Many Advertisements Are Sexist

Here in lies the rub—we are being subconsciously enticed to buy products by companies who believe that it is okay to use women’s bodies in a sexual way to make their brand cool, hip and sexy. And not only are men buying into these products because they are identifying with the product or brand, because the sexist ‘propaganda’ echoes their own perceptions about women, women’s roles, and the proper image a woman should have, but women are too. Often women don’t realise their sexual appeal is being exploited by the company to their detriment in society and to the company’s financial benefit.

You may be wondering how this fits in with the ‘Wellington/New Zealand’ context. Sexist advertising and the sexualisation of women’s bodies in advertisements is extremely common now. The images accompanying this article are some examples that the Muse [magazine] team photographed on billboards simply walking around Wellington one afternoon. The images mostly promote dance parties or music events, and the one I found most offensive was the “Fire Ho’s” which used the play on words ‘ho’ (short for “whore”) and “hose,” i.e. fire hose. The image depicts a woman dressed in a skimpy firefighter’s outfit holding a hose with legs suggestively spread. And what does this have to do with the gig we asked? We should have read the byline—”the girls are turnin’ up the heat”—it all makes sense now (???!!). Another was for a medical-themed dance party, or that’s the impression we got from the poster, which featured a porn-star nurse sitting on the amp. These advertisements are a pretty weak excuse to use a picture of a sexed-up woman

*

The use of women’s sexuality and the use of gratuitous female nudity in advertisements [has] been labelled “porno chic” by a Paris media watchdog group, and even within the advertising industry in France it is accepted that “nudity is invariably an excuse for bankruptcy of ideas”. However, porno chic has been seen to represent economic optimism and liberation from confining societal (advertising) stereotypes. Advertisers argue they should be allowed to shock their audience, make their campaigns a bit raunchier and show that ultimately their brand is edgy and at the front of fashion and culture. They probably don’t even think about the consequences of using naked or semi-naked female bodies in sexual or suggestive positions to advertise shoes (just look at the Overland shoes ads on their Web site), or jeans (Levi’s is pretty bad at doing this), or perfume, cosmetics or skin-care products like tanning oil and soap. You can be certain advertising executives don’t wake up in the morning and say, “I wonder how my advertising campaign for Brand X beer impacts women’s body image or men’s view of women?” But when they pick images of women that are sexual they do so because it is what has always been done, because our patriarchal society dictates that the advertising industry employs male values of beauty and attractiveness and male ways of communicating or portraying people.

Each day we are faced with advertisements of a sexual nature, regardless of the product. The goal of this kind of propaganda, this commercial communication, is that if we buy this product we can look like the model, we will experience fulfilment by partaking in that brand’s experience, we will be sexy and seductive like the woman in the ad. Why should we swallow that crap? We need to realise that this advertising is plain old sexist, and that in New Zealand there are rules about these kinds of images. The Advertising Standards Authority [ASA] has a set of codes for all forms of advertising and all subject matters. Of particular importance is its code for advertising using people—specifically, “Advertisements should not employ sexual appeal in a manner which is exploitative and degrading of any individual or group of people in society to promote the sale of products or services. In particular people should not be portrayed in a manner which uses sexual appeal simply to draw attention to an unrelated product”.

http://jdeleeuw.edublogs.org/many-advertisements-are-sexist/