Object. Possession. Thin. All those words are associated with how women are portrayed in the advertisements. Each person in America sees hundreds of advertisements each day and doesn't even realize it. Companies spend over $200 billion a year on advertising which is designed to generate an inner sense of conflict. The inner sense of conflict ususally is weight related and can be fixed. Through my research I have gained information and different viewpoints on how women have been portrayed in advertisements over time and how that has affected society and ways to fix this problem. Women in advertisements today are usually only depicted as one body type - tall, thin, 15% below normal weight and often the model's weight meets the criteria for anorexia. Because women are depicted in advertisements that way there are negative effects society has. I will be looking at the history of how advertisements have portrayed women and argue that these advertisements have several negative effects on society. 

Looking back through history the way women have been portrayed in advertisements has changed. The website Buisiness Insider showed 18 different advertisements throughout history starting with the 1890s and continuing to today's time period. The 1890s advertisement displays the woman in the kitchen cleaning floors being a dutiful housewife. During this time period, though, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed. The advertisements during the forming of the NAWSA were making sure all women knew that their place was at home and not at the polling place. Moving on from the 1890s the 1900s displayed images of woman fully clothed still constricted to the house. While women were still fighting for their rights, advertisements were making a mockery of it. The 1920s advertisements suggested that women were afraid to go out and leave the walls of their homes as one advertisement read "The woman who never went out" and showed a woman in the kitchen. The 1943 advertisment of Rosie the Riveter was the first advertisement depicting a powerful empowered woman. 

Skipping ahead to the 1950s, women started taking a more active role in advertisements and were shown leaving the home scenery. But more often than not advertisements still portrayed the fact that it was a man's world and women were filling men's every demand. The 1960s marked the beginning of advertisements that targeted women. Examples would be dieting programs and cigarette for women campaigns (Danna). Women were also moved from the kitchen to the bedroom and started to become sex objects. Advertisements in the 1970s showed that women could do it all. They depicted a "superwoman" that could juggle household chores and having a career and succeeding at both. This "superwoman" picture was false in most cases when in actuality women during the 1970s were struggling with conflicts between the household chores and their career (Mass Media and Society). As soap operas took a rise in the 1980s advertisements followed the trend of depicting women as scheming, manipulative, and submissive to men. Advertisements for power suits became popular and the women were finally being able to juggle career and household chores successfully. Advertisements also started to feature a strong matriarch as family head rather than a patriarch in the 1980s. 

The 1990s was an era of hyper-sexualized women in advertisements. A popular Sony advertisement shows a girl sitting on a table holding a Walkman and the text reads, "You know you want it". Another popular advertisement during the 1990s was the 1994 Hello Boys Wonderbra advertisement, which displays the stereotypical woman shown in undergarments. The year 2004 brought a backlash or a start to a backlash of the ultrathin and sexual portrayal of women in advertisements with the release of Dove's real women, real shapes campaign. This continued with Nike's advertisement with the "I Love my Butt" advertisement that pictured a real woman not altered to be shown skinnier stating that she loved her butt. While the Dove advertisement campaign has influenced several other companies to feature real women, advertisements are still portraying women as objects. Between companies such as American Apparel, which pushes limits, and JcPenney that featuring real lesbian couples and their families in advertisements there is still a mixture of women shown in a genuine, real manner and woman shown as sexual objects in advertisements today. 

Not only have women been portrayed in print advertisements in a negative way but they have also been portrayed negatively in TV advertisements. The history of the way women have been depicted is exactly the same as the history of the portrayal of women in print advertisements. TV advertisements that depict sexual scenes are usually longer than any other advertisement and are the predominate type of advertisement shown on television. Women in television advertisements are shown with more exaggerated acting and stereotypical voice tones and body language (Thornham).   A study was completed by the graduate faculty of Louisanna State University where two hundred and twenty six advertisements were recorded from the three chosen networks, ABC, CBS and NBC and each advertisement was initially coded for the central figure- a male or a female. In addition, each central figure in the advertisement was coded for the following categories: 1) age; 2) product use; 3) occupation; 4) voiceover; 5) product representative; 6) stance; and 7) product types. The results from the study show that of the central figures in the advertisements, 46% were men, while 49.1% were women and remaining were found in the unsure and both category. Women in the advertisements the study looked at were often times seen younger and 61.2 % of the time as having an occupation of a family/home. The main advertisements women were the central figure for was home products (76.5%). Looking at how women are portrayed in TV advertisements shows how the stereotypes of women are formed (False Advertising). 

Clearly both print and TV advertisement's portrayal of women have gone through a drastic change over the past 100 years. One of the main reasons for that change is because of the change in society's values. It's no secrect that society runs the advertisement world. The advertisement companies need to grab the audience's attention and they have to do it with images that appeal to the audience. The advertisements in the past directly reflect things such as major events during that time period or major societal norms. Because the society has a large influence on advertisers, society has the option of ending the negative portrayal of women. This is a daunting task and can be done by educating the public of how the standards of the appearance of women need to be changed. By educating the public, the myths of women can be put to rest. These myths can be found in both print and TV advertisements. 

There are four common myths that advertisements follow about how to portray women. The first myth is the common phrase "Blondes have more fun". The advertisements try to display the American blonde women and show how much fun blondes have. Another myth that advertisements use when selling products is that "thin is in". This concept is shown all over the place whether it's a super unrealistic skinny model or advertisements for dieting plans, diet sodas, and diet books targeting women. The third myth is that women do not age. This myth is often associated with skin care products that can make you look younger and control sings of aging. The last and probably most common myth is that sex sells. According to David Ogilvy advertisements can show some relevance to sex or display sexy women if that is needed to sell the product. For example sex/sexy women can be fitting and will help sell undergarments but it will not help sell cat food. He goes on to say that sex/sexy women will almost always grab the audience's attention but will not always result in brand recall and often times will distract the audience but advertisements use this technique anyway.  All four of the myths used in advertisements produce stereotypes and show the public what women should look like not what they're really like which creates several problems. 

Society faces several problems with how women are portrayed in advertisements. According to the book Women, Feminism, and Media, viewing women as objects starts at a young age when children are first exposed to advertisements. According to a study done in 1979, children exposed to such stereotypes as shown in advertisements, they tend to have a more restricted view of appropriate sex roles than those that are exposed to counter-stereotypical representations. The solution to this problem would be to eliminate gender-based stereotyping and put more women in roles of power in the community. Few women actually hold positions of power in media and advertisement companies so the images that the advertisements display often distorts a women's status in the social world and the advertisements don't present women who are viable role models (Thornham). Because media's so called "role models" prevent and impede female accomplishments it encourages men to define women as sex objects or as a homemaker (Danna). 

Another problem the community faces with the way women are portrayed in advertisements is eating disorders. Advertisements for decades have been constantly letting women know that skinny or thin is the way women should. Some women have taken this seriously and have suffered from eating disorders from all the pressure and emphasis the advertisements put on being thin. Women are also known to constantly compare themselves to others and strive for the perfect body image. A documentary entitled False Advertising: Media and Beauty interviewed women about how they felt about the way women are portrayed in advertisements. All of the women gave answers dealing with the fact that today nobody can look like the models in the advertisements because they are all so digitally remastered and so touched up that they were confused as to what they were suppose to look like since advertisements displayed false images. Many also stated they after looking at the thin models they felt the need to lose weight to feel comfortable about themselves and they admitted they would try things such as diet plans or diet pills (False Advertising). 

To prove that thin models have an affect on women's weight a study was done that found that 47% of girls wanted to lose weight after looking at thin models in advertisements but only 29% of those girls were overweight. The study also found that 75% of women think they are overweight and 90% of those women are overestimating their body sizes. Researchers have found that advertisements that depict thin models don't have long-term negative effects on adolescent women but the advertisements do have an effect on the adolescents that are already struggling with their body image. 

To start to come up with a solution to fix the affects of the negative portrayal women in advertisements has on society, a study was done where young adolescent girls were broken into two groups and one group was shown unnaturally thin models in today's advertisements while the other group was shown the same pictures but also watched a short video of the evolution of models. The girls in the study then ranked their self-esteem after watching the video and seeing the pictures or after just seeing the pictures. The results showed that the girls that saw the evolution video had a higher self-esteem than the girls that just saw countless skinny models and not the evolution video. The results of the experiment also showed that a way to reverse the effect of the media's unhealthy skinny models could be a short video of average models such as the models used in the evolution video. This brief easily accessible movie would help promote media literacy and encourage girls to not change themselves just because of the models shown in society today (Halliwell). 

With the lack of women holding powerful positions in media companies there comes another reason why the negative portrayal of women hasn't stopped. And that is the argument against using larger models is that "thinness" sells, whereas "fatness" does not. A spokesperson for the agency representing top models Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer asserts that "Statistics have repeatedly shown that if you stick a beautiful skinny girl on the cover of a magazine you sell more copies... At the end of the day, it is a business and the fact is that these models sell the products" While many disagree with that statement, Experimental studies demonstrate that the physical attractiveness of a model in an advertisement increases consumers' positive attitudes toward the product, their willingness to purchase and actual purchase. 

Through the studies done it is obvious that the negative portrayal of women in both TV and print advertisements has had a negative affect on society. By following the history of advertisements and the social norms at that time the portrayal of women has changed drastically. Advertisements moved women out of the kitchen and role of homemaker to the bedroom and role of sex object. Not only are women portrayed as sex object but also they are more than likely photoshopped to look unrealisticly thin. This display of women has had numerous negative affects on society such as eating disorders among women and men having a restricted view on women. Overall my research leads to one solution for the negative affects the advertisements bring- a short video. Hopefully the video can eliminate the effects and the negative portrayal of women in advertisements.
