Misogyny In Advertising

Words: 770
Pages: 4

In Jean Kilbourne’s lecture, “Killing us Softly 4,” she accuses advertisement and the companies that create them for being a major cause of how a woman is viewed within a society. She goes on to compare advertising to a toxic environment and blames it for the self-esteem issues seen in many women today. Being someone that was actively involved in the women’s movement, she felt the need to share the patterns she had noticed while collecting ads. While Kilbourne does examine evidence of sexism and misogyny in the ads of our culture, she also inadvertently illustrates the sexism and misogyny that is increasing within pop culture and other branches of media overall. Kilbourne uses the images to depict what “women find to be the most important, how we look.”(Kilbourne). Women are dehumanized, as only one body part at a time becomes the focus of an ad.The smaller the waist, the lighter the skin, or the bigger the chest and butt, the better. Because of this, surgical procedures have increased in only a few years. Models and famous celebrities are used within them because of …show more content…
Kilbourne had stated that “grown women [were] made to be dressed like children.”(Kilbourne) Not only does that cause the sexualization of both women and children, but it stems from the desire of staying young forever (or at least looking the part). When being young and beautiful is trending, advertisers latch on to the idea and create images that hurt their audience while it helps their products. Other media outlets see a product being bought based on its ads and the idea of “young and beautiful” becomes bigger and more popular. Sex then becomes “only for the young and