I’m writing this for my daughters.
I’m writing this for your daughters,
your sisters,
your wives
and your friends.
I’m sure you’ve seen articles online about egregious sexual objectification of women in vintage ads by now. Some of them are so downright absurd and shockingly offensive that they’re laughable, therefore viewing roundups of them is entertaining. It’s easy to assume that we’ve “evolved” as a culture and that we now have the ability to treat women fairly. The custom of women in vintage advertising being sexually objectified to sell things as innocuous as stereo’s, soap and cigarettes was commonplace in the early to mid 1900’s but did you know that the objectification of women is still around today? This is a sponsored post on behalf of Women not Objects, all opinions are my own.
Photo Credit: rchappo2002 on Flickr
According to the American Psychological Association, sexual objectification occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire (Bartky, 1990). The APA objectification theory proposes that sexual objectification of women is likely to contribute to mental health problems such as eating disorders, depression and sexual dysfunction by either direct sexual objectification experiences or by indirect and subtle experiences (like advertising) whereby women internalize the self-objectification (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) state that women will begin to self-objectify themselves and their physical appearance, paying closer attention to and putting more value into their physical appearance rather than competence-based attributes which in turn will create more anxiety and increase body shame from measuring oneself against a cultural “standard” and coming up short.
Photo Credit: rchappo2002 on Flickr
In November of 2015, WomenNotObjects conducted a simple google search of the term “objectification of women” and what was discovered was shocking.
Women are being sexually objectified in today’s modern ads to sell alcohol, clothing, sandwiches, vehicles and even post-it notes. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to stop using sex to sell silly things? DON’T WE OWE IT TO OUR DAUGHTERS? I implore you to watch this video and join the #WomenNotObjects conversation. Perhaps…just perhaps if we all start paying attention to the messages being portrayed to ourselves and our children we can open up candid conversations about what is right, what is wrong and what are acceptable means to sell products. Better yet, perhaps brands will start listening as well and come up with fresher ways to sell their silly sandwiches and cologne other than with sex.
For all the ways we “think” we evolved we find we’re really sitting in the dark ages. When women are portrayed this way in the media, when women are shamed for breastfeeding, for taking maternity leave, for wanting to excel in the business world, etc etc etc……something is WRONG. Thanks for sharing and keeping the conversation ALIVE. We can change the world. One voice at a time.
Bravo !
Yes. Yes. Yes. I often want to write about this exact subject!