A Step in the Right Direction

As we have seen through our readings, class discussions, and our daily lives, the media and advertising often use images of women in an exploitative manner, and very frequently it is to sell products. While advertising has changed a lot over the years, it is still conducted in a sexist manner. I think it is a huge undertaking to try and change advertising as a medium, or to reform it drastically. Advertising is advertising and at the end of the day, it is there to sell products, in almost any way possible. I do give credit to the industry for undergoing changes, as times have changed, and for taking into account societal changes. For example, we no longer see the kind of blatantly sexist advertisements that appeared in Susan Bordo’s “Hunger as Ideology” article. This is an example of how the advertising industry has changed and evolved over the years.

Instead of aiming to reform the advertising industry, I propose ways of educating young women about the distortion of body image that appears in magazines, ads, fashion spreads, and on the fashion runways. By teaching young women to identify that the women who appear in these pictures, though beautiful, have been airbrushed and altered, they will be able to face these images without a sense of self-loathing. They, hopefully, will be able to appreciate the images for what they are, instead of striving to look like them, or feeling like they should look like them. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign is an example of this effort, and one we’ve already talked about in class. Another example is the link below, an article in the current (November 2009) issue of Glamour magazine. It is a four-page article, including a spread of nude women (pictured), about plus-size models. Some might argue that even though Glamour has this article, it still books skinny models for its fashion spreads (which is true,) I think it is a step in the right direction. I have noticed efforts like this in a lot (but not all) mainstream magazines. This is a medium I pay very close attention to so I have noticed the change.

Link to the full article on Glamour.com: http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2009/10/these-bodies-are-beautiful-at-every-size