Session 8 – Adverts Hurt

We see hundreds, if not thousands, of adverts every day. Whether at bus stops, on social media, in magazines or on TV, everywhere we go and whatever we do, we’re bombarded with images.

A lot of these images use women to sell their products, many of them in ways that either objectify or sexualise women.

The official definition of objectification: “the action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object”.

Sexualisation is defined as: “the inappropriate imposition of sexuality upon a person, whether through objectification, overvaluing or emphasising the person's appearance and/or sexual behaviour, or by some other means”.

But what does objectification and sexualisation look like?

In the 1950s, this advert from coffee company Chase and Sanborn joked about men beating their wives, while in the early 1960s, the Cigar Institute of America used this advert of a woman being used as an ashtray by a man. Dacron published this in 1970 to advertise men’s trousers, with a man standing on a woman presented as a rug.

This might all seem very old-fashioned and sexist, so let’s have a look at some more recent adverts, starting with clothing brands. American Apparel announced the opening of a new store with a pubescent girl in revealing clothing with her legs stretched open. Another of their adverts shows a man holding a woman’s legs apart, all we see of the woman are her feet and shins. This advert for jeans from Alexander Wang shows a nearly naked woman passed out on a chair, her nipples covered by the logo.

Moving onto perfume brands, this Dolce and Gabbana advert shows a man aggressively holding down a resistant woman while other men look on, and this one from designer Tom Ford leaves little to the imagination. This Lynx advert uses the familiar image of writing on a dirty car in presenting us with this dirty headless woman and the slogan “get dirty”.

Looking at how food brands objectify and sexualise women, here’s Arby’s sandwich shop presenting a woman’s arms holding sandwiches that represent her breasts; no other part of her body is visible. Here, two women with pronounced breasts promote the Bavarian Beer Café’s ribs with the slogan “we have the best racks”. And then there’s Katy Perry promoting pop chips, holding them to her breasts as the advert announces that there’s nothing fake about their product (or about Katy Perry’s breasts). This Burger King advert infers a woman will be performing oral sex on a seven-inch burger.

Now onto drink brands, with Budweiser turning this woman into an integrated part of their lager bottle. And even a pregnant woman is sexualised and objectified in this non-alcoholic beer advert from Nova Schin.

Computer games manufacturers also objectify and sexualise women. This advert from Gametrek for Battlecruiser includes an almost naked woman in thigh high boots, who apparently “really wants it”. Playstation used a woman’s body to promote touch sensitive controls on the front and back of their PS Vita console which they said was for “added enjoyment”. They also used a headless, large breasted woman to promote their Soul Calibur game.

What about car brands? In this BMW advert, a woman’s face is covered by a car advert as a man has sex with her. And Mercedes Benz choose to display four women’s detached breasts in advertising their S-Class car.

Even charities are not immune from using sexualisation and objectification, with animal rights charity PETA using an underwear clad Pamela Anderson to promote vegetarianism.

In the music industry, we also see the self-objectification of women; Miley Cyrus swinging naked on a wrecking ball and Nicki Minaj posing provocatively.

Throughout life we are surrounded by these messages. How do they affect us? How do they affect how we as women see ourselves, or how men see women? How are children affected by this?

Some would argue that men are objectified too, so let’s look at men’s magazine GQ…

All the men are fully clothed, in powerful poses and are either smiling or looking confidently into the camera. Most of the women are in revealing clothing, many in underwear. They pout and look coyly at the camera and are presented erotically. It seems that we rarely see men presented as sexualised objects.

Which is why photographer Rion Sabean did a series entitled “Men-Ups”,

presenting men in poses we’re used to seeing women in. The men are still fully clothed, but they are positioned as objects with the facial expressions we are used to seeing on women. When we see men like this, sexualised and objectified, they look ridiculous. But if we saw women posed the same way, we wouldn’t notice there was anything wrong.

While we can’t avoid the sexualisation and objectification of women, we can limit how much of that sort of media we choose to consume. Can we change the magazines we buy? Or turn over when adverts come on TV? Can we choose not to buy from brands that use harmful adverts? How can women learn to love ourselves in a world that treats us so badly? There’s a lot of big questions to ask, and there are no easy answers, but together we can try and create a better world for women and girls, men and boys.