Gender media issues- Ads

Media, especially social media has never been more prevalent in daily life. We are surrounded every day by media, whether consciously or unconsciously. A US adult spends on average 45 minutes per day on social media and a UK adult spends on average 32 minutes on social media. However, it has been researched and confirmed that adults spend almost 8 hours a day being consumed by different types of media. This includes television, newspapers, and radio, etc, and television is still the largest type of media that is being consumed by adults.

When looking online for how many adverts we are exposed to daily, there are different numbers, some as high as 5,000 ads per day, varying from 2,500 per day. Which is still higher than I thought the number was going to be.

People use media to construct a view of reality and we draw on these representations available to us from the media, therefore if women are portrayed in a certain way, women are more likely to draw conclusions that this is the way a woman should act and be. Seeing this many ads unconsciously, automatically reinforces gender ideals that we do not even realize that we are consuming.

“The commodification of the sexualized female body, used to sell anything from cars to perfume to jeans to toilet cleaners, is seen as contributing to an increase in sexual violence against women”

(Ross 1957:8)

American Apparel (a clothing company) has come under scrutiny for their sexist ads over the years, including the sexualization of not only women but school children. American Apparel released an advert for an opening of one of their stores, this advert had the text ‘Now Open’ with a woman on the cover with her legs open. This is clearly sexualizing women to sell their products. It could be that they were aiming for the attention of men, thinking they may go to the store to buy products for the women in their lives. Or they could be targeting women, thinking that women will want to look like the woman on the front cover., Regardless, in this advertisement, American Apparel is essentially selling sex, the woman in this campaign is being portrayed as a ‘piece of meat’.

In another advert, they advertised a back to school range, the main picture for this is a photo shows a model bent over and she is being photographed from a low angle, because of this low angle you can see her buttocks. This not only sexualizes women, but it is sexualizing children. This advert was complained about and ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) upheld the complaints stating, “We considered the images were gratuitous and objectified women and were therefore sexist and likely to cause serious and widespread offense.” The ASA also mentioned that this could be considered as ‘upskirting’ and this picture looks like it has been taken without consent, which makes it even further offensive. The ASA warned American Apparel to not produce content like this in the future.

Both adverts are also not ‘professional’ photography and almost seen as amateur photography. This could be so that the women seem more real, but in reality, it makes the adverts look more sexualized.  And even though women are being used in these adverts, it certainly seems that these adverts are more focused on men.

“The power of the culture industry’s ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness”

(Adomo 1991:90)

Advertising and the media matters, it tells us what is ‘normal’ and content like the ads previously discussed are designed to shock and break through the 5,000 adverts that adults see every day. However, this causes a negative effect as the sexualization of women and in American Apparel’s case, of children becomes normalized. Unrealistic expectations within adverts are what sells the product, we as consumers are shown an ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect’ way of life that we should be living, and instead of selling their product, they sell this idea.

#AmericanApparel causes outrage with brow-raising back-to-school ad http://t.co/BsXBC6VOGY pic.twitter.com/wJ5a8ZDLmk— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) August 8, 2014

Bibliography:

Ross, K (1957) Gendered Media women, men, and identity politics, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield

Adomo (1991) from Gauntlett, D (2008) Media, gender and identity: An introduction,New York, N.Y. : Routledge