Women and the Advertising Age

Media advertizing is one of the greatest means of selling a product as it continuously influences the culture we live in today. In killing Us Softly, the message of speaker Jean Kibourne is very clear. She reviewed how and whether the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years. Nowadays we live in a society where women are considered and viewed as objects rather than subjects. Women’s bodies are regarded as things and in most ads parts of that thing is what is most focused on.

Another thing that advertizing brings is the idea of sexism and physical perfection. Nowadays we have computers that allow us access to high scale of technology, one gets a handful on creating the ideal perfect female that is flawless and has no lines or wrinkles anywhere. One can easily Photoshop and airbrush any picture and make perfection. But with every benefit comes a great deal of drawback. On the one hand, one has created and is showing the perfect and ideal beauty of a woman or who and how a woman should be while it degrades more than the majority of women who do not look like that ad. Not only it leads female to low self esteem but it creates a generation of female that will do anything to look like that computer made physical perfection and that can generate from plastic surgery to buying useless products. Another thing that it ultimately creates is the idea that if you are not looking as perfect as the woman on that ad, chances are you just not trying hard enough and that not only challenges them to want to take the extra step as they loose sensations by becoming an object of someone else’s pleasure but it raises questions on the minds of men about the real woman they are with. Another interesting aspect of the advertising Age that is mentioned several times in killing us softly is the fact that these sexist advertisements is that they create an arena for racism and labeling women of color as animals, which automatically dehumanizes them. In some cases they are literally shown dressed in animal prints and leopard skinned clothing.

To better explain this I chose to show this picture of supermodel Naomi Campbell that was taken by photographer Jean-Paul Goude in 2008.

http://fashionbombdaily.com/2009/08/13/caged-black-women-grace-jones-amber-rose/

Clearly in this picture, one can understand what Kibourne was explaining when it comes to making women other than humans but more specifically dehumanization of women of color who are far removed from white and therefore closer to the supposed animals their ancestors roamed with, and that is the Africans in Africa before slavery.

sources: http://fashionbombdaily.com/2009/08/13/caged-black-women-grace-jones-amber-rose/