Gender Role Stereotypes, Sexual Objectification and Power in Advertising

Gender roles in society means how we’re expected to act, speak, dress, and to conduct our selves based upon our assigned sex. Therefore, they create cognitive schemes, which are certain representations of the reality displaying its most typical and fundamental elements and properties, situation and emotion control. Sexual Objectification of Women and the Effect on Women Everywhere you turn, there are magazine covers, movies, reality TV shows that portray woman in a sexual light. When was the last time that we as a society sat down and realized the effect that this is having on young girls, teens and even grown women.

The portrayal of women as sexual objects in these and many other types of media have greatly affected the mindset of society. These objectification trends are on the rise and are creating a low self-image for our young children. This will continue to spiral downward as they mature into grown women. Once these young children reach their teen years and even into early adulthood, this objectification brings on a second effect. Advertising has been defined as the most powerful, persuasive, and manipulative tool that firms have to control consumers all over the world.

It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Its impacts created on the society throughout the years has been amazing, especially in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, distorting the values and priorities of our society with sexism and feminism, advertising has become a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, on the other hand, advertising has had a positive effect as a help of the economy and society.

The SlutWalk movements help increase victim visibility and reintroduce sexual violence issues to the public. Gender roles within media and advertising have also been impacted by sex and relationship commitments. Men have positive attitudes toward casual and recreational sex, whereas women value the emotional intimacy and commitment around a sexual relationship. Difficulties in differentiating gender roles in the modern societies can be a perfect example of the negative social effects of using stereotypes. A division of gender roles is deeply rooted in today's society.

Nowadays a family model is based rather on a partnership than on patriarchy and women have more rights and possibilities on the labor market. Women’s liberation movement fought for the rights of women and for redefining traditional gender roles. Although females and males are still not equal, the differences between genders are not so vast anymore. Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire. Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity Sexual objectification is viewing people exclusively as depersonalized objects, rather than as real individuals with intricate personalities and feelings. This is done mainly with women, in which they focus on only the body or specific parts of the body to sexualize them and make them feel like objects.