible.

If we allow this sexually explicate advertising to continue, eventually it will shape our society into becoming what is being portrayed. Since advertising effects a societies belief system, our views and values will be altered by seeing such things. If we continue to ignore these vile depictions or let ourselves become used to them, they will only become more extreme in order to catch our attention.

To keep this from happening we could use various tactics. We could not allow ourselves to buy products that use sexually appealing methods. If enough people do this, the company will get the hint that their advertisements aren't working so they will search for a new plan to sell their product. Another way is to create more regulations so that there is a very defined limit to what advertisers can and cant do and use. We could also protest the companies that use advertisements that we do not approve of. This would cause the company to get bad publicity and for their sales to drop. After this they most likely would change their advertising plans.

Selling sex is the most predominant and useful way to sell a product in today's society. Whether consumers realize it or not, most of the time we are simply buying sex. It is clear that changes in social perception and acceptance about explicit expressions of sexuality with both genders have occurred during the past decade. Advertisers will continue to make advertisements more explicit to catch its audience's attention if changes aren't made. If we disregard or don't pay attention to the increasingly sexual depictions in advertising, it will become predominately worse. To stop more sexual images from appearing in advertisements, society as a whole must take a stand and voice its opinions

How is Advertising Shaping the Image of Women?

Linda Scott, University of Illinois Professor and Symposium Chair, explained the goal of the day. “Professionals, academics, and activists share a lot of the same concerns,” she said. “It’s a tragedy we don’t have more connections.” It is necessary, Dr. Scott says, to bring fresh thinking to this topic since “ground has been lost in terms of sexual stereotyping in the last ten years.” She urged the audience to seek common ground: “Two very different worlds are coming together today. They have differences in style and values, but keep an open mind for the obvious similarities.”

Educators, activists, students and advertising professionals came together to exchange ideas and to take stock of just what progress society has made in its portrayal of women in advertising since the advent of the women’s movement in the 1960s and 70s.

The beneficiaries of this unprecedented exchange were the participants who learned that, in fact, they share several common insights:

•              Teens and young women warrant particular attention in terms of being portrayed in a more realistic and less offensive fashion.

•              Agency creative departments should employ more women.

•              More needs to be done to portray women in advertising the “way they really are.”

Most encouraging, all participants agreed the dialogue on women needs to continue. The December issue of Advertising & Society Review, aef.com’s online academic journal, focuses on Women and Advertising. The AEF intends to continue to bring together representatives of academia and the advertising industry to discuss this issue and other important subjects in similar forums.

HIGHLIGHTS

The dialogue began with Jennifer Scanlon, Associate Professor of History at Bowdoin College, who offered a historic vantage on women in advertising and recognized the movement of women into the workplace from WWI through WWII. She pointed out that the female image is not very different today. “A woman’s role was largely defined as the consumer,” she said.

She narrated the stories of the first women in advertising in 1924 at J. Walter Thompson, the only advertising agency providing professional opportunities for women at the time.

Cheryl Berman, Chief Creative Officer at Leo Burnett, shared her personal opinions and experiences regarding women in advertising, both as a woman creating it and a woman affected by it. Cheryl credited LeoShe as helping Burnett "makeover" brands including Special K, Tampax and Hallmark, to increase their relevancy among contemporary female consumers and said that clients' support made her hopeful for the future. "After all, our clients realize that women constitute a powerful market segment," she said, citing reports that women initiate 75% of all consumer electronics purchases, influence more than 80% of all car purchases, and command 85% of total personal consumption spending.

“Can There Be Feminism in Advertising?” Judy Lotas, Partner of LPNY Ltd., presented The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Awards from Advertising Women of New York to illustrate the importance of applauding positive portrayals of women in advertising and condemning negative ones.

Judy also suggested replacing “feminist” which often ignites negative associations with independent women today, by suggesting “fairest,” which simply means “one who works to be just and honest.”

Linda Smolak, Professor of Psychology at Kenyon College, provided the causes and effects of body dissatisfaction among young women citing advertising as only one element among a series of various influences such as peers and parents.

Professor Susan Bordo from the University of Kentucky revealed that it is not the presence of thin, beautiful women in advertising that is manipulative, but the exclusion of women of all sizes and skin color.

Gloria Steinem began her remarks with a plea for unity among the diverse audience. "Advertising professionals, academics and activists have to work together, because advertising is a source of information on what we get in the world, in politics, and it affects the environment and the planet. We had better pay attention to it."

She first acknowledged the positive side of advertising. "Advertising says we don't have to be born into a certain group to have a certain type of life," she said. However, she suggested that before embracing the future of advertising, one must leave it entirely. She said, "To make the world a more just, peaceful and livable place, we need to understand what our visions are without the influence of advertising."

"After we've separated ourselves from advertising, we can return to it and have choice about it," she said.

Gloria reiterated that advertising can work to empower women if all women, professionals, academics and activists, decide to work together. "It all starts with consciousness and it proceeds through community," she said.

Amy Richards, author and columnist, immediately followed, opening the way to the current feminist movement known as the “Third Wave.” Women must understand that they do not have to choose between what they want and feminism.

She emphasized that women can make decisions benefiting their individual needs, allowing them to operate in the world, and still be feminists so long as they never leave their feminism out of their lives.

The dialogue succeeded in incorporating the portrayal of women of color in advertising. Fay Ferguson, Managing Director of Burrell Communications and an African-American, delivered a moving speech and declared that we must look to the past before moving forward. “To know where you’re headed, you must first know where you’ve been.”

Fay said that before World War II African-Americans did not exist in advertising and today Ann Fudge is President & CEO of Young & Rubicam.

She also remarked that black agencies like Burrell tend to depict real images of women in real roles.

Covering nearly ever aspect of the history of women in advertising, the AEF also provided a panel, “What do Women in Advertising Think.” The panel was moderated by Anne Dooley, EVP client service director at BBDO/Chicago, and included Cheryl Greene, managing partner and chief strategy officer at Deutsch, Inc., Jan Murley, former marketing director of Hallmark Cards, and Tonise Paul, president and CEO at BBDO/Chicago. The panelists answered a series of questions from the audience, most of which touched upon how to stop the demeaning portrayal of women in the media.

The panelists collectively agreed that the most powerful action is reaction. “Tell the agency and the client what ads you dislike and why,” Cheryl advised. “Even just one letter is taken with the utmost seriousness.”

Tonise mentioned her own distaste for some of the current advertisements, in particular the Abercrombie & Fitch print ads. She said that she stopped shopping there, and urged her daughter to do the same, after seeing an ad of a naked young girl and two men. All the women agreed that young girls are in need of positive female images.

Capping the symposium, Dana Anderson, president and CEO at Foote, Cone & Belding/Chicago, gave a speech entitled, "Great Women I Have Loved." She addressed the personas of the self-deprecating Frida Kahlo, the self-aware and confident Maya Angelou, and the insecure Audrey Hepburn.

She said that while she loves Maya Angelou for her strength, she also loves Frida Kahlo and Audrey Hepburn because they never loved themselves. "They never had a girlfriend to tell them how wonderful they were," Dana said, "and they were unable to see it for themselves."

Striking a similar note to Cheryl Berman’s comment earlier about what women want -- "Women want what people want: respect, understanding, a little help" – Dana stressed that the portrayal of women in advertising, like all things, is dependent on respect for humanity and each other.

She ended the day with an empowering and moving quote from Eudora Welty, "All serious daring starts from within."

Portrayal of Women In the Media

"Currently, in our society the magazines Cosmopolitan for woman and Maxim for men are two dominating forces in the media that degrade women and limit their representation. Despite the different target audiences, both magazines only define women through the lens of male sexuality. The audience only gains knowledge from the magazine through a male interpretation. This technique lures women to view the world through the desires of men. Moreover, the magazine encourages women to neglect their own individuality and to perceive themselves only in the context of a male fantasy world."

-Henery Foucault

Taking A Look at the Different Advertisements of Women in the Media

 In today's media, women are looked upon as a tool that can help sell a product. Woman and sex are often a great combination when trying to get a product to come off the shelves. "There is no arguing that sex sells. And with the typical young adult male, you can't really blame the industry for catering to there target audience" says Chris Morris, a writer for New York CNN. There are many different companies that stretch far and wide to include women and sex in their advertisements for sale purposes, and many use very interesting ways of including women to sell their products. Below are a few examples.

Candies

Candies is a popular woman's clothing line that sells a variety of products ranging from foot wear to perfume. This company also has a reputation for its risky advertisements and unique ways of drawing in their consumers. Candies, in this ad (right), uses a model to attract the attention of buyers by sex. This advertises shoes for Candies, but the way that Candies goes about selling their shoe product is unlike the normal shoe sales advertisements. Including a seductive model with evidence of underwear replicates the sexual content of this ad. Candies is using sex, and a woman to sell their shoes, a product targeted towards women. Even with this in mind, this advertisement has become one of the most popular ones that Candies has used. Jenny McCarthy models for a Candies advertisement.

Herbal Essences

Herbal Essences is also a product for women. They have been known to use women and sex in their ads to sell their products as well. In this article, Herbal Essences uses a variety of things to catch the eye of consumers such as color, emotions, and women. The women in this article are all skinny and beautiful. They all are happy and look as if they are having fun. Also in this advertisement (left) the women seem to be the products and main focus, and the Herbal Essences bottle on less. The color choice plays a big role in what is noticed first. Notice the color of the bottle is the same color as the background allowing for the women in the picture to stand out more than the actual product. This ad is a great example of showing that women have a profound effect on selling products such as Herbal Essences. Three women walking down the shore line having fun and discussing how great it truly is that they use Herbal Essences.

 M&M's

M&M's have been among the favorites of candy, but even M&M's have found a way to portray women as a sex symbol. The green M&M is one of five M&M characters, and the only woman. In advertisements and commercials, she is portrayed as the sex symbol. Mrs. Green even has her own "pin - ups" on the M&M website. This picture (right) is from a commercial titled, "What is it about the Green On?," that clearly uses sex to sell M&M's. In the revealing ads, Green shows what she is made of, inside and out. In this one she is shown standing without her candy-green coat as a stagehand enters her dressing trailer. Other commercials include a mother and father stressing about a poster that hangs in their little boy's room. "It's what boys do," the father says. These ads all portray woman as a true tool in selling products and using sex as their marketing scheme. This commerical features the green M&M undressing and the stagehand walking in her trailer.

Hooters

Hooters is one of the most popular "male" restaurants. This restaurant caters to the male audience by using beautiful women as seductive waitresses. "Hooters hires woman who best fit the image of a Hooters girl to work in this capacity." These women all meet similar standards. Long legs, skinny body, pretty smile and "present themselves." The chain acknowledges that many consider " 'Hooters' a slang term for a portion of the female anatomy." Yet, Hooters does have an owl inside its logo and uses the owl theme sufficiently to allow debate to occur over the meaning intent of Hooters. The chain also says that it "enjoys and benefits from the debate, and in the end it hopes it is recognized as a great place to eat."

Video Games

"Hooters" also is the title of a restaurant. These pictures were taken from the game Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball for the Xbox gaming system. A censored scene from Bmx XXX A new wave of video games have hit the market. Video games have started to include more than just points and goals. Many new games are using the approach of sexual content with explicit woman. Games such as BMX XXX and Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball are examples of these. "'BMX XXX' lets players rack up on cash on the circuit, then spend it at the local strip club...'BMX XXX' rewards players with live-action footage of topless dancers" (Morris). Games such as these carry an M (Mature) rating, and can only be bought by adults over the age of 18. "This is a big one to look out for. Hopefully the XXX will give it away." The gaming industry is growing, and is attracting a wider demographic. That means sharper scripts, more violence and yes even sex. It is just too bad that women have to be looked upon as a prize in a video game.

Stereotypes Portrayed of Women in the Media

 Women have been stereotyped in the media more than any other group. A stereotype against women creates a world where no one is ugly, overweight, poor, struggling or disabled In advertisements, women are often portrayed in similar roles and are grouped together with the assumption that all women are the same or should be the same. Women in advertisements take on a fake look because they are made to look as close to perfect as possible. Most of the time they are young, tall, long-legged, and have perfect skin with no wrinkles. Women in ads are masked with makeup, and almost always the pictures are airbrushed to perfection. Stereotypical roles of women are directed towards all ages of people in society through magazines, newspaper ads, television, and now even new technologies such as the internet. Women live a Super Woman image where they are supposed to do it all. Along with working a full-time job, she can still play the role of mom and take care of the kids, clean, cook, and maintain a healthy relationship with her husband. This is not true in all the real world but because it is portrayed so much in the media people feel it is necessary to have high expectations for women.. When you look up the word servant in Roger's Thesaurus you will find that some words that are associated with servant are words like: menial lady help, domestic, secretary, maid, waitress, handmaid, nurse, kitchen, laundry, and girl just to name a few. This example in itself is a stereotype that the media helps to place on women. The following was stated in the University of Oregon website of How Women are Portrayed in the Magazines, "Currently, in our society the magazines Cosmopolitan for women and Maxim for men are two dominating forces in the media that degrade woman and limit their representation. Despite the different target audiences, both magazines only define woman through the lens of male sexuality. The audience only gains knowledge from the magazine through a male interpretation. This technique lures women to view the world through the desires of men. However, the magazine encourages women to neglect their own individuality and to perceive themselves only in the context of the male fantasy world" (Foucault, 2002). As one can see from the following website, women are greatly stereotyped in the media in ways that they do not always like and do not have much voice. In order to work for a change and stop stereotyping women in the media, we must show more of a realistic point of view instead of portraying them the way we think that they should be.

The Desire to Be Thin

 Many magazines sell because of the diets and quick fixes to weight problems that are advertised on their covers. According to the April 2003 edition of Glamour magazine, women can get "a toned body-by tonight." Not exactly a practical goal, but definitely a magazine seller... what woman isn't curious to see how she can look perfect for an important date that is just hours away?

The problem with this method of selling magazines is that it plays on a women's desire to have a beautiful, slim, "perfect" body. When bombarded by slender models and constantly being told about new improved diets and exercise techniques, women begin to feel inferior to the impossibly small model they strive to be. Some women get to the point that they will stop at nothing to achieve this small shape.

Some solutions that women get involved with in order to loose weight are fad diets, very low calorie diets, over exercising and some may even get to the point of starvation and purging which can eventually lead to the diseases anorexia nervosa or bulimia. All these fixes have major health concerns associated with them, and although they may appear to shed weight, they do not help to maintain the weight loss.

Fad diets require women to eat many bizarre food combinations, skip meals here or there or eat whenever they are hungry, count calories, or rely on diet pills and herbal supplements. A major problem with many of these diets is that they "often leave out whole groups of food which are essential in balanced, healthy eating" (Berg, 1995: 32). One example of such a diet, from the book Health Risks of Weight Loss, is The Bahamian Diet, which is a liquid based low calorie diet. In some instances, people on this diet have dropped their daily calorie intake to 400 calories, and has people mostly eating only fruit and vegetables.

Health risks associated with low calorie or starvation diets, are heart conditions, hair loss, fatigue, anemia, emotional changes, the inability to keep weight off and many others. A starvation diet could also lead to eating disorders especially anorexia and bulimia.

Both anorexia and bulimia are very serious diseases that can lead to muscle and bone deterioration and even death if not treated. Once the desire to be thin has progressed this far, it is very hard to reverse. Women begin to perceive themselves as fat, even if they are nothing more skin and bones. People with anorexia have the will power to eat very little because they fear the weight they could gain if they eat anything. They are often able to keep their desire to be thin secret from even the closest family and friends. Individuals with bulimia will binge eat and then purge in order to prevent themselves from gaining weight. These two conditions are extremely serious and can stern from a fad diet on the cover of a magazine.

With rail thin models and actresses gracing the cover of magazines next to titles about dropping pounds in days, it is easy to see how women could get sucked into the fad. The major problems behind these fads are that they can cause permanent damage to a women's body and that they can lead to more serious diseases or even death. Women need to be able to see life sized models so that they can appreciate themselves the way that they are and are not forced to fall into a dangerous fad diet.

Men Vs. Women

 The media's stereotypes do not only include women, but they also include men. The best way to identify the ways in which the media stereotypes both men and women, is to compare the different ways the media portrays them both.

For some reason, television seems to down play the importance of women in our society. It is a fact that women out number men in our society, however men out number women on most television shows. On dramas men tend to out number women 3 to 1, 10 to 1 on cartoons, and as much as 7 to 3 on soap operas. Despite the fact that the majority of the audience is comprised of female viewers, the women who appear on television have their lives portrayed differently then the lives of their male counter partners. "According to a study by McNeil, about 75% of men are depicted as employed whereas less than 50% of women are" (Gunter, 1986: 11).

Advertising feeds into stereotypes of both men and women in society as well. For example women are much more likely to appear in an advertisement for personal hygiene products than men. In these advertisements women are usually shown as domestic housewives. Men in commercials have much more diverse occupations than women. Men are more likely to hold positions of power, occassionally women are shown in high positions. However, when women are shown in positions of power it is often portrayed as unnatural because of the ideology that men are more powerful than women. Advertisements featuring men are usually shown as unnatural when it comes to domestic situations. When a man is portrayed in a commercial performing a simple household chore like washing his clothes, it is portrayed as unnatural or almost humorist. There is a Flash multi-purpose cleaner advertisement where a man offers to take over the job of scrubbing the floor from his wife. When the wife leaves, the husband uses Flash and demonstrates how effortless cleaning can be. When the wife returns, it appears as though he has scrubbed the whole floor; the women is very happy and she begins to rub her husbands back. This commercial gives off the image that cleaning is women's work and that if a man decides to help out with it, he should be praised. This is a biased message to send to the general public because when a woman is shown in a male dominated position she is usually punished not rewarded.

Women face different stereotypes than men in regards to their sexuality. Women are sent mixed messages because the media portrays them as so many things at once, and they are suppose to be virginal and innocent, yet sexy and seductive at the same time. When it comes their sexual appetite they are suppose to be experienced and know what they want while being naive at the same time. On television commercials and magazines advertisements, women are often shown as objects instead of human beings. It is not uncommon to look through a magazine and see advertisements that do not even have a picture of a complete woman just a body part or a section of her. The women in most advertisements posses a body image that is impossible for the average woman to ever have unless she starves herself.

The media teaches men to be a lot different, on most television shows men are shown as confident, arrogant, immature, and only concerned with getting the girl. Shows like Martin, Fresh Prince, Home Improvement, Seinfield, and Bernie Mack all show at least a few of these qualities. It is rare that you will ever see a male TV star that is not confident. Males are sent the message, starting when they are young, to be confident no matter what the situation is. If you do not know something, act like you do, but no matter what never show any sign of weakness. This is why society sees it as acceptable for women to cry and men to brag. Males also are not expected to portray the same virginal image that is often expected of women. With men, the media sends the message to get the girl and get as many as you can.

 How Women’s Body Image is Portrayed in the Media

 The world is filled with mass media. Everywhere a person looks they see billboards, commercials, magazine advertisements, movies, programs on television, and the list could continue. The hold and influence that daily lives. The messages that the media sends out are not always healthy ones. People are subjected to thousands of images and messages daily, portraying the "ideal" body image. The people most often portrayed and affected by these messages are women. Females feel a constant pressure to live up to these ideals, which are most often unattainable.

Throughout history the female body has always been a spectacle. In the early 1900's, the trend was the corseted hour glass look. This was achieved by women wearing tight, constrictive, and often painful corsets. In the 1920s the trend was the flapper look. Women of style were flat chested and slim-hipped. The 1950s and sixties brought on a full-bodied look with emphasis on the legs. Marilyn Monroe was an icon of the time and she was a size eleven. The early nineties was the demise of the ideal of a healthy body image. The waif-like figure of Kate Moss become the trend. A tall, very thin look with narrow hips became the look. The latter part of the nineties brought on the same look only with the addition of big breasts. One can see that the "ideal" body image has changed over history into something that is essentially impossible for women of society to obtain.

As women grow they deal with many obstacles such as changing bodies, defining themselves, and looking at the future ahead of them. The media is one of the key influences in a woman's decision making and growth process. The exposure women have to media, whether good or bad, can greatly affect their outcome as an adult. According to Mario Hutchinson, in his book Transforming Body Image, "The average person sees between four-hundred and six-hundred advertisements per day, amounting to forty or fifty million by the time they are sixty years old" (Hutichson, 2000:164). This means that women are constantly being exposed to images of other women whose portrayal creates an immense pressure to be slim. The message sent out is that in order to be beautiful, you must be thin. This can damage a young girl's self-esteem, distort their sense of body image, and can contribute to eating disorders.

Many self-esteem issues that young adolescent girls have are a direct result of the damaging effects of the unrealistic ideals and high expectations that the media sends out. When young girls are constantly subjected to perfect body images and the idea of beauty is the skinnier the better, they begin to lose confidence in themselves. Sally Bordo reports about the effects of media on body image in her book, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Cultures, and the Body. She states, "The shape of model's bodies have changed from an hour glass figure to a tall slender shape. Twenty-five years ago models weighed eight percent less than the average woman, seven years ago models weighed twenty-three percent less than the average woman. During the same time period, the average woman's weight increased by four percent"(Bordo, 1993: 72). This shows how difficult it is for most women to live up to the ideals that have been thrusted upon them by the media. If the only pictures that young girls see are models then they are comparing themselves to this unrealistic image. The depiction that media gives shows what Hollywood considers thin to be beautiful. It bombards women with the way they are supposed to look. What a lot of young girls fail to realize is that the media enhances body features with props, lighting angles, and computer techniques. Body doubles are often used and pictures are airbrushed. Many girls compare themselves to these images and they are not even real. This makes girls feel less than perfect and it lessens their own self-image. When young girls are constantly exposed to the perfect body images in the media, they begin to adopt the idea that skinny is the way to happiness and success, and their own confidence in their own body begins to weaken.

Body image relates to how one sees oneself and how they perceive others to see them. About-Face is a media organization focused on the impact of mass media on the physical, mental, and emotional well being of the female population. They surveyed fifty young women and asked them to rate themselves on a one to ten scale of how much they liked their body. Their results proved a direct correlation between how the women saw themselves and how much of the media they were

exposed to on a regular basis. This shows that the more a girl is subjected to the media's unrealistic image of a perfect woman, the more they get a distorted view of their own body image.

The gap between the advertised ideal woman and the reality that women contend with, leads many women to think that they have failed. The media is a powerful tool and the pressure to accept a narrowly defined image forces women into a cycle of yo-yo dieting and a preoccupation with food and weight in an attempt to control their body size and shape. In their quest for the perfect, thin body, women's self-esteem decreases, they feel ineffective at controlling their body and develop widespread dissatisfaction with their body image. Barbie, still represnts the perfect woman

Advertising's Portrayal of Women in the Workplace from the 1930s to the 1950s

Advertising is a powerful tool used by the media to portray an image, change an idea or shape an attitude. Although society usually considers advertising a medium to sell products, it can also sell a person, or, in this case, a gender role. In Killing Us Softly, Advertising's Image of Women. the narrator says, "the effects of advertising are inescapable, they sell images, values and goals, they shape our attitudes and our attitudes shape our behavior." <1> This is an accurate description of how women were portrayed during the times of national world crises -- it also accurately describes how many women will act. In the first half of the twentieth century, the world was faced with several crises including the Great Depression, World War II and the economic changes which occurred after this war. During these crises, women were forced in and out of the work place depending upon how they were needed. What did advertisements do to reflect work requirements of women?

In the depression years of the 1930s women were portrayed in the home; in the war years of  the early 1940s women were pictured in ads as the heroines of the assembly line; and after the war women were expected to, and portrayed as, returning to the home to allow their men to have their jobs. Using Campbell's Soup and other advertisements from various magazines, this paper will show how advertisements manipulated society's attitude toward women.

The Stock Market, which crashed in October of 1929, sent America into the worst depression it had ever experienced. "Men, who were the support of families, lost their jobs. Women too. But that seemed more natural, somehow less tragic. In fact, there were those who began to say that women should voluntarily step out in order that men might remain." <2> A movement was occurring to deny women employment, to refuse to hire wives or women who might be independently wealthy, so as to free more jobs for men. Employed wives were considered to be "thieving parasites of the business world and married women whose husbands have permanent positions should be discriminated against." <3> As representative Florence Kahn of  California said, "Women's place is not out in the business world competing with men who have families to support." <4> The future Secretary of Labor, Francis Perkins, declared: "Any woman capable of supporting herself without a job should devote herself to motherhood and the home." <5> Women were encouraged to volunteer their time, stay in school or return to school for classes. "The role of the house wife was defined by magazines as exciting, rewarding and creative." <6> "Homemaking," the Ladies Home Journal declared in 1929, is today an adventure -- an education in color, in mechanics, in chemistry." <7> McCall's asserted "that no other task possessed such universal appeal." <8> Magazines directed themselves toward the glorification of homemaking in hopes of encouraging more women to stay home. The government passed laws to eliminate the woman worker from her job. "From 1932 to 1937 federal legislation prohibited more than one member of the same family from working in the civil service. Designed to combat nepotism, the law in fact discriminated almost exclusively against women, In nearly every state, bills were introduced to restrict the employment of married women, and at times whole cities embarked on crusades to fire working wives." <9> To evade these laws women lied about their marital status in order to attain jobs.

To reinforce the concern of society to get women out of the workplace, advertisements portrayed women at home, in the kitchen or with the children. Advertisements portraying men, on the other hand, placed men in the workplace. "He is working to improve your model," declares a 1935 Time magazine advertisement which pictures a man working upon an engine for General Motors which has not yet been perfected. In April of 1930 Time displays an advertisement for Western Electric which pictures "the MAN behind the iron mask," featuring a welder working on a switchboard frame. Other pictures in the same ad display men working to improve a telephone system. A Time advertisement of 1930 selling kitchen ventilators shows the "lady of the house" working hard on the evening meal while the food odors are being sucked out of the kitchen by her new ventilator. Another ad featured on the same page reads, "When the Watchman carries his Conscience," advertising an alarm clock which will wake the bread-winning man up in time for work. A life insurance advertisement pictures a mother at the door of the family home and two children running toward the reader who, it is assumed, is the father coming home from work to his wife (who does not work) and children. Finally, a Campbell's Soup advertisement pictured in Life during 1936 features a woman in a colonial log cabin setting, cooking soup over the fireplace preparing it for her man, who waits patiently at the table. All of these advertisements reflected the needs of the times. Women were being discouraged from the workplace in order that men may have jobs. The emphasis was on woman in the home (especially kitchen) taking care of the children while her husband is at work. This did not change until the 1940s when the United States entered World War II and women were needed in the workplace.

The late 1930s were filled with conflict as the United States watched the leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, gain control of Germany and begin to strengthen the country's military defenses in violation of the treaty of Versailles. The United States entered World War II when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. This brought about drastic changes in industry, but, "it was almost two years before the government took measures to strengthen national defense capabilities and employers began to respond to the increasing demand for war materials," <10> before the need for women in war-time industries was acknowledged. "By mid-1942 employers were willing to hire women in 70 percent of the anticipated semi-skilled positions and 63 percent of the professional and managerial openings." <11> This was due to the large media surge which began to portray women as being able to work at a man's job. "The war Manpower Commission sponsored local recruitment campaigns in areas of critical labor shortages and with the Office of War Information, launched national media appeals to draw women into the labor force." <12> Thus came the encouragement for not only single or lower class women to work but middle and upper class married women to join the workforce as well. "World War II further extended the vocational roles for middle class women. Not only were more women employed; but they were employed on jobs requiring a higher degree of technical skill and nearer approach to actual combat conditions in World War II." <13>

Advertisements would be both recruiting techniques as well as selling points. "The images of the war workers in advertising during much of the recruitment campaign had the central purpose of attracting women into fields drained by the enlistment of men and encouraging public acceptance of women in new roles. This was accomplished by demonstrating that women were capable of non-domestic work." <14>

Also developed was the war heroine campaign in which the working woman was the savior of the industry. "The Pennsylvania Rail Road informed readers that women were filling jobs that required strength and coolness and had proved that they can fill I these roles capably." <15> They re-introduced Molly Pitcher, a heroine of the American Revolution, who was now titled, "Molly Pitcher 1944." Pitcher was pictured as the woman who had multi-talented abilities when at her job. These women were portrayed in "the non-traditional jobs valiantly leading the nation to victory." <16> Always an important part to these campaigns was that the women could not only work, but they could also fulfill their needed tasks at home. The war women of the 1940s were no longer the homemakers of the 1930s.

The advertisements of this time featured these women in areas of the industrial world. "Great Girl, Mary Purdue! She's a championship parachute maker!" This is the heading for a Wheat Sparkies advertisement which pictures a young woman making parachutes. "Pay day is War Bond Day" announces a General Electric ad which pictures women on the assembly line as well as at home, enforcing the message that working women could handle the tasks of job and home. "His is to serve, Hers to Inspire --" announces a Coty ad reminding women, while attempting to sell them cosmetics, that men also need beautiful support in their effort toward the war. "We are the unseen," announces a Bell Telephone ad which tells of the courage of dedication of the unseen telephone operator whose long distance operation unites the country in the cry for victory.

Advertisements also pictured women in uniform (possibly members of the WAAC's -- Women's Army Auxiliary Corps -- who were highly advertised during this time) who were serving their county in the military. "They deliver more pleasure", says the Chesterfield Cigarette ad which pictures a woman in uniform on a motor cycle, presumably delivering cigarettes, destined for the boys on the front line. In another ad, Camel Cigarettes pictures a woman pilot of the Civil Air Patrol who "Has Got What it Takes." The ad features two small biographical notes about the two women pilots: both smoke Camels. These and other ads portray women as independent; advertisers begin featuring women driving alone in a car -- as opposed to ads of the 1930s which featured the entire family in the car. If women were to work, they must be independent and capable beings who were putting their best efforts toward the war. A Campbell's Soup advertisement of 1942 also portrayed the change of the times with a picture of a table laden with pie, salad, sandwiches and soup set around a note from mother who has rushed off to her first aid class in her own personal effort for the war. Advertisers changed with the times, attempting to recruit salaried women and volunteer women to join the war and help the allies win.

However, advertisers had never expected these women workers to want to stay with their jobs once the war was over. "Believing that wartime employment patterns for women were a temporary stopgap measure, necessary only while the men were gone, advertisers assumed war workers would either go home or seek jobs in female areas." <17> Not only were advertisers aware of the social concern that women were to return to their traditional role after the war, but "the selective service act of this war made it mandatory for employers to reemploy the returning soldier if there is any job at all for him, ejecting the employee hired since the soldier left in order to make room for him." <18> The fear was "that they (women) will not be willing to call it a good day's work and go home, when the war is over and Johnny comes back for his job." <19> Advertisers thus began a new push as 1944 dawned and peace drew near.

The campaign encouraged women to realize that their position was only temporary; once the war was over they would be needed full time at home. General Electric, for example, ran an ad in Ladies Home Journal during 1944 which portrayed a man and woman getting ready for work. He in a suit and she in overalls, the ad says, "His wife is doing the man-sized job at the war plant but -- How is she going to feel about going back to the same old house keeping routine after the war?" The advertisement was offering the latest in household equipment which would make her work in the home easier. Also, "the initial idea that working mothers could raise happy children was replaced by the tragic portraits of families breaking under the strain of mother being away." <20> An Adel Precision Products ad portrays a mother in overalls on her way to work being questioned by her daughter: "Mother, when will you stay home again?" The Answer: "some jubilant day mother will stay home again, doing the job she likes best - making a home for you and daddy." The heroines of the war world such as Molly Pitcher turned into the villains of advertisements as they are pictured in ads with "a factory worker having to plead before a judge for her son as she is labeled Victory Vandal and a hysterical girl is carted away to a foster home because her mother has to work -- all contrasted by ads showing mothers at home with their children playing happily nearby." <21>

More ads attempted to make the women feel guilt as well as fear of the possible loss of something precious if they did not give up their jobs. Advertisers focused on the family, which was seen as lost when husbands went to war and mothers went to work, and which now needed to be returned to its pre-war status. "Homemakers became the vital defenders of the nation's homes." <22> The advertising did influence many. "By VE day, about a million women production workers had left the nation's aircraft plants, shipyards, ammunition factories and other industries that produced so prodigiously for the war. " <23> Advertising was, of course, not the only reason women left the war industry; other factors influenced women's flight from industry. "The reabsorption of returning service men along with the indecision of some workers, both men and women, concerning their future plans. The lack of job opportunities commensurate with the skills and wages of displaced women and the desire by some displaced workers to take a rest before looking for jobs. Finally, the expected voluntary withdrawal of large numbers of women who were duration workers, all affected the status of women in industry." <24> The advertisers portrayed accurately what a large percentage of the women were doing. Yet, because many women did not want to stop working, it was necessary after the war that women be persuaded by advertisements portraying them in traditional roles and no longer pictured industry workers.

Advertisements began after the war to portray men in the factory and at the office. An Imperial whiskey ad shows men working at the loading dock and a corner caption of two men casually drinking-the men were home from the war and back in industry. Women are pictured in the traditional position at home. Campbell soup advertisements reflect this trend. A March 3, 1947 ad featured in Time shows a husband coming home from work and proclaiming, "Hiya Hon, I'm home from work and hungry!" The ad proceeds to detail the woman's happiness at having the convenience of Campbell's soup. Another ad in Life dated 1950 shows a mother, flanked by her two children, giving them soup for lunch. "Soup is a dandy children's lunch an all-the-family-lunch or when you lunch alone" (implying she is a homemaker who does not work). Other ads follow this same trend. Cannon Percale Sheets pictures a woman saying, "There's a trick up my frilly sleeve!" (no more overalls worn by these women). The wife then tells the reader how she tricks her husband into letting her buy Cannon Sheets. "I try so-o hard to be a good housekeeper, Cannon Sheets are so fine and light weight that bedmaking and washdays will be easier for me! And if I know Joe, he'll agree that such a smart wife deserves a new hat!"

In advertisements after World War II, gone were factory workers and war heroines; they were replaced by secretaries, nurses and homemakers. These were the traditional roles which women could fulfill. The Ralph C. Coxhead Corporation, which sells Vari typewriters, has a man saying, "Look! my secretary set the type for this ad!," as the secretary sitting behind him at her typewriter smiles. Another ad shows a distraught secretary on the phone saying, "Mr. Black could answer that but he's out of the office!," implying that she needs to buy the 3 steps book which will help organize her life. The nursing profession also is used to advertise working women. Coca-Cola portrays two nurses at a soda machine poised to buy two ice-cold Cokes in a Time ad of 1948. Another, shows a nurse advertising for Amurol, a toothpaste which will fight tooth decay. No longer are women factory workers, uniformed for service, they have become mothers, secretaries and nurses which portray the tranquility of the 1950s. This decade was to become the family years as men had come home from the war, expecting their women to be there poised and ready to greet them with a hearty meal on the table.

Advertising can shape the way we think and act. What did advertisers attempt to do during the years of the Great Depression through and beyond World War II? Advertisements attempted to influence society's attitude toward the role of women in the workplace and at home. Understanding that war advertisements shaped female behavior in the past; we are more aware of the influences of advertisements on women today, and on our own lives.

The portrayal of women's images in magazine advertisements: Goffman's gender analysis revisited

Advertising occupies a special position within the economic organization of a modern society, and it is not just an economic entity. Advertising deals with ideas, attitudes, and values, giving them "cultural form through its signifying practices" (Sinclair, 1987). Advertising as "signifying practices" gives meaning to words and images. Through this process, advertising diffuses its meanings into the belief systems of the society. As Schudson (1984) puts, the promotional culture of advertising has worked its way into "what we read, what we care about, the ways we raise our children, our ideas of right and wrong conduct, our attribution of significance to 'image' in both public and private life"

Advertising is a social practice, and it does not operate in a vacuum. According to Jhally (1987), the social role of advertising involves a number of interconnected relationships - "those between person and object, use and symbol, symbolism and power, and communication and satisfaction" (p. 22). Thus, advertising must be considered in light of cultural expectations. Rotzoll and Haefner (1996) argue that because of its cultural boundness, its complexity of forms and functions, and the difficulty in ascertaining its outcome, advertising is highly prone to disparate interpretations. As Hall (1997) illustrates, the concept of "shared meanings" places its emphasis on cultural practices. It is participants in a culture who give meaning to people, objects and events. Since things in themselves rarely have any single and fixed meaning, they need to be given meanings by participants of the culture. Hall (1997) suggests that members of the same culture must share sets of concepts, images and ideas which enable them to think and feel about the world, and thus to interpret the world in roughly similar ways. Advertising needs to be constructed and produced with this "shared meanings" as a part of it.

In studying advertising, special emphasis needs to be put on visual images as nonverbal symbols. As a socializing agent, the visual imagery provided by the media can have a powerful impact on our attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors, since it can contribute meanings and associations entirely apart and of much greater significance. The images conveyed by advertising have become so sophisticated and persuasive that they now organize our experiences and understanding in a significant way.

Modern advertising depends on images, and images are symbols which can convey meanings as efficiently as verbal symbols can. Like words, visual images also function as symbols that create multi-leveled meanings that have to be decoded to be understood. Visual images in advertising is especially important since, according to Bovee and Arens (1986), "most readers of advertisements (1) look at the illustration, (2) read the headline, and (3) read the body copy, in that order." (p. 47) Visual images, therefore, carry a great deal of responsibility for the message decoding in an advertisement.

A significant cultural and structural analysis of advertising is provided in Decoding Advertisements (1978) by Judith Williamson. She explains the ideological processes in advertising by which goods are given meaning. According to Williamson, advertising transforms the practical "use value" of projects into the symbolic "exchange value" of commodities. She calls this the "metastructure," "where meaning is not just 'decoded' within one structure, but transferred to create another" (p. 43). Her central point is that meaning is created through the audience, rather than meaning being directed at audiences. The exchange of meaning in the advertisement may depend upon the reader's cultural knowledge. Thus, Williamson emphasizes that it is the structure of the advertisement itself which "positions" the reader in a certain knowledge context.

According to Jhally (1987), there are stages to the constitution of meanings. One of the most important stages is that of "transferring" (p.130) the meaning of one sign to another. The transferrence requires the active participation of the viewer of the advertisement. Audiences do not just receive meaning from advertising, they constantly re-create it. Thus, Jhally (1987) argues that mass media advertising plays the role of a mediator. For the audience properly to 'decode' the message (transfer meaning", advertisers have to draw their materials from the social knowledge of the audience, then ransform this material into messages ('encode'), developing appropriate formats and shaping the content in order that the process of communication from audience to audience bo completed (Hall 1980).

Since advertising reaches millions of individuals daily, it has become targets for heavy scrutiny by researchers interested in the effects of the woman's movement on the media. Advertising has been accused of stereotyping images of women, and they have been targets of various studies. It has been established in previous research that advertising messages about women are often stereotypical (e.g., a woman's place is in the home, women do not make important decisions or do important things, women are dependent and need men's protection, and men regard women primarily as sexual objects). Advertisements have consistently confined women to traditional mother-, home-, or beauty/sex-oriented roles that are not representative of women's diversity.

Studies have shown that the image of women that has predominated in magazine advertisements is of weak, childish, dependent, domestic, irrational, subordinate creatures, the producers of children and little else compared with men. Lucy Komisar (1971) suggests the audience of advertising could never know the reality of women's lives by looking at advertising, since "A woman's place is not only in the home, according to most advertising copywriters and art directors; it is in the kitchen or the laundry room" (p.301). Komisar also refers to the image created by advertisers in 1960 as a combination sex object, wife, and mother who achieves fulfillment by looking beautiful for men. A woman is not depicted as intelligent, but submissive and subservient to men. If a woman has a job, it is as a secretary or an airline hostess.

Courtney and Lockeretz (1979) examined images of women in magazine advertisements. They reported the following findings:

- Women were rarely shown in out-of-home working roles.

- Not many women were shown as a professional or high-level business person.

- Women rarely ventured far from home by themselves or with other women.

- Women were shown as dependent on men's protection.

- Men were shown regarding women as sex objects or as domestic adjuncts.

-               Females were most often shown in ads for cleaning products, food products, beauty products, drugs, clothing, and home appliances.

- Males were most often shown in ads for cars, travel, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, banks, industrial products, entertainment media, and industrial companies (p. 92-95).

Among the stereotypes typically employed in advertising by the media are the ideas that women do unimportant things and a woman's place is in the home. The nature and development of these role stereotypes appears to be a function of cultural norms and socialization. Sullivan & O'Connor (1988) found that there has been a 60% increase in advertisements in which women are portrayed in purely decorative roles. They also claimed that the woman's role in advertising is sexy and alluring. Kilbourne (1986) found that exposure to advertisements employing stereotypical sex roles for women resulted in significantly lower perceptions of women's managerial abilities than exposure to advertisements depicting women in professional type roles requiring such abilities.

A prominent researcher who believed that gender relations are socially define and constructed is Erring Goffman. He believed that advertisements are in fact very strange creations, particularly as regards their portrayals of gender relations, and illustrated that the best way to understand the male-fe~ male relation is to compare it to the parent-child relation in which men take on the roles of parents while women behave as children normally would be expected to. In 1979, Goffman conducted a provocative analysis of visual images in print advertisements, and he contends that carefully posed models and carefully selected settings of advertisements create "a pseudo-reality that is better than real" (p. 23). He illuminated how advertising functions to display our notions of gender roles, making use of visual meanings. Goffman's analysis of nearly 400 advertisements makes it clear that gender differences in function and status not only carry over from the real world to the advertisement world but may find their purest expression there.

Women’s Images in Magazine Advertisements: How Far Have They Come?

Advertising was named “the worst offender in perpetuating the image of women as sex symbols and an inferior class of human being” by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (The Naked Truth 2). Advertisements, Elizabeth Barrette said, display women who have no resemblance to the majority of females; they have perfect skin, legs and hair, as well as flat stomachs. “I’ll tell you what: I don’t think most of those bodies even look lived-in” (Barrette 2001). Women have traditionally been depicted in magazine advertisements in ways that demean their importance, value, and intelligence. This practice affects the assumptions made about women and how they are treated in society.

When males constantly view images of women in certain roles, specifically as traditional housewives, they characterize them as possessing low intelligence, analytical ability, and rationality. They then generalize these characteristics to all women, which devalues women’s importance in society, notably the business world. This was an important finding in William Kilbourne’s 1990 article on his study of sex role stereotyping in advertisements and its potential impact on perceptions of women’s managerial attributes. Managerial attributes are necessary for business success; however, many women are not seen as possessing these because they are so often portrayed as housewives. Printed advertisements were studied because earlier research showed they have traditionally and frequently used sex role stereotyping (Kilbourne 25).

Undergraduate students, 103 males and 70 females, viewed images of females in either a housewife or professional role. The women in the professional roles were rated higher on their managerial attributes (“aggressive,” “likes complex tasks,” “leader, “has analytical ability,” and “rational”) by male and female subjects, which would be expected (Kilbourne 26, 29). Then, they were shown a non-role female, who was about 25 years old (Kilbourne 28).

The female subjects evaluations of the non-role female were not affected by the role portrayed in the advertisements. The males that had viewed women in professional roles evaluated the non-role female significantly higher than the males that had viewed women in housewife roles (Kilbourne 31). These findings are noteworthy because “substantial evidence exists which suggests that sex role stereotyping of women is an inhibiting factor in their assumption of managerial roles” (Kilbourne 25). Kilbourne concluded that advertisers should not use sex stereotypes, which could contribute to sex discrimination particularly in the workplace, because of their negative influence upon men’s perception of women’s managerial abilities (31). Since men control much of society, especially professional areas, it is key that they regard women as equally worthy and capable. Kilbourne’s study demonstrated what many earlier studies also concluded: women are not perceived as having positive attributes, such as intelligence and authority, largely due to women’s consistently unfavorable portrayal in advertisements.

Alice E. Courtney and Sarah Wernick Lockeretz noticed these “very limited and negative stereotypes of women in advertising” and conducted a study of gender stereotypes in 1970 magazine advertisements (Courtney and Lockeretz 92). The results found four main stereotypes that the advertisements portrayed, which are significant in themselves but even more so when viewed in light of Kilbourne’s study because of their restrictive effects on women. The stereotypes were: “A woman’s place is in the home,” “Women do not make important decisions or do important things,” “Women are dependent and need men’s protection,” and “Men regard women primarily as sexual objects; they are not interested in women as people” (Courtney and Lockeretz 94-95). From Kilbourne’s study, it is known that seeing these negative images, as well as the negative characteristics associated with them, can cause men to think that these portrayals truly represent women as a whole. When men view advertisements that signify that women do not make important decisions, they can internalize that they are not smart or capable enough to do so in real life. Moreover, when women are seen as sexual objects, they are treated as such in society, without regards to their many valuable attributes.

Findings of the study showed that women were seldom depicted in any working roles. Only 12% of workers in the magazine advertisements were women, although U.S. women comprise about 33% of full-time workers. Forty-five percent of the men were depicted in working roles, while 9% of the women were in these roles. More than half of the women in working roles were entertainers. There were no women in advertisements that fell into the occupational category of “professional” or “high-level business executive.” The working women shown were in roles traditionally acceptable for women, such as clerks, stewardesses, and teachers (Courtney and Lockeretz 93). Although there were not great numbers of women in high-level business positions in 1970, there were obviously some. By not showing the increasingly diverse occupations, and even that many women are employed at all, advertisements served only to perpetuate the stereotypical roles and occupations women were traditionally limited to.

This study by Courtney and Lockeretz showed that women were not often depicted in roles of power and intelligence but much more frequently in the role of homemaker (94). Women were not depicted in business roles, which demonstrate both power and intelligence. They were also not shown as capable of making expensive purchases, which appears to say that they do not have the intelligence or authority to make these decisions (Courtney and Lockeretz 93). Based on their findings, Courtney and Lockeretz’s were concerned about women’s intelligence and personality as reflected in advertising images and suggested that this be analyzed more in greater detail (95).

M. Venkatesan and Jean Losco conducted their own study of women in magazine ads from 1959 to 1971, in which they too recognized a need for more accurate portrayals of women that show their positive attributes and changing roles in society. “. . . the media have tended to project a severely limited view of women which is not reflective of the changes taking place in their lives” (Venkatesan and Losco 49). Venkatesan and Losco included a quote from Jules Henry in their article, which proves women’s importance to advertising and the consequences of this.

Without the pecuniary uses of women – their hair, their faces, their legs and all the wondrous variety of their personality and anatomy – the economy would perish [ . . .] But along with this monetization, along with this power to lure the economy to unimagined heights, woman has been degraded, Henry said (Venkatesan and Losco 49) .

The “woman as dependent on man” category remained relatively stable and prevalent throughout all the years studied, especially in men’s magazines (Venkatesan and Losco 51, 53).

In men’s and general magazines, “woman as sexual object” was the most frequently represented category (53%, 65%). Only 12% of advertisements in women’s magazines were in this category (Venkatesan and Losco 52). By showing women as simply a sexual object, women are devalued as human beings and valued only for their appearances. “Whenever advertisers reduce women to objects or dehumanize them, they engage in the act of publicly celebrating violence against women” (Lont 157).

“Woman as dependent on man” was the next most represented category for men’s magazines (48%), as well as general (27%) but only 14% of advertisements in women’s magazines were classified as this (Venkatesan and Losco 52). Women portrayed as housewives in women’s magazines decreased dramatically from 22.5% to 9.5% throughout the years studied. Advertisement depicting “women as physically beautiful” increased in both men’s and women’s magazines (Venkatesan and Losco 53).

The study showed that some demeaning portrayals of women are decreasing, such as “woman as sexual object,” but that these changes are primarily in women’s magazines only (Venkatesan and Losco 54). The three most frequently represented categories, “Woman as sexual object,” “woman as physically beautiful,” and “woman as dependent on man,” all show that women are valued greatly for their appearances but not all for their intellect or aptitude.

An analysis of 1983 magazine advertisements showed that women’s portrayals, in some ways, were becoming more positive and reflective of their improving status in society. Gary L. Sullivan and P.J. O’Connor updated Courtney and Lockeretz’s 1970 study, finding that women were making large gains toward being represented in professional and business roles (Sullivan and O’Connor 184), thereby lessening the impact of the stereotype, “Women do not make important decisions or do important things.” Women in 1983 were being depicting in roles as business executives, professionals, and midlevel managers, as well as salespeople (Sullivan and O’Connor 187). These positions reflect attributes of intelligence, power, and authority, making it very important that women are portrayed in these roles. The more society sees women in these positions of authority, it will increasingly attach these positive and valued characteristics to women, who are not often viewed in this manner.

From 1970 to 1981, female engineering enrollments increased tenfold, the number of female judges and lawyers 377%, women doctors 84%, and female bank officers and financial managers 256% (Sullivan and O’Connor 182).

Of the women shown in working roles, those in “professional” (15%) and “midlevel business” (33%) roles were found more frequently than expected (Sullivan and O’Connor 186). This is a drastic improvement for the “professional” category, which had zero women portrayed in this role in both 1958 and 1970 advertisements. The “midlevel business” category also had a steep increase, from 6% and 8% in 1958 and 1979 to 33% by 1983 (Sullivan and O’Connor 184).

Another unexpected finding of the researchers was that, of the women depicted in nonworking activities in advertisements, women in “decorative” roles (promoting products) increased greatly. Forty-eight percent of nonworking women were portrayed in “decorative” roles in 1958, falling to 31% in 1970 but then climbing to 60% in 1983 (Sullivan and O’Connor 184, 186).

Women were also portrayed in the 1983 advertisements in less submissive roles or postures. “Many ads depicted an image of independence for women” (Sullivan and O’Connor 187-188). The men “were not overseeing the activities of women,” but more often the people were shown as equals, which was a positive finding (Sullivan and O’Connor 188). This result signifies that women were beginning to be seen as more competent and able in their own right.

Tara L. Mclaughlin’s study of gender advertisements in 1996 noted that the frequent gender-role stereotypes in advertisements serve as socialization agents, since they “appear to represent all members of society, due to the fact that they are broadcast publicly” (Mclaughlin 1). This is essentially the conclusion Kilbourne reached in Advertisements “define social expectations and they also serve to educate the viewer as to acceptable versus unacceptable behaviors” (Mclaughlin 1). Due to this fact, if women are portrayed in a demeaning manner, society will treat them in this manner because it seems to be acceptable. This is often the case, as women are raped, beaten, and looked down upon because of their gender.

Mclaughlin’s study included advertisement analyses for Cosmopolitan, Us, and People (targeted to Whites), as well as Essence and Ebony (targeted to blacks) and used the categories from Erving Goffman’s 1976 study (Mclaughlin 4). The categories were used to determine what types of advertisements would be marketed toward black and white women (Mclaughlin 3). Due to previous research, it was hypothesized that “feminine touch” and “ritualization of subordination” would appear more often in the white-oriented magazines. “Feminine touch” meant that the model’s fingers or hands were caressing or holding an object, and “ritualization of subordination” included images of women lying down or in a cowering or submissive position (Mclaughlin 4-5).

Results showed that the magazines targeted to whites did have a much greater percentage of advertisements in the “ritualization of subordination” category (35.43%) than the magazines targeted to blacks (14.91%). The amount of advertisements in the “feminine touch” category was also higher in the magazines aimed at whites, although it was observed so infrequently that this was difference was deemed insignificant (Mclaughlin 5-8).

The subordination of women is still a prevalent image in magazine advertising, as the study found (Mclaughlin 6). This is very problematic for women because when they are constantly exposed to demeaning representations in advertisements, women themselves can experience “socially induced depression and lowered achievement aspirations” (Mclaughlin 7). “…This depression may be a chronic state,” as this trend of subordination has appeared consistently throughout the last 20 years (Mclaughlin 7).

A positive category that emerged from Mclaughlin’s study, but that was not analyzed, was full facial images of women in advertisements. In many of the advertisements classified as “other,” the women were “looking directly at the viewer, head and neck elevated with eyes focused straight ahead” (Mclaughlin 8).

I found this emerging theme of full facial portrayals fascinating, especially considering that there were also high percentages of women in images of subordination. As a result, I decided to analyze various images of submission and this more positive image that seems to be appearing in current magazine advertisements. I based some of my categories on Goffman’s (from Mclaughlin’s study) and also included a category to deal with sex role stereotyping, since it has been so consistently prevalent and is simply another way of stripping women of their power.

I chose my first category, size, because it is a widespread assumption that virtually all women portrayed by the media are thin. I wanted to see if this indeed true; one hopes that other sizes are increasingly represented since society is becoming more accepting of changes. The average woman is 5 feet, 4 inches, weighing 144 pounds. This is not the image that is often marketed to society, which has resulted in $30 billion of annual revenue for the diet industry (Lont 152). Mclaughlin’s study found many images of women in submissive positions (Goffman’s category of “ritualization of subordination”) so I included this category in my study, although I expect to find few instances of this, based on my personal magazine reading experiences in the past. I think that is an image that is becoming less prevalent in magazine advertisements because I do not recall seeing many. (Only advertisements in which the woman’s whole body could be seen were coded.)

I also decided to look for full facial images of women because it was an encouraging emerging theme in the 1996 advertisements. Facial images with something blocking the face were analyzed because I had never noticed this in magazines, but after reading Jean Kilbourne’s comments on this, I was intrigued by the implications of it. Advertisers, she said, “are also selling the idea that women should be silent” (Can’t Buy My Love 3), which had never occurred to me. I also chose to study images where women’s were closed or averted simply because I had recently noticed this in various magazines and to me, it shows complete deference and submission. Dismemberment is a category in the study because it is such a demeaning and objectifying portrayal of women, which I, optimistically, hypothesize to be a decreasing image in advertisements. It perpetuates “the concept that a woman’s body is not connected to her mind and emotions” (Dines and Humez 123).

Women depicted in business roles are a category because it has been so rarely portrayed in the past. The latest study I looked at that dealt with this image was of 1983 magazine advertisements. In these, images of women in business roles were increasing but were still depicted disproportionately as housewives. In my study, I expect to find that women in business roles are prevalent in the magazine advertisements. Finally, I chose to study images of woman in advertisements that function simply as a testament of beauty because this was very frequently represented in Venkatesan and Losco’s study. I think that this category will also be well represented in magazine advertisements today because of the many products women are pressured to buy to stay young and beautiful.

My hypothesis is that full facial images, eyes closed or averted, and women in business roles will be the most frequently represented categories, while images of women in submissive positions will be the least represented.

Categories:

1. Size: This is a subjective category of females as either thin, average, or plus-

size. I want to see if indeed there are significant numbers of advertisements showing unattainable (for many women) figures.

2. Submissive positions: The female is cowering, canting (contorted in unusual positions), or clowning. This is a direct representation of how females are often characterized as meek, powerless, weak, submissive, and silly.

3. Full facial images: The female is looking directly at the viewer with her head and eyes focused straight ahead.

4. Facial images in which something is blocking part, or all, of the face: The female’s hand is covering her mouth, her hair is falling over her face or eyes, or she is holding an object that obstructs her image.

5. Eyes cast down, away, or closed: This is another representation of females as submissive and passive.

6. Dismemberment: Images where only one part of a female’s body is featured.

7. Business roles: The female, by her clothes, actions, or setting, appears in a business or working role.

8. Physically beautiful: The female portrayed is illustrating her beauty, as a result of cosmetic products.

I analyzed three magazines: People, Good Housekeeping, and Seventeen. The September 2002 issues were used in all three magazines because September is synonymous with “back-to-school,” which often means an increase in product advertisements because people are buying many new items. In addition to the September issues, I also analyzed the most current issue available of each magazine. For Seventeen and Good Housekeeping, this was the November 2002 issue and for People (a weekly magazine) it was October 21, 2002. The magazines were chosen because each one has a different primary audience. People is read by both males and females, adults and teen-agers. I also chose People because it was in the Mclaughlin study that found the emergence of full facial images, which is one of my categories.

I chose Good Housekeeping because I saw an advertisement where woman, wearing lots of make-up, had a tissue covering part of her mouth. I was looking at my mother’s copy after I had read an article about images in which a woman’s mouth was covered by something in a symbolic attempt to silence her (Can’t Buy Me Love 3). This surprised me that such an image would be right there in a magazine for women. From this sight, I decided to create that as a category and also analyze Good Housekeeping. It was also chosen because it is widely read by many adult women. Finally, I analyzed Seventeen because of its large teen-age girl audience. I want to see if magazines with different primary audiences treat females’ images differently. I categorized only advertisements for products or television shows that only portrayed women, alone or in groups (no males were present). As a result, numbers and percentages of images in certain categories are out of the number of advertisements analyzed in that particular magazine, not out of the total advertisements in a magazine. For example, this means that out of all advertisements in People showing only women, this percentage were in this category.

See Figures 1, 2, and 3. (Percentages do not necessarily add to exactly 100 because they were rounded to the nearest whole number to facilitate easy comprehension.)

My analysis found that the category of full facial images was the most frequently represented in all three magazines; its images made up 21% of the advertisements analyzed in People, 28% in Good Housekeeping, and 32% in Seventeen. Products commonly featured in full facial images were: make-up, moisturizers, face wash, bras, jeans, perfume, hair coloring products, nutritional supplements, and shoes.

The second most frequently represented category, in People (16%) and Good Housekeeping (16%), was images of eyes cast down, away, or closed. Products often illustrated here were: shampoos, body washes, clothes, and underwear. In People, women as physically beautiful made up 16% of the advertisements analyzed. The advertisements for women as physically beautiful were almost all for make-up, shampoo, and conditioner.

In Seventeen, the second most represented category was thin women (16%). There were 25 thin women pictured, 13 average, and zero plus-size women. In Good Housekeeping, however, there were more average women (14%) pictured than thin (10%), although only one plus-size woman. People had equal depiction of thin and average women but no plus-size women.

It was indeed true that full facial images were the most frequently depicted images in all three magazines, and eyes closed or averted was the second most frequently portrayed image in People and Good Housekeeping. To a great extent, my hypothesis about these two categories proved correct; from my study, Mclaughlin seems to be correct in speculating that full facial images are an emerging theme in magazine advertisements.

I was wrong in my hypothesis about images of women in business roles; there were virtually none in all three magazines analyzed. People and Good Housekeeping each had one, while Seventeen had zero.

Images of women in submissive positions were rarely shown but they were not always the least represented category, which I thought would be true. People had zero images in this category, but Good Housekeeping had one and Seventeen had four. Good Housekeeping’s advertisement showed a woman contorted with her back arched backwards, with her hands touching the backs of her ankles. This was a Tylenol PM advertisement and she appeared to be in some sort of Yoga pose. In Seventeen, the advertisements in this category were for Reebok, Skintimate shaving gel, Jovan White Musk perfume, and a Jansport backpack. The Jansport advertisement was the strangest of all of these; a girl was pictured wearing a backless shirt with her arms shielding her head and face. In one shot, she was not even wearing the backpack. She appears to be dancing around in her backpack in the other shot. This is an example of how such advertisements make the woman appear as if she is cowering from something violent, and here, she also looks rather silly (dancing around in her book bag, looking as if she’s not even wearing a shirt) – an indication of clowning. This image was in the September issue of Seventeen, obviously directed toward girls’ back-to-school shopping for backpacks.

Facial images in which something was blocking the face was another category that was well represented in both Seventeen (13%) and People (14%). Here, in shampoo advertisements, women often had hair over their face. Other images would black-out certain parts of the woman’s face and feature only certain areas, such as in make-up or face wash advertisements.

The analysis of the three 2002 magazines led me to conclude that although they have different primary audiences, their representations of women are extremely similar in appearance and frequency. Seventeen, aimed at teen-age girls, has a slightly higher percentage of full facial images but also has a slightly higher percentage of thin women than People and Good Housekeeping. The full facial images are positive, especially for teen-age girl audiences to view. They are at an impressionable age, and these images project intelligence and alertness, which has traditionally not been depicted for women. Women’s bodies and their body parts are more often than their faces in advertising, though the opposite is true for men. This is very significant because “facial views are perceived by the viewer as projecting intelligence and ambition while body views are not” (Mclaughlin 2). This “. . . may lead to a disparity with regard to the degree of intelligence that these images project with men being perceived more favorably than women” (Mclaughlin 2).

The fact that Seventeen also shows more thin women than the other magazines (People, aimed at all adults and Good Housekeeping, at adult women) is unfortunate but expected. Young girls are increasingly getting the idea that they must be skinny and that skinny is the only size that is beautiful. Magazines, especially the ones made for them, reinforce this idea constantly.

The images in the magazines analyzed reflect the fact that women’s status in society is changing and some negative portrayals are diminishing, though some clearly remain. The past studies that I looked at found many images of women in submissive positions to be very prevalent, while my study found very few cases of such (Sullivan and O’Connor, Mclaughlin). Moreover, many magazine advertisements analyzed in past studies depicted women as sexual objects (Venkatesan and Losco). One way of portraying this idea is by dismembering women’s body parts; showing only pieces of them. These images in my study represented a very small percentage of the magazine advertisements that I analyzed. This is a very good sign because dismembering causes people to view women in pieces, not as a whole, complete person. When they are viewed as pieces, this leads to objectification. “Convicted rapists have been known to justify their rapes because their victims didn’t seem human to them – they were just objects” (Lont 154).

The high percentage of full facial images of women is a positive step in portraying women in a direct, less submissive manner. A negative depiction of women that was relatively prevalent is the “eyes cast down, away, or closed,” which does portray the woman as quiet and submissive. Also, the fact that there were virtually no women in business roles is very unrepresentative of today’s society. Certainly, women are becoming more positively portrayed in magazine advertisements, but there are still great improvements to be made in the many negative images that remain, as they in turn reinforce negative stereotypes. This is important to recognize because while the full facial images depict women as alert and intelligent, the negative images (dismemberment, few women in business roles, eyes closed or looking away) depict women as passive and unimportant. From Kilbourne’s study, it is thought that viewing women in certain ways will affect how men characterize and treat them (31). Therefore, in order for women to be treated equally with men, it is necessary to continue erasing these demeaning images of women.

If I conducted this study again, I would also analyze magazine advertisements where women were depicted in a housewife role. I did not notice any of these images when I was analyzing my magazines, but it would be interesting to compare these to the very few images of women in business roles. This category of women in housewife roles would include women shown doing housework and those in advertisements with children (depicting motherly roles). It is my opinion that magazines are just not showing women in either of these roles very frequently. I noticed that even advertisements that are for cleaning supplies show men using them in addition to women, which seems to be a big step in at least trying to improve existing stereotypes. My study showed that women are not being portrayed in business roles, but I think that in the magazines I analyzed, women are not portrayed often as housewives either.

There were two advertisements that stood out more than all the others I analyzed, one of which I found extremely demeaning and shocking. Full facial images are much more positive portrayals of women because they can depict assertiveness and alertness; however, one full facial image was particularly offensive and I was shocked to see it. There was a Lily of France bra advertisement in the Oct. 21 issue of People (38) that shows a woman lying down with her stomach and chest exposed. She, of course, is wearing the featured bra. In small type across the bottom of the advertisement the copy says, “Turn a ticket into a warning,” implying that if a woman is wearing this wonderful push-up bra, all she has to do is pull up her shirt. The policeman will be so pleased with her voluptuous breasts that he will not give her a ticket. This advertisement shows that even such positive portrayals as full facial images can also be used in demeaning and humiliating ways.

The second advertisement that attracted my attention was for Oneida silverware also in the Oct. 21 issue of People (98) that I categorized the woman as “thin,” but I was also struck by its odd portrayal of this woman. The woman was clearly depicted to bring the image of a witch to mind. She was dressed in tight, black clothing and wearing black, pointy high-heeled shoes and was riding on a silver fork. The backdrop behind her is dark blue, nighttime skies, with a full moon in the corner. She is very beautiful, but it is very clear that she supposed to resemble a witch. I did not see any depictions of women in this role in any of the other advertisements I analyzed. It seemed to be very unusual and would be interesting to investigate to see if perhaps this is an image found in other current magazine advertisements, or if perhaps the advertisers were just playing off the fact that Halloween is in October; either way, it was a very strange depiction.

There were two categories that I analyzed that I found to be disturbing and worrisome – facial images in which something is blocking the face and eyes cast down, away, or closed. The fact that these are relatively commonly portrayed is alarming to me because they are both images that show women as easily controllable. They are both very subtle ways of diminishing women’s authority and power. The woman is so weak and passive that she cannot look straight at the camera or show her whole face. These are not blatantly sexist; I had never noticed these images before I conducted my study. Here in lies the problem; many other women probably do not see them on a conscious level either. However, everyone, men and women alike, are internalizing these to some extent on a subconscious level, which can then affect thoughts about women, as well as how they are treated.

Before I conducted my study on women’s images in magazine advertisements, I often looked at advertisements for the products but never at the women in them. The study has given me a newfound interest in this area and I constantly look for the types of advertisements that I analyzed. I think that this realization that negative images are out there is the first step to eradicating the problem. Many women, just as I, may not realize that there are so many degrading and demeaning images in magazine advertisements. I think that making women aware – telling and teaching them about the subject – is the most important move in getting such images removed all together from advertisements. Jessica Norling, in an article written for young girls, said:

But what stands out most in my memory are the images of girls and women. They looked flawless and perfect. I wanted to look just like the models. I compared myself constantly to these images. These images made me believe that if I could only look just like the models, my life would be perfect – I’d be popular, rich, and beautiful (1).

Not only do magazine advertisements often portray women’s beauty as their sole valuable characteristic to men, throwing intelligence and worth aside, but these images also harm women themselves. They cause women to focus intensely on how to remain beautiful at all points in their life, often making them feel as if this is the only thing men care about in them. “All too often, the woman depicted in ads and commercials is a lifeless mannequin, a fantasy unattainable by most of the billions of women in the world” (Lont 123). Magazine advertisements must continue to be monitored and improved to better men’s thoughts and treatment of women, but just as importantly, to better women’s images of themselves as valuable, intelligent people without any need of altering their bodies.

PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN WITHIN THE UK ’S MEDIA

A deadly malaise exists in the UK wherein the portrayal of women as sexual commodities, whose bodies can be exploited, ridiculed and degraded for hegemonic male sexual pleasure, is perceived as “light hearted” or “humorous.” The question has to be asked, for whom is this exploitation aimed at? Why are men’s bodies not routinely displayed in sexually submissive positions for women’s pleasure?

Censorship has supposedly ceased in the UK but in reality it still exists, but is directed at any woman or man who dares to criticise the increasing sexualised use of women’s bodies within the media, print and advertising industries. Women criticising the industry are accused of feminist essentialism, man-hating or adhering to out-dated ‘political correctness.’ There are also claims such critics are humourless, prudes, anti-sex, have no sense of humour etc. However, this is a clever ploy used to deflect attention away from the increasing devaluation and reduction of all women to purely sexual objects and the interlinking connection as to why here in the UK the numbers of reported rapes have trebled in the past decade. Why convictions for rape now stand at less than 6% and also why less than 20% rapes are reported to the police.

Accusations such as the above, seek to ignore the reality that sexualised images of women are used to subordinate, eroticise their own submission and maintain unequal gender power dynamics. (Leidholdt & Raymond 1990: 152).

Rather than the media reflecting society, it is increasingly promoting a sexist and misogynistic view of women as a group. Portraying women in advertising posters as sexualised objects of male pleasure and in sexually submissive positions reinforce the fallacy, women’s sole role is to fulfil the needs and sexual demands of men. (Kilbourne 1999: 289). Likewise portraying young girls as sexualised images contributes to misogyny and the belief women are inferior to men and thus deserve to be dominated and controlled by men. (Kilbourne 1999: 289).

Within the last few years a proliferation of “men’s magazines” have arisen. Hardly a week goes by without a new one being published. However, all these magazines have the same tired stereotyping of women as sexualised objects, to be ridiculed and reduced to body parts for men’s pleasure and gratification. Men too, are stereotypically portrayed in these magazines as only interested in football, computer games, sexually abusing women, sending in sexually explicit images of supposed girlfriends and/or partners, rating women’s sexual organs and most importantly boasting of supposedly having huge penises and questionable sexual expertise. Alarmingly, a new range of men’s magazines have been introduced into the market which are published weekly and only cost approximately £0.60 to purchase. Given the low cost, they are attracting a younger male teenage audience.

Contrary to the widespread view that such magazines are “harmless” or “light-hearted,” there is in fact a continuum between sexual abuse, interpersonal partner abuse and the way in which women are still perceived in our male-dominant culture. Teenage boys reading such misogynistic magazines learn as Lundy Barncroft succinctly states in his book “Why Does He Do That?” that women are perceived as inferior, unworthy of respect and valued only as sex objects for men. Men’s magazines such as FHM and Loaded are in fact more hard-core than Playboy magazine.

With easy access to the internet, research has shown that one in four teenage boys has experienced exposure to unwanted sexual material. Plus numerous pornographic sites have images and stories claiming that male sexual abuse and rape of women and girls is sexy, erotic and humorous. The majority of music videos portray women as though they exist for men to sexually abuse. All these images reinforce the belief it is acceptable for men to abuse women sexually and physically. That within heterosexual relationships, the woman belongs to the man, and he is free to disrespect, disregard her wishes, verbally abuse, use physical and or sexual violence in order to maintain power and control. In fact, most abusive men feel they are the ones being denied their rights and entitlement, which is logical and rational given the fact our culture constantly reinforces the message women are devalued, do not deserve respect or equality and all are inferior to men as a group. (Bancroft 2002: 330). It is not surprising therefore that domestic violence or rather intimate male violence towards women is widespread in the UK and 1 in 5 young men and 1 in 10 young women believe violence against women is acceptable. (Fawcett Women & The Criminal Justice System 2004).

Yet we are supposedly living in a post-feminist era. Nothing could be further from the truth. Within the media and in particular the advertising industry, degrading and exploitative sexual images of women have been ‘normalised’ in order to sell products. It is a well-known fact that sex sells, but only women are reduced to sexual objects. The media still refuses to accept women like men do in fact lead diverse lives. Instead there is an increasing proliferation of naked, young, thin, white depilated women with small waists and large breasts, who are always photographed in various suggestive sexually submissive positions. Lesbian sexuality too has been co-opted and used to reinforce hegemonic heterosexism. It is always from the male fantasy standpoint which arrogantly presumes women will not be sexually satisfied until a ‘real’ heterosexual man arrives. (Kilbourne 1999: 260). Kevin Powell a black cultural critic in his book “Keepin’ It Real” writes how he too has been influenced by the ways in which the media portrays white and black women as sexual commodities, who are always sexually available for men’s use. Powell also writes about the huge influence pop culture, including hip-hop has on promoting misogny, hatred of both black and white women and internalised sexism. (Powell 1997: 130-138).

As Prof. Liz Kelly, of The Woman & Child Abuse Unit, London Metropolitan University , said when I spoke to her earlier this year, “This is what happens when we take our eyes off the ball.” Post-feminism presumes that women have achieved all the rights they demanded and are now enjoying the benefits. Feminism itself has been twisted to mean something which women must be liberated from, in order to explore endless possibilities of sexual desire, which is linked to consumption and sexuality. As such, mainstreaming pornography as ways of exploring new ideas, in reality perpetuates images of female sexual subordination and exploitation. (Whelehan 2000: 85-86). Andre Lorde stated in 1979 “The Master’s Tools will never dismantle the Master’s House” and is still relevant today. (Lorde 1984: 110).

If women have supposedly gained equality with men, then why are not men’s bodies routinely degraded, insulted and reduced to submissive body parts? Why are there no posters showing a group of fully clothed women surrounding a submissive totally naked man who is exposing his flaccid penis and being threatened with rape? Surely such an image would be “light hearted” and “humorous.” However, in reality, here in the UK men’s bodies are protected by law and cannot be displayed or used in advertising totally naked, the penis must always be coyly hidden.

Yet women’s bodies can be flagrantly displayed with their vulvas shaved for men’s voyeurism and purchase. This is not post-feminism but censorship wherein male bodies are protected by male-defined laws. In this way, the power of the penis is upheld, by denying public access and viewing. If penises were openly displayed in advertising etc. the illusion of phallic power would dissolve, with the reality that penises can be small, skinny, crooked, fat, or even semi-erect and very exposed, not intimidating but in fact just pieces of dangling flesh between a man’s legs. (Nelson 1994: 244). If women were to become the ‘looker’ rather than the man, she becomes the subject and he is reduced to a sexual object and is therefore feminised. Only men are entitled to sexually objectify a naked woman’s body. (Nelson 1994: 244). Irrespective of the fact research has shown many women in fact do enjoy looking at pictures of totally naked men. (Lancaster 2003: 133). Since women are supposedly equal to men why are not pornographers producing images of a man being pack raped by a group of women using a broomstick and smiling as he ejaculates or having a wire inserted into his penile opening since it must be pleasurable for him. Why have not pornographers saturated the market with these kinds of images in order to match what they have done to women. Surely this proves pornography and sexual exploitation is discriminatory.

Because the context would not be perceived as one of domination. Given the reality that women as a group do not have equal power and rights as men, stereotypes and prejudices have different meanings. Men are not perceived as the property of women rather it is the reverse, women’s bodies are the property of men, and as such they have the right and are entitled to leer, comment on, touch and even rape, since men still retain both economic and social power over women as a group. (Kilbourne 2000). Degrading and sexist advertisements reinforce this gender inequality and the media is in effect claiming male power over women is normal and natural. What about her is arousing and even whether she intends to arouse is also designated by the male …..His feelings become hers, his desire her desirability…his disdain, her degradation his ridicule her humiliation. (Johnson 1987: 55-6 quoted in Thomas & Kitzinger 1997).

Numerous magazines, newspaper tabloids and advertising all portray images of naked women in various sexually submissive and degrading poses. Feminism and the concept that women have as a right, sexual autonomy and human rights are irrelevant, instead these images reinforce heterosexism, sexism and the belief women are the sexual property of men. (Kilbourne 1999: 287).

The UK has a supposedly independent advisory body called The Advertising Standards Authority which is responsibility for ensuring print advertising does not “cause widespread offence” or “offence to a minority.” However, the Advertising Standards Authority is funded by the advertising industry and therefore cannot be completely objective. The above terms of reference are vague and make no allusion to gender inequality or sexism. As such, when complaints are made by individuals in respect of sexist and degrading portrayals of women’s bodies, the ASA primarily rejects these complaints by claiming such advertisements are “light-hearted” and/or “inoffensive to many people.” One wonders who are these “many people.” Are they white, middle-class males perhaps? Unfortunately given the remit of the ASA, individuals cannot demand a fuller explanation or clarification of ASA decisions. (Women & Media Portrayal 2003 unpublished).

Exploiting, degrading and insulting women is apparently acceptable, but racism and homophobia are not. Laws have been passed wherein inciting racial hatred is illegal. Similarly inciting acts of homophobia are also illegal. I believe it is no coincidence that race and sexual orientation also apply to men as a group. Racist or homophobic hatred is primarily perceived as directed at men, since men are obviously represented within these groups. Yet reducing women to sexualised degrading objects is judged not offensive or promoting woman-hatred, despite the fact women are represented in all ethnicities and cultures.

Within the Civil Rights Movement in America , black women who were equally active within the Movement, were told their rights would have to take second place, since black men’s rights had priority. (Rosen: 2000 109-110). So, too with Gay & Lesbian Rights, lesbian women’s rights were and still are perceived as secondary to homosexual men’s. (Rosen: 2000 166).

A draft Directive for Implementing The Principle of Equality Between Women and Men was announced by the European Commission in 2000  The proposed legislation stated that hatred solely on the grounds of sex should be no more acceptable than racial hatred and as such sexist insults and degrading images of women within the media are attacks upon their freedom of action and expression. The influence of the media was recognised in that it is not gender neutral but in fact has social consequences which impinge on all aspects of women’s lives, which can reinforce and justify male violence against women. However, a concerted campaign opposing this Directive is being waged by the media and insurance industries which have resulted in no decision at present being taken by the Commission.

An excellent example of rampant sexism and double standards within the media is the case wherein a women’s organisation was refused the right to display a poster on various commercial sites. The reason given by both ASA and also the owners of the Billboard sites was the poster was degrading and offensive to women! Poppy is a woman’s organisation which seeks to help women escaping trafficking and sexual exploitation within the UK , by providing accommodation and services. This organisation wished to publicise the ever-increasing trafficking of women into the UK so they could be raped and sexually abused by men seeking sexual servicing. The poster was not sexually explicit, instead it showed a box with the face of a young woman as the contents. The wording along the top section of the cardboard box said “Here’s Faduma.” On the bottom section of the box are the words “She’ll do what you want! She has to – she’s trapped! Take advantage of her now! The box is placed on a bed and adjacent to the box is a pair of men’s trousers. The strapline says “Stop The Traffick.” No woman was portrayed naked and in a sexually submissive position. The meaning was explicit, women are trafficked because men as a group believe it is their right and entitlement to purchase women’s bodies for sexual gratification. Hence the poster could not be displayed.

Yet a poster displayed on London ’s Underground was deemed acceptable. This portrayed a minor female celebrity on all fours in an animalistic pose, implying anal sexual intercourse. Her breasts were prominently displayed and she was dressed in miniscule clothing.

Two other recent advertisements too have ridiculed female sexuality and promoted sexual abuse. One advertisement in the magazine Mountain Bike Rider featured the photograph of a mountain bike. The caption stated the bicycle like women enjoys being spanked, abused and having marathon ‘riding’ sessions etc. The advertisers claimed mountain bike riding was male-dominated and as such the advertisement would be appropriate to their readers. The advertisers also argued the sexual innuendo in their advertising was in keeping with the range of Cove Mountain Bikes being sold, since various bicycle models are called “Stiffie,” “G-Spot,” “handjob,” “Playmate” and “Hooker.” The Cove brochure states “The G-Spot is hard to find” and “This one gives you a good licking” in reference to the G-Spot model and “the bonus is you only have to pay once for a lifetime of loving” referring to the Hooker model. Although these advertisements trivialised and degraded female sexuality it was judged “light hearted and humorous” by ASA. (london3rdwave 26-8-04 ). Given the advertisers logic and reasoning, does this mean it is acceptable for certain magazines which are aimed say at white groups can include racist advertising and it is apparently acceptable for women’s magazines to carry advertisements showing men in sexually submissive positions and trivialising their penises. I think not.

As long as women continue to be perceived as sex objects, they will not threaten the unequal power structure. Naked women lack power and by retaining popular images of women as naked or near naked so women’s socio-economic inequality is maintained. (Nelson 1999: 99). Any woman defined by men as not sexy loses the popular culture’s praise but gains the power to be herself. This explains in part why lesbian hatred is so prevalent, since such women do not conform to the male idea of appropriate feminine behaviour. (Nelson 1999: 99).

The print industry and its self-regulating body, The Press Complaints Commission too, does not have any guidelines in relation to gender inequality and sexism. Hence the increasing use of graphic sexual images of young women in the down market tabloid press cannot be challenged. (Women & The Media unpublished).

The pressure group Object has been set up in order to challenge the increasing mainstreaming of the sexualisation and cynical exploitation of women of all ethnicities and sexual orientation for profit within the media and advertising industries.

Nisar calls for respectful portrayal of women in print media

Jonaid Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: There is a need to sensitise the society and ensure respectful portrayal of women in the media in deference to equal rights available to men and women, remarked Information Minister Nisar Memon.

He was speaking at the launching ceremony of a study on monitoring and sensitization of the print media on portrayal of women here on Thursday.

The study, entitled: Changing Images is a compilation of quantitative and qualitative analysis of women-related stories published in the print media of the country. The study has been conducted by Uks, a research, resource and publication centre of women and media.

It throws light on whether women are treated with consideration or given derogatory coverage. The project was conducted between September 2000 and August 2001.

The minister said he was shocked that women, who constituted half the country's population should be subjected to ridicule and promised to issue appropriate instructions to the print and electronic media, to withhold publication of names of women who have been victims of rape and other indignities, violence and harassment.

Women activist forums should come forward in halting the heinous crime of Karo Kari and save women from this oppressive custom prevalent in Sindh. He blamed the film and cable industries for vending obscene, and indecent programmes and vowed to talk to the two industries to adopt correct attitude.

He said fashion, cosmetic and glamour industries were equally projecting women as objects of desire. He was willing to stop releasing advertisements to publications which treated women unfairly but he would not do so for fear of being blamed of unfair advantage.

He suggested that more women should contest on general seats now that the government had ensured 60 seats for women so that women's cause would get further support at the national level. He also asked Uks to produce a weekly women's programme to correct imbalance in the portrayal of women on the state television.

Director Uks, Ms Tasneem Ahmar referred to the difficulties of her associates while monitoring newspapers and magazines published in English and Urdu regularly for eight months.

According to her the national press used disparaging words while describing women lowering their dignity. As a corrective measure the print media was requested to adhere to a code of ethics while working on women related news and stories.

She announced annual rewards for those correspondents who would accord respect and fair treatment to women in their news reports. The award would be given from the current year, 2002.

Editor of The Nation, Ms Ayesha Haroon congratulated Ms Ahmar and her associates on the publication of the study. While going through it, she discovered, that news agencies and staff reporters were the main source of women related stories and advertisements and advertising provided copious information about the female gender.

She was surprised that women's problems were rarely mentioned in editorials and there was hardly any rural based reporting of women affairs. 'Women mostly featured in show business publications as well as on city pages and magazines.'

Talking about this aspect, assistant secretary general, PFUJ, Ms Fauzia Shahid said the trend of featuring women in city pages and portrayal of women in fashion magazines was initiated in an era when press was subjected to pre-censorship and newspaper circulation had declined significantly. This measure was resorted to by owners to increase readership and circulation.

She said as a journalist, she was often horrified at the language used while reporting on women. She had tried to enforce a Code of Ethics on journalists which was written in the Article 12 of PFUJ regulations.

An activist Ms Tahira Abdullah commended Ms Ahmar on producing a significant document. This could be prescribed as a reading material for courses in mass communication.

She lamented that only towns and cities were covered while writing the report and the women population in the rural areas were neglected. She recommended that proper justification should be provided for selection of newspaper and periodicals to be monitored for this purpose in the coming years.

Women and the media: dignity and decency? Equality

‘Advertising continues to promote stereotypical, negative and degrading images of women to sell products and services’

In June this year Anna Diamantopoulou, the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, forwarded draft proposals on a wide range of gender issues for consultation by other departments within the European Commission. Among other things, the proposals, while recognising that freedom of expression must be respected, called for measures against stereotyping and images affecting human dignity and decency in the media and advertisements.

The impetus behind Diamantopoulou’s moves came out of the United Nations Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995, which identified ‘the rapidly expanding media and mass communication industry as a “critical area for concern”, and one which must be urgently tackled if we are to move forward in achieving gender equality.’

The UN Platform called on governments and international organisations to research this area to identify areas for action. A study commissioned by Diamantopoulou found that although increasing numbers of women within the EU are employed in media-related jobs, only a minority are in decision-making roles. In addition, fewer women appear on television than men and when they do they are less likely to be portrayed as in paid employment and are often represented as victims of violence ‘In other words,’ says Diamantopoulou, ‘they all too often appear as being powerless or weak. And where women are portrayed as successful at work, this is often at the expense of domestic failure . . . Advertising, in particular, continues to promote stereotypical, inaccurate, negative and often degrading images of women in order to sell products and services.’

The news of these moves received a mixed reception in the UK press, ranging from straight reporting to outrage over threatened encroachments against the racier aspects of British culture. Warnings that ‘Big Sister is Watching You’ prompted world-weary sighs – from a woman journalist – that here was yet another ‘neo-prude’ coming along to spoil our fun and ‘telling us to put them away.’ In The Observer, journalist Joan Smith remarked that the measures belonged to the last century when there was plenty for feminists to complain about as far as the media portrayal of women was concerned. These days, however, she believed women are more likely to be concerned about unequal opportunities and pay in the workplace, as well as issues such as inadequate childcare provisions, than worrying about being seen as sexual objects.

Within the EU some officials were said to be strongly opposed to the proposals, which also envisaged measures that would force insurance companies to stop using gender as the basis for calculating insurance premiums or pension annuity rates.

Shifting responses

This range of responses very much reflects the often contradictory views on this issue, as well as the complexity of the issues at stake. In some quarters the view is held that things have moved on since the 1970s and 1980s, that today’s twentysomething women – and for that matter older women – are much more confident about their sexuality and are happy to show off their bodies. Therefore what is considered unacceptable or offensive in advertising has shifted, and continues to shift.

A number of commentators, including for example Australian media academic Catharine Lumby, argue that to regulate against overtly sexual media depictions of women is to cast them as victims at a time when women, in the West at least, have infiltrated the seats of power and are able to influence the agenda. They argue that in Australia (and the US), to call for censorship is to play into the hands of extreme Right religious groups who, given half the chance, would remove a host of women’s rights, including abortion. This is less of a concern in Europe where there isn’t a particularly powerful conservative religious lobby.

Another argument, and one which has been used on a number of occasions by advertising monitoring groups to counter complaints from the public, is that some of the advertisements that are considered demeaning to women are actually created by women. Certainly, plenty of magazine editors are women who could, in theory, veto fashion shoots that showed models in sexually provocative or offensive ways.

Yet there is no doubt that featuring scantily clad women in provocative poses is thought to boost sales. A couple of years ago when I was working on a classical music magazine, instructions came in from high via a (female) publisher to the (male) editor that he should feature more young sexy (female) musicians for this very purpose. The question whether women and men may be allowing the expediencies of commerce and job security to take priority over questions of conscience is an important one. Anna Diamantopoulou believes the only way attitudes can change is if more women shatter the glass ceiling within the mass media industry. ‘Studies have shown . . . that real changes in media content only become clear when women reach the top ranks in the industry. And even then, we know they face a tough challenge in changing orthodox professional, institutional and commercial practices,’ she says.

What little research does exist points to unease on the part of the public about the way in which women are portrayed in the media. A study conducted by the The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), in 1998 found that 71 per cent of people were offended by the way that women were portrayed as sex objects in advertisements, and 65 per cent were offended by the extent to which women are portrayed as needing to look slim and stereotypically attractive.

A more realistic body shape

There is also concern from the medical profession. In May 2000 the British Medical Association published a report linking the use of ‘abnormally thin’ women in the media to the rise in the number of people (in particular girls and women) suffering from eating disorders. ‘The gap between the ideal body shape and the reality is wider than ever. There is a need for a more realistic body shape to be shown on television and in fashion magazines.’ (Statistics on the number of young women suffering from anorexia and bulimia vary greatly: up to 20 per cent could suffer from bulimia and between 0.5 per cent and 7 per cent from anorexia, with the condition most prevalent among dancers, models and students of physical education.) The report found too that girls are dieting at an increasingly early age and those who dieted were more likely to suffer from an eating disorder. Other studies show that eating disorders are also on the rise in the US, Japan and other parts of Europe including the Soviet Union.

Diamantopoulou is in no doubt about the damage being caused by media: ‘We cannot underestimate the power of modern, mass media to shape the mentality, attitudes and behaviour of the whole of our society,’ she has commented. Nevertheless feedback to her proposals called into question whether there would be a basis in EU law for extending anti-discriminatory measures to cover the media portrayal of women. ‘ . . . it is not clear whether the EU has the power to act against this [i.e., the portrayal of women in the media] under the treaty of Rome’s anti-discrimination clauses . . . Perhaps it is time to consider a voluntary, EU-wide code for advertising and the media, in consultation with member states and business.’

The response from some quarters to this suggestion was that we already have a perfectly good regulatory system in place here in the UK. One sceptic is Andrew Puddephatt of Article 19 (The Global Campaign for Free Expression): ‘The way in which the media is regulated as far as taste and decency are concerned is adequate at the moment. I’m not sure if additional controls could be justified,’ he argues.

However, within the UK there is no body that oversees the complaints about issues such as the portrayal of women in print media, aside from advertisements. The Press Complaints Commission is concerned with helping individuals who may have been unfairly treated by the press. The ASA, the UK advertising industry’s self-regulatory body, adjudicates on complaints made by the public about adverts in print media. Last year out of a total of 14,000 complaints it received a relatively small amount of 1000 (about seven per cent) related to the depiction of women. The highest number of complaints (almost 80 per cent of all complaints) related to misleading statements.

The ASA states that its twelve-member council ‘makes their decisions about subjective issues like the portrayal of women and men using all the evidence available – while using common sense and making a judgement that they believe is in tune with the public’s mood.’ Yet two well known examples highlight just how subjective and slippery it is to decide whether an ad causes offence or not.

After receiving 972 complaints against posters for the YSLOpium advertisement which showed a reclining woman, her right breast exposed and her lips parted (see Eye no. 48 vol.12), in 2001 the ASA took the view that ‘the advertisement was sexually suggestive and likely to cause serious or widespread offence. It told the advertisers to withdraw it immediately.’

In July of this year, however, the same body ruled that an advertisement on posters and in the press for the airline EasyJet, which showed a woman’s cleavage with the caption ‘Discover weapons of mass distraction’ (which attracted 186 complaints, some on the grounds that  it was offensive and demeaning to women) ‘was light-hearted and humorous’ and concluded that it was ‘unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.’ It is not clear why the Opium advertisements are considered offensive whereas the EasyJet ones aren’t. The latter decision has provoked anger, and accusations that the authority is inconsistent and its reasoning is biased and lacking in transparency.

Freedom of speech

The way forward is not clear. Perhaps, in line with Diamantopoulou’s    suggestions, now is a good time to examine existing voluntary mechanisms and consider extending them to cover other areas of print media. Setting down rigid criteria up front regarding what is and is not acceptable, however, is neither enforceable nor desirable.

‘You can’t restrict everything through banning it,’ believes Andrew Puddephat. ‘This is where campaigning comes in. Campaigning can change public perception not banning. If you give the power to ban, someone has to administer it. This will be a lawyer or government department. They’re not always the best people to ban things.’

While it is vital for the public to have access to fair and effective complaints mechanisms, we as editors, photographers, designers and advertising people need to be more sensitive to the messages coming from the doctors and complainants. And as readers and consumers we must not forget that an essential part of our right to freedom of speech is that we are at liberty to protest if we find items objectionable and offensive.