English

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Literature Review; Women and Advertisement

Researchers have come to an agreement that women have always faced negative publicity

and disregard of feminism through the art of advertisements (Ananda and Vani; Zimmerman and

John; Lanis and Katherine; Kilbourne; and Romero et al.). Advertising is a huge industry and

affects every individual in different proportions and different degrees of exposure. In the

advertisement world the marketers tend to use images which they believe are enticing and will

sequentially draw more customers to their products. The objectification of women has for many

instances exited in the commercial industry and has been the key motivation for most feminist

movements. Within the contemporary society advertisers have always found various ways to use

the female gender in advertisements to entice the buyers which successively results in negative

challenges faced by women (Anand and Vani 117). The research examination for this topic has

focused on objectification of women in advertisements, challenges faced by women in

advertising, negative effects of advertising on women and feminism and demeaning displays of

advertisements on women.

According to Anand and Vani there are negative advertisements which portray women in

different forms, some portray the women as sex symbols and others have a stereotyping gesture

which seem to suggest on the ideal and perfect woman in the society (121). This is a more

damaging portrayal of women which can affect the women who are not what the commercials

representations are engaged in. An example is an ad by Nice and Lovely which give a depiction

that women of fair appearance are considered beautiful or pretty.

The stereotyping portrayal of women in advertisement through various literature has

shown that the depiction of the feminine gender as housewives and mothers has had negative

impacts on the attitude (Lanis and Katherine 640). This is in conformity to decrease in women

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aspiration to achieve more for themselves (Anand and Vani 120), demoralization of social and

political feminist ideas (Kidwell) and demeaning of women character in the fashionable society

(Zimmerman and John 73). Anand and Vani suggests that the gender role stereotyping has been

successful portrayed and illustrated through the commercials in the mass and social media with

different roles within social confines being the major attribute of these commercials (640-641).

In objectifying women through advertisements, Kilbourne argues that sex in

advertisements is more of pornographic and objectifies people especially women this is because

it fetishizes products dooming women to disappointment because products do not satisfy a

woman’s sexual desire (491). This is iterated Zimmerman et al. proposing that women have been

given a negative sexual portrayal which may result in negative sexual attitudes and as a result

affecting their sexuality more so their sexual activities. Anand and Vani also shares this similar

stand by both Kilbourne and Zimmerman and John by postulating that sexual objectification of

women has negative impacts on women and their sexual pleasures (122).

Even though advertisement has such negative impacts on women, Anand and Vani argue

that the growth and power of feminine figures has been achieved through advertisement as such

acting as a voice for feminism. The literature review adopted above has sufficiently shown that

various research journals and authors have discussed the negative impact of advertisement on

women and their resulting attitude generation.

Works Cited

Anand, Meenakshi, and Vani Tyagi. "Advertising: Boon or Curse for Women." International

Journal of Research in Economics and Social Sciences 7.3 (2017): 116-124.

Kidwell, Casey. "Women in Advertising: Demeaning Displays? Or Aspirational Images?."

(2015).

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Kilbourne, Jean. "Two ways a woman can get hurt”: Advertising and violence." Rereading

America, Cultural contexts for critical thinking and writing (1999): 444-464.

Lanis, Kyra, and Katherine Covell. "Images of women in advertisements: Effects on attitudes

related to sexual aggression." Sex Roles 32.9 (1995): 639-649.

Romero-Sánchez, Mónica, et al. "More Than a Magazine: Exploring the Links Between Lads’

Mags, Rape Myth Acceptance, and Rape Proclivity." Journal of interpersonal

violence 32.4 (2017): 515-534

Zimmerman, Amanda, and John Dahlberg. "The sexual objectification of women in advertising:

A contemporary cultural perspective." Journal of Advertising Research 48.1 (2008): 71-

79.