Sex and Young Girls In Kilbourne’s “Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt” she speaks extensively about how advertising could have many underlying and shocking meanings when analyzed closer. Some factors that Kilbourne speaks of in her essay allow us to look deeper into the hidden concepts of advertising and show a world of suggestive sex and abuse. Many of the ads allowed us take a closer look at how woman are portrayed as objects to sell a product. I believe that many of underlying factors influence our young girls. Many of the ads today give an image that in order to be happy and satisfied in life you have to be sexual or look sexy to get ahead.
Taylor McConnell Gayle March English 110 10/23/2013 Cause/Effect Essay Negative Effects Media has on Body Image on Teenage Girls In any form of popular media, you can find advertisements about weight loss, pictures of “beautiful” women, and various forms of beauty enhancing products. "The average person in the United States sees approximately 3,000 ads in magazines, billboards, and television every day" (Meadwell). On a daily basis, teenage girls are comparing their selves to the women in the magazines, on the TV, and in movies. What many of them do not realize is that media’s view of the ideal body image is unrealistic. The constant bombarding from media can have a wide variety of negative effects on how teenage girls view themselves.
I know how we always want the next new makeup or hair product that’s going to make s look like the model in the commercial. Women can’t just run to the store in sweat pants because they value their appurtenance too much. Women don’t feel as confident when they don’t look nice, but men don’t really care either way. In the reading, “Do thin Models Warp Girls Body Image?” I agree with Nancy when she says thin models on the runway or on TV can cause very young girls to become anorexic or bulimic. Nancy says, “Girls are being bombarded with the message that they need to be super-skinny to be sexy.” (Hellmich 706) I believe that is very true when she says that but what young girls don’t realize is that you could be beautiful and sexy with any body type that you might have.
This is an example of how our society associates thinness with beauty and adds all kind of negative connections to being overweight. The standards applied to Britney Spears and other celebrities come from our social constructions of what it means to be beautiful. As a society we decide what is positive and what is negative, and what is meaningful and valuable to us, and thus we construct reality. These sets of values are filtered into our everyday life and affect us when we interact with others, read a magazine, and even when we browse the Internet. These images have a very strong effect on teenage girls because they are at a stage where they are trying to develop their sense of self and personal identity.
This really bothered me for many reasons. One of the biggest issues that I had with this program and major element of the photo business is the effect it has on young girls, especially girls aged 9-15. This is a very critical age for girls because, during this time, puberty happens. During this time, more girls will stop doing what they love because they are self-conscious about their bodies enough without the help of the fashion industry. It isn’t fair for a girl to open a magazine and think that the images they see are how they should look.
A study published in the Journal of Communication found that high school girls as young as thirteen are affected by the media’s portrayal of ultra-thin models and celebrities. The article goes on to say if children grow up and see thin women in advertisements, on television, and in film, they accept this as reality despite evidence in the ‘real word’. This is called the cultivation theory. Ultra thin women depicted in the media are constantly influencing American female youth who are most prone to developing eating disorders as a result of repeated exposure to such images. This article is saying the reason for the increase in eating disorders is directly related to the
Females between the ages of 16 and 26 make up approximately 24 million women as of today (Population clock). This “chick” age bracket represent the group of people that popular media outlets market to that often feature women with bodies that are unattainable for the average woman. These media outlets also focus on what women can do to acquire and please men. The self-esteem of these young girls are also eroding due to the various forms of marketing and advertising tactics they employ because sexy sells. The many celebrities like Miley Cyrus and magazines who all try to portray their idea of a woman, alter and distort their perception of womanhood.
One-third of young US girls, about 820,000, become pregnant before they turn 20 (80% are unmarried) and 4 million American teens contract an STD each year. (Teen Sex- Do Abstinence Only Programs Discourage Teen Sex? Web) With these statistics, it is apparent that teens are not making wise decisions regarding their own health and well-being. Nothing is more serious and personal than your health, and teens don’t seem to be able to grasp the gravity of the situation. Teens are bombarded with sex education, and yet have the highest STD rates in the country.
Dehumanizing Women in Advertising Advertisements are put in place to entice the consumer into spending their money on something more often than not, useless. Whether it is a new vacation spot or a cashmere sweater at an over-priced department store, the object of the campaign is to appeal to the general population. When researchers analyzed techniques in advertising, they found a significant pattern that parallels an overwhelming phenomenon around the world; the objectification of women. Although it is not as obvious as the pornography industry, advertising uses women as a mere display case for the product, over-highlighting the physical attributes that appeal to men. In a perfume ad released by Calvin Klein recently, a young woman was posed nude on a couch, seducing the camera, and the perfume bottle was tucked away nearly out the frame.
This teaches women that they need to constantly dote on the man, whether he pays attention or not. The companies designing these ads are using women as a tool in order to empower the advertisement to engage the consumer’s attention and to sell more products. The woman's image is being degraded because sex appeal in advertising is showing her that she is nothing more than an item, who needs the product in the ad to seem more beautiful and important to the man. This is totally wrong; they only are going to have