In today’s era, production and consumption of goods and services are the focal points of our society. “Sex sells” is the most common line given by people when asked why the common look of advertisements is a perfectly attractive person in a provocative and often idealized fantasy setting. Women are used in advertisements far more than men are, and are used to sell a variety of products ranging from cleaning supplies to automobiles to food and beverages. What each of these ads have in common is the stereotypical look that the woman posses. This look can be defined as the beauty myth; a young, thin, able-bodied woman with perfect hair, skin, and body shape, and more often than not is Caucasian (UNPAC). A quick flip through any magazine or glimpse at a television will confirm such a stereotype. However, advertisements were not always formatted in this way. Just over forty years ago, advertisers took a completely different approach to getting their message across to female consumers, and many decades before that, branded advertisements were nearly obsolete.
When exploring the affects of advertising on women and the current problems with its influence on us, it is best to begin with the history of advertising itself and how women first came to be not only a target of ads, but the main component used to sell products. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, consumers would take their own containers to the market and fill them with generic products, as brands were not developed yet. Proctor and Gamble introduced Ivory soap in 1879, and this product started the trend for brands. Other brands quickly developed by numerous companies and filled the shelves of stores, and the need for advertising to promote such brands began. The common design for advertisements promotes the product “with romantic images of perfect people in a dreamy world” (O’Barr). These dreamy worlds began to be created by using women’s beauty and desired lifestyles to appeal to female consumers because women made and still make approximately 80 percent of consumer purchases. The first era of advertisements aimed to appeal to women in light of making their lives easier and less stressful as a housewife and homemaker, but with the feminist movement women’s independence grew and ads changed to encourage this through the purchase of specific brands and products. When women were solely in charge of household chores and upkeep, laborsaving products were the focus of advertisements, but the women selling such products still embodied a desirable essence that every housewife in America wished to encompass. Eventually, beauty became the main focal point in advertising, and any good or service being sold used and often abused the power of an idealized beauty. More specifically, until the 1970s the purpose of nearly all adverts was to make life easier for everyone, not just for the housewife, but the man of the house as well. After the 1970s, women gained a sense of empowerment with the feminist movement, and ads reflected that because of brands stating that their product encouraged independence, female authority and empowerment. Although this change happened nearly forty years ago, the first desire for beauty erupted much earlier with the first nude photograph of prostitutes being taken in 1840. “Most of our assumptions about the way women have always thought about “beauty” date back to no later than the 1830s, when the cult of domesticity was first consolidated and the beauty index invented” (Wolf, 123). With the rise of independence came a rise in a desire for beauty that takes an advantage of female empowerment, and the advertising industry formed a beauty myth that still has not been broken, almost two hundred years later.
Although the beauty myth has been enforced for decades, the look it encouraged has drastically changed in just the last ninety years. In the 1920s, pin up girls, seen commonly in ads at that time, had much different body types than women in ads today. Such women had curvy bodies that, in today’s industry and society, are seen as fat. They had thicker legs and round tummies. They had voluptuous breasts and booties. This was desirable, and the most famous woman for such attributes was Marilyn Monroe, whose size would be an ‘unacceptable’ 10 or 12 by today’s standards. In fact, the winner of America’s Next Top Model Season 10, Whitney Thompson was labeled as a ‘plus-size model’ due to her size 10 body, but by comparison to the average American woman was not plus-size at all (Starr). Models of such curvaceous sizes were the encouraged look in advertisements in the early 1900s, and all of that changed when Twiggy became an American favorite in the 1970s (notjustskindeep). From then on, a ‘twig-like’ shape was the next big new fad. Women in ads became skinnier and skinnier until curves became outdated. However, curvier shapes and a Marilyn sized body is the average of women today, but the fashion and production industry as a whole tells us otherwise, and we as a people continually sink lower into an advertising rut.
Current problems surrounding women in advertising include issues with the modeling industry, physical and psychological affects on women and girls of the public, and the warped societal views of what beauty really is. These problems are interconnected in the sense that the cause of one has an affect on the others and vise versa. The root of the problem is society has evolved perception that physical beauty is what matters most in a woman. This view is so strong and spread globally that it single handedly controls the modeling and advertising industries that therefore greatly impact the girls and women of the world in numerous negative ways. Let us begin with the beauty myth. This term, coined by Naomi Wolf, encompasses the stereotypical and superficial meaning extrinsic beauty has been given by the advertising industry. Wolf states that, “the beauty myth is not about women at all. It is about men’s institutions and institutional power,” and femininity is essentially equated with beauty, which is therefore seen as the definer of a woman’s worth (Kesselman 119). Graciela Rodriguez shares her personal experience that is not unlike tens of thousands of other women worldwide. She points out the underlying reason women and girls strive to look like the models in their magazines and other advertisements: “the media’s and society’s images of women…promised acceptance and happiness if I could only look like them [the models]” (119). This promise of acceptance seems to be working on women according to these statistics: the diet industry rakes in $33 billion per year, the cosmetics industry $20 billion, and the cosmetic surgery industry a whopping $300 billion (Wolf). Women’s insecurities are the underlying cause for such high rates of consumption and the promise brands give women is that their product will give them the look they have always unsuccessfully chased after. When that promised product does not work, like the ones before, women buy another and enter an unending cycle of the search for the magic product that will change their lives forever. The proof that advertising is at least somewhat responsible for these initial insecurities lies in the statistical evidence of the number of ads in women’s media. Studies show that, “women’s magazines have ten and one-half more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do,” and nearly 75 percent of those women’s magazine covers include at least one tip on how to change one’s appearance (MNet). Viewing such high rates of advertisements where the definition of beauty is thrown at the female reader gives her the desire to fit into the beauty stereotype that she does not fit into in her personal, however normal or healthy, body shape, weight, and overall appearance.
Women are trying any means necessary and available to try to have the right look that the models in the world of advertising behold. Money spent on cosmetics and diet plans is not the only thing women are sacrificing to fit into the mold of the beauty myth; physical and psychological health of women is at an all time low, and most is seen as a result of the media’s influence on us. For example, “by the time they reach 13 years old, 53 percent of girls express dissatisfaction with their bodies; this increases to 78 percent for 18-year-olds. Additionally, losing weight is cited at the top ‘wish’ for adolescent and adult women” (Kesselman 119). Such insecurities, more often than not, become controlling factors in women’s lives as they try to achieve social acceptance and self-worth through striving for the perfect body. This ‘perfect body’ is one that excludes the bodies and overall looks of nearly all women, as the ideal body as shown by the advertising industry is one that is white, thin, young, and flawless. Most women know that the female looking back at her from the ad is not a real photograph--that the model has been airbrushed and edited to embody attributes that are not normal or even plausible for even the most famous and beautiful of women, but this does not stop the obsession with perfection.
To achieve a beauty that is acceptable by society’s standards, women suffer extreme health consequences that sometimes result in death. The Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders Inc., a research group, estimates that one in four college-age girls use methods of weight loss and/or control that are unhealthy. The average model today weighs approximately 23 percent less than the average woman, and women are participating in life-threatening habits to achieve a goal that is impossible to achieve safely and healthily. Women are constantly competing with one another, trying to be as attractive as every other woman is whose looks she sees as superior to her own (MNet). It is estimated that 10 percent of women and girls in the United States alone suffer from diagnosed eating disorders. It is not rare for girls and women to hide their disorders, so in reality, the actual number of females with eating disorders much higher and those who go undiagnosed are less likely to receive treatment. Of the approximate 10 percent of diagnosed women, nearly 50,000 will die as a direct result of their eating disorder (Lightstone). Although these statistics are horrible to hear, there is hope. There is hope for women and girls exposed to advertisements that negatively affect their minds, bodies, and lives. There are many support groups, informational organizations, and even ad campaigns seeking to change the way women are viewed and portrayed by the advertising and media industry as a whole.
The future solutions to the problematic issues resulting from the role women play in advertising are off to a small, yet positive start. The most famous campaign for ending the harmful beauty stereotype is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Dove is a well-recognized brand that aims to sell its products to women, and instead of using models that fit the beauty myth’s standards, it is using real women with real bodies to sell their products. Surprisingly, this company is going a step further in the fight against the beauty stereotypes. Dove conducts Self Esteem Workshops all over the United States to educate women on loving their bodies the way they are and finding beauty within. Besides Dove, other groups, especially health organizations, aim to provide support and aid to girls and women suffering from self-esteem issues and health disorders ranging from physical to psychological problems. Aboutface.com, Womenshealth.gov, Womensselfesteem.com, and 4women.gov are just a few websites available that offer support, tips and advice on how to stay healthy in the body and mind, and how to strengthen one’s self-esteem, confidence, and independence from the ever-damaging beauty myth. The best way to solve the issues we currently face with women’s roles in the media and specifically advertising is to embrace our inner beauty and accept our physical beauty for what it is: unique, desirable, and feminine, no matter what we look like. Women need to join to fight the advertising industry by ending our support for companies and brands that negatively influence women. Dove has laid a path for others to follow, and that is what we must do. We must support each other and those companies that aim to make a change for the better. Feminists have worked for decades to get equal rights and the freedoms that we as women deserve, and it is time to fight once again; not for legal rights or legal justice, but for personal justice and freedoms from the patriarchal industry and society we currently live in.
With a little, or maybe a lot, of help, women can fight back and overcome the beauty myth. There is help, and “when women begin to defy social scripts for physical beauty, they can begin to see the beauty within themselves and define beauty in a more meaningful way” (Kesselman 119).
