How women are portrayed in advertisements - Zehra Kale

In this report I will be discussing and analysing how women are portrayed in the advertisements, this report will include the positive and negative sides which are used whilst using women in advertisements and the affects which the advertisements have on the public, women especially.

      

The first point which I will be discussing is the actual women used in advertisements, a study shows that around 20 years ago that the average model used on television advertisements were 8% lighter in weight than the average women, that figure has turned for the worse as today the average model weighs a large 26% less than the average woman and models today weigh less than 95% of the whole population of women in the UK. This research shows that thinner more attractive women are being used in an advertisement which is for the pure purpose of that beautiful people lure customers more than an average looking average sized person. The advertisements which use thinner models are creating the concept that this is how the average women look like which is wrong as there are many issues which this leads to such as the viewers having eating disorders as they aim to look like the models on the advertisements. Even in advertisements which portray the average person’s life style such as Hovis’s adverts which have women making cereal for her child they are not creating a realistic event as not every woman looks like a supermodel, it would be much more realistic if the mother in the advertisement was an average woman as the viewers would be able to relate more with the advert.

The advert above shows a mother in the background whilst her child is eating cereal, this advert fills the stereotype of a stay at home mother, there to give her child breakfast, this is the standard role of a female which even a large brand such as coco pops could not see past, rather than exploring the routes of having a male parent in the advert they went with the easy route of expressing the stereotype of the female being the stay at home mum. I am not making reference to the fact that women should not be stay at home mums but that advertisements should touch on the subject that, women being stay at home mums is not always the case. Being the 21^st century I do believe that it is safe to say that the number of working mothers has increased since the 20^th century, which is why I believe that the advertisements should also follow and match the current situation that the country is in. Which is that not every woman is a stay at home mum and there is many women with excellent careers in the current society.

The advert above is of a woman surprised by the change in bottle lid, the bottle of the lid has changed so it is easier to open, if the expression on the woman’s face was not bad enough the caption on the image which states “you mean a woman can open it..?” is a pure reference to the hierarchy of where women are thought to be in society, women are portrayed as being weak and vulnerable highlighting that women need men to assist them, even with opening a bottle lid, the change of bottle lid is not a step of the right direction for women to be able to do life’s struggles, but shows that the most basic of objects have to be simplified to be able to be operated by women, women are constantly being undermined and this advert does not justice to how far women have came in society, women have been able to come as far as being able to vote and be a member of parliament, this advertisement is an insult to all women as in this day and age sexism is not socially accepted and adverts like the one above should not be even produced let alone put out for all the public to see.

Another advertisement from the well known airline Ryanair caused controversy as they used a picture from their charity calendar made by their cabin crew as an advertisement promoting their cheap one way flights and the play on words included red hot fairs and crew, which indicates that as little as £9.99 you can get a one way flight as well as their attractive cabin crew, not only are they objectify their cabin crew they are also almost offering their employees up for sale, the image they used from their charity calendar unsurprisingly was of a female with barely any clothes on, the fact of the matter is that they knew that using a female would attract more custom rather than using a male in the same scenario. Looking into this deep enough shows that Ryanair believe that a majority of those who use their airline are men, which is why they used a female in the advertising campaign, almost indicating that men are most likely to have enough disposable income to be booking flights, which goes as far as saying that women’s careers do not produce as much income as men’s does.

Another advert I looked at is a Tom Ford advertisement for fragrance for men in 2007. 

Tom Ford adverts were best known for their controversy and caused a lot of media discussion and attention. The advert which I will be discussing was in a list of top ten controversial and most scandalous adverts listed of all time.
This is an image of a woman's groin with the after shave bottle on top of it. The fact that this is a woman and not a man just proves that woman are objectified and used as sex objects as the term sex sells is used throughout controversial advertisements as it unfortunately does work.
If the after shave was placed on top of a male rather than the female, this would maybe discourage most of the population of straight men as this would only appeal to the homosexual male audience. 
The woman's body has been placed in a very provocative manor with one of her hands showing, oiled up, tanned skin, almost the look which the image gives are one which would be expected after a sexual encounter causing the female to have a sweaty look to her, the colour of her nails are also red which symbolise sex and passion, fire and danger, which is exactly what the advertisement is.
Next to the image is the man Tom Ford himself, lying down giving off a large amount of sex appeal with a woman's hand caressing his chest, looking at both images, they do not reveal the woman's identity, which gives the statement of that she is not relevant, the only relevance of her being in the advert is of the message her body parts represent, her body parts symbolise sex, mystery and how irrelevant women are to society as this advertisement highlight how women are only worthy of one thing.

The above advertisement is one which is made by Dolce & Gabbana which shows one woman who looks pinned down by a man which there is also three other men around her, the hold which the man has over the woman looks very forceful and the woman looks very restricted, this advert symbolises a very sexual encounter and the woman in the advertisement have became like an object which looks like she is going to be reused by the other men who seem to be waiting for their turn, the woman looks like a piece of meat and the men look like animals who have captured their prey, the advertisement doesn’t look anything like an advertisement showing off the clothes which are supposed to be advertised, but more like a picture of a gang rape, this advertisement is one of a very a abusive nature, the picture looks very controlling and overpowering by the men in the picture.

In summary of all of the pictures which have been spoken about the images are all very controversial which all symbolise where men want women to be in society, children raising, no opinion and sex objects, women have always been dealt a difficult hand which has not been improved over the years, the sexier women have got in advertisements the worse off it has become, the more of sex objects they have became. Women are portrayed in many different ways in the media, advertisements and general coverage; they types of ways they are portrayed are as followed: sex objects, irrelevant to the society, stay at home mums, children raisers and a piece of meat. The affect which this has on women are inevitable, advertisements as such lead to eating disorders and self abuse as they cannot live up to the standards of the models used in the adverts. Unfortunately the producers of the adverts do not look to the future for the long term affects but more for now, the money they will make and how much attention they will receive in the media.