Object. Possession. Thin. All those words are associated with how women are portrayed in advertisements in today's society. Every 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. This inner sense of conflict one has after viewing advertisements often deals with body image. Through my research I have gained information and different viewpoints on how women have been portrayed in advertisements over time, the effect this has on 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 developed. For my argument I will be looking at the history of how advertisements have portrayed women and argue that these advertisements have several negative effects on society. 

Before I get into the history of advertisements and their portrayal of women, I first wanted to start with the negative effects the advertisements have on the society to show how exactly this is a problem and what can be done to fix it so history isn't repeating itself. 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, 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 constantly been letting women know that skinny or thin is the way a woman should be. 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 (SOURCE). A documentary entitled False Advertising: Media and Beauty interviewed women about how they felt about the way women are portrayed in advertisements. The women interviewed discussed how hard it is to actually achieve the perfect body like the women in advertisements have because the images are edited with computer programs such as Photoshop. While the women interviewed know how the perfect body is so hard to achieve many stated that 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 a long-term effect on the adolescents that are already struggling with their body image ("Eating Disorders: Body Image and Advertising"). 

To start to come up with a solution to fix the effects of the negative portrayal of women in advertisements, a study was done where young adolescent girls were put into two groups. 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 only saw the images of skinny models and not the evolution video. The results led to a way to reverse the effect of advertisements' unhealthy skinny models; which could be a short video like the evolution video shown in the experiment. This brief easily accessible video would help promote media literacy and encourage girls to not change themselves just because of the false images of women shown in today's advertisements (Halliwell). 

By looking at those few studies it is clear that the way women are portrayed in advertisements is a problem. But how did this become problem? By looking back at the history of advertisements, we can see that the negative portrayal of women has been a problem in history as far back as the 1800s. The website Business Insider found 18 different advertisements throughout history starting with the 1890s and continuing to today's time period that portray women in a negative way. The 1890s advertisement displays the woman in the kitchen cleaning floors being a dutiful housewife (figure 7). This advertisement is just one example of how advertisements in the 1890s created the stereotype of women needing to stay at home and cook and clean. However a change to this stereotype came when the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed. While women started to fight for their rights advertisements were making sure all women knew that their place was at home and not at the polling place by continuing to display women as housewives. Advertisements during the early 1900s still displayed images of woman fully clothed still constricted to the house. While women continued to fight for their rights, advertisements were still 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 (figure 6). Up until the 1940s advertisements portrayed the same stereotypical images of women as housewives. A major change in advertisements' portrayal of women came in 1943 when the government advertisements for joining the war portrayed a strong powerful woman- Rosie the Riveter. 

After the government's advertisements were released, 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 needed to fill men's every demand. The 1960s marked the beginning of advertisements that targeted women. Examples of products that targeted women would be dieting programs and cigarettes (Danna). Starting in the 1960s women were also moved from the kitchen to the bedroom and started to be portrayed as 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). Advertisements continued to portray women as businesswomen in the 1980s especially because power suits for women became popular (figure 5). The 1980s was also known for soap operas becoming popular which depicted women as scheming, manipulative, and submissive to men. This depiction of women began to be shown in advertisements as well. 

The 1990s was an era of hyper-sexualized women in advertisements. A good example of this can be seen in a popular Sony advertisement that shows a girl sitting on a table holding a Walkman and the text reads, "You know you want it" (figure 4). Another example is the 1994 Hello Boys Wonderbra advertisement, which displays a woman shown in undergarments (figure 3). Those two advertisements as well as several others during the 1990s created the stereotype of women as sexual objects. The year 2004 brought a backlash or a start to a backlash of the sexual portrayal of women in advertisements with the release of Dove's Real Women, Real Shapes campaign (figure 2). 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 (figure 1). While the Dove advertisement campaign has influenced several other companies to feature real women such as JcPenney that featuring real lesbian couples and their families, there are still advertisements portraying women as sexual objects. 

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 portrayal of women in TV advertisements parallels with the history of the portrayal of women in print advertisements. Today 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 Louisiana State University where 226 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 the remaining were found in the unsure or both categories. Women in the advertisements the study looked at were often younger looking and 61.2 % of the time shown as having an occupation of a family/home. The main advertisements women were the central figure for was home products (76.5%). Just like print advertisements, TV advertisements portray women in a stereotypical manner and create the same negative effects on society. 

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 secret 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 the societal norms. Because the society has a large influence on advertisers, society has the ability to help end the negative portrayal of women in advertisements. This is a daunting task and can be started by making sure everyone knows the effects the images have on society as a whole. By educating the public, not only will the health risks decrease but also the myths of women's appearance can be put to rest. Today these myths are used constantly in both TV and print advertisements. 

There are four common myths that advertisements follow when portraying 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 constantly seen 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 promise to make women 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 sexy women can be fitting and will help sell undergarments but it will not help sell cat food. He goes on to say that 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 which is unattainable for most women. 

Through the studies done it is obvious that the negative portrayal of women in both TV and print advertisements has had a negative effect on society. By following the history of advertisements and their portrayal of women has changed drastically, all at the hands of the public. 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 objects today but they are also more than likely Photoshopped to look unrealistically thin. With this false display of women in advertisements come eating disorders among women and men having a restricted view on women. Overall my research leads to two solutions for the negative effects the advertisements bring to society- educating the public by possibly using a short video and allowing more women to take leadership positions in advertisement companies. Hopefully these two possible solutions can make sure that the way advertisements portray women change once more but this time for the better.
