Advertising

Gender Stereotypes in Advertising Essay Introduction

An advert can be described as a public notice with the aim of conveying information and inviting some response. It normally plays two purposes, namely informing and persuading. Advertisement targets every aspect of our lives and its influence can be positive or negative. Most of the modern day advertisements focus on ideal female beauty (Hodgson 1). It is very difficult to find the advert that does not contain a female nude photo. The information conveyed by such an advert is not only marketing the product but it has other influences on our society.

Gender Stereotypes in Advertising Essay Body Paragraphs

One of the ideas communicated by this photo is that females are weaker than males. The lady in the photo seems to have fainted as a result of thirst. The cure of her thirst is the soda being advertised and this is a primary message of this advertisement. The key objective of this advert is to market the soda as well as to create a competitive advantage over other brands. However, the advert conveys a lot of information that does not concern the marketing role. The society is directly influenced by the images contained in an advert. For instance, this advert contains a nude lady exposing ideal beauty.

Such an advert affects many of the societal issues such as identity, culture, gender violence and sexism. Another idea which is conveyed by this advert is patriarchy. The two men in the photo are given more privilege than the lady. The lady is portrayed as a weak human being who needs help from the men. Male’s rule and prevalence is very clear in the photo.

Objectification is also depicted in the advert whereby the lady is portrayed as a weak and at the same time as a sexual object. Here, the lady is being treated as a thing by showing her nude body to the public in the name of advertising. Objectification is very destructive and can lead to adverse psychological effects such as hopelessness and depression (Hodgson 3). This will definitely create negative self-images in women due to the fact that their capabilities are not acknowledged in the society. Objectification of women contributes to teenage girls’ feelings as they approach womanhood. Teenage girls in most cases develop feelings like fear, disgust and shame because men start to view them as sexual objects (3).

A key reason why young ladies are subjected to objectification is the belief that their appearance can help them achieve respect, power and wealth (4). Having this in mind, they are easily susceptible to objectification because all human beings strive to acquire wealth, respect and power. Since ladies are made believe they can acquire the three through their appearance, they cannot run away from objectification and men will take advantage of that.

Adverts are misleading and manipulative by nature. They perpetuate harmful implications concerning ideal beauty in spite of giving sound evidence of their damaging effects to the society (Hoffmann 5). Advertising includes trafficking in destructive and distorted ideals of femininity. Messages and images which are used in advertisements normally reinforce unhealthy and unrealistic beauty perceptions, sexuality and perfection (Hoffmann 5).

Exposure to ideal beauty has injurious psychological effects on young people. Some of these effects include eating disorder, lowered self-esteem, steroid use and distorted body images. Young people develop these psychological disorders trying to achieve the ideal beauty they normally view in the adverts, yet it is practically not possible. Ideal bodies in the adverts make young ladies be obsessed over their physical appearance with an intention of becoming a successful celebrity or model one day. This causes young ladies engage in cosmetic surgeries which sometimes have devastating results.

Gender Stereotypes in Advertising Essay Conclusion

In conclusion, advertisements have both positive and negative influences on the society. Something needs to be done to reduce the risk of exposing the innocent young people to the negative effects of advertisement such as objectification, ideal beauty etc. Before an advert is released to the public, it should be scrutinized, so that features having negative influence on the public can be eliminated