In today's world, it is true that there cannot be very good marketing without advertisement. Advertisement is to serve the purpose of looking out for the needs of society, manufacture the needs, and bringing these needs to the door-step of people.
Unfortunately, I was very shocked at an advertisement I saw which made my limbs to fall, and I got ashamed that I'm a woman. One beautiful day when I was off from work and on school break, I decided to relax and enjoy the break from the busy hustings of school and work. I then took some magazines to read and see what was going on in the other parts of the world. But to my greater amazement, I was very surprised when I saw an advertisement of a hand purse, sitting on the legs of a woman in high heel shoes. I suddenly got a head-ache and I asked myself ; 'HAVE A WOMAN'S BODY BECOME AN OBJECT"?
Indeed, even though advertisement is to provide buyers with value for the things we need and buy, I found it difficult to agree that there is any value in that. I wonder if any woman will agree with me. All the same I may not be right with my feelings. As we are all made differently, I would not be surprised if other women are rather attracted to this advertisement. Oh!, how I wish other women will understand me, see what I see , and feel what I feel. I believe all these contribute to the fact that some men do not respect women and treat their wives as pieces of object.
Patricia Nartey.
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I can understand you being appalled by the objectification of women. However, to play devil's advocate, advertisements are made in order to sell a product. And as shameful as it may be, sex sells. Therefore things like purses, make-up, even chocolate have an air of sex and seduction. The funny thing is,all of these products are for womwn and it's these seductive commercials and advertisements that appeal to women. For example, I'm not sure if anyone has seen the Dove chocolate commercials but they are dripping w/seduction. It features a beautiful women in almost no clothes but draped w/ brown silk, the walls were draped w/ silk and everything was oozing sexy. I don't support the objectification of women but I would be lying if I said that that commercial didn't want to go out and but some Dove chocolate.
ReplyDeleteOk- so I really shouldn't try and write these things while trying to entertain my 1 year old son lol. I re-read the last part of my response and I sound ignorant. What I meant to say was that the commercial advertising Dove chocolate does a very good job of making you want to go out and buy some.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, for the longest time a woman was meant to be a property that can be acquired and traded in many cultures (atleast in my culture). Successful men were allowed to marry as long as they were able to afford the dowry to the parents or the clan that the bride to be comes from. From then on the bride/wife belonged to the family of the bridegroom. So she was physically uprooted from her home so she can go live with another family she barely knows.
ReplyDeleteRemember she has no choice in all of this matter. I know this for a fact because this is still practiced to some degree in my Muslim/Ethiopian culture.
So to see a woman being treated as an object now a days does not shock me at all. Its a thing that started a long long time ago. Its looking like a weird situation now because a percentage of the women population are not taking that crap anymore, and are doing something about it such as speaking out in public. On the other hand some women are enjoying playing the role of objectification because it provides power and status and source of income.
My stand on this situation is to be opportunistic. Make things work for you without having to compromise your principle.
Don't forget even with all the positive changes and improvement for women, it's still a man's world.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you on this topic, further more, I feel you. Advertising, a form of communication is intended to persuade listeners, viewers, and readers to take some action. Unfortunately, advertisements also portray sexism, gender discrimination, and feminism. Most advertisements portray women as sex objects. One cannot turn on the television, open a magazine or walk down a public street without being bombarded with images of seductive women being used to sell anything from bottled water to luxury cars.
ReplyDeleteMy question is how do these women feel when being used as objects. I think one thing is for sure, some women like the attention, some do for it for the money, and some just like looking and feeling sexy. My conclusion, this is a personal preference. Personally I wouldn't want to be used as an object.
was reading this article about this issue and I was really shocked to see all the research has found about women’s body image problems. The most worrying finding of the review is that the effect appears to be growing. The researchers' analysis reveals that, on average, studies conducted in the 2000s show a larger influence of the media on women's body image than do those from the 1990s. "This suggests that despite all our efforts to teach women and girls to be savvy about the media and have healthy body practices, the media's effect on how much they internalize the thin ideal is getting stronger," this is really ridicules idea. And the results are troubling because recent research has established body dissatisfaction as a major risk factor for low self-esteem, depression, obesity, and eating disorders, such as bulimia. At the same time, women's displeasure with their bodies has become so common that it's now considered normal, I think we need to consider how we're using media images as a culture to share the values we think are important, and the effect that has on our well-being. It is very important that the issue lies not with our attraction to images of beauty or with women's desire to emulate them, but with what we've come to define as beautiful: bodies that are unnaturally and unhealthily thin. I want to stress that it's totally normal for women to want to be attractive .But what's happening in our society is that many women are striving toward something that's not very realistic or obtainable, and that leads to a lot of health consequences
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