Women and the media

Today in sociology, we arched a video about offensive ads degrading women. Ads like these have been prevalent throughout the media since print media began. We often analyzed ads like these in my media class less semester and saw a consistent pattern in objectifying women, often using them as sex symbols or servants to men. It's appalling to think how some of these ads came to print, yet is more understandable in ads occurring before the women's rights movement.

Early ads like these shaped society to think that men were dominant over women and women had only two jobs: to serve men and to please men. The women's movement has yet to shake these stereotypes and ads are getting worse today, portraying women as sex toys and prizes to be won. Much advertising follows the implicit message, "buy the product, get the girl." A popular product using this approach is Axe Body spray.

These ads shape bothe men and women's thinking that women have to look and act a certain way in order to be happy. The models used in most advertising are computers generated and cause mean sand women to be or be with and unachievable perfection. There is no formal definition of the perfect woman. But these ads create a sociol construction that the perfect woman is skinny, tan, large breasted, and perfectly symmetrical in all areas.

What really proves societies obsession with this media ideal was my classmates reactions to the video. While the males in the class were being blatantly told that the media has shaped all their ideals and have turned women into objects by this video, many were still making insensitive comments towards the videos examples of offensive ads. Even knowingly in the presence of women, when the video froze, a fellow student had the nerve to say he "wished it had froze earlier," referring to the multiple closeups of women's bodies that were playing earlier. I mean really? Have some class. These kids were being spoon fed information that they were being controlled by media, and yet they were still hypnotized by a pair of breasts on a screen. Society must really be in trouble. Especially since media objectifying women has a strict relation to domestic abuse rates. If boys learn at a young age that women are objects without feelings, they are more likely to feel sympathy for them when their abusing and raping them as objects when they're older.

So for all those guys in my class watching the video, try to grow up and understand what this video is trying to teach. And if you're really struggling to understand, keep your mouth shut as a courtesy to everyone else in the room especially to your FEMALE classmates. 

Thanks you :)