Culture

Misogyny and Advertising are Often Intertwined

by Barbara McPherson | November 26, 2009 at 11:31 am

657 views | 71 Recommendations | 7 comments

In Canada and the United States women enjoy a measure of equality but the hard earned status of personhood is fragile at best. Built into and part of our culture are subtle and not so subtle coercions. One of the more blatant avenues is through the advertising media. Often young women are depicted as sexually available if you are driving the right sort of car. How is this misogynist? It depicts the woman as driven by avarice, willing to trade sex for a ride in a luxury car. The following is a more extreme example. It is easy to draw the inferences here.

With the tagline "We Are Animals," the campaign's images, shot by the oh so uber-hip photographer Ryan McGinley, depict women in the wild in various states of undress hunted, well, like animals. There's a video too.

Somehow, this high concept is supposed to sell jeans. Mostly, it's just pissing people off. In reality, it's just bad advertising that's trying to pass itself off as high art.

See all the "high art" here.

Ads that depict women as things or animals or sex objects give permission to those who would do violence to them. Why? Because the women are not fully human. It is easy to point fingers at the populations in Afghanistan for their misogynist behavior and ignore the misogyny here in North America that women face every day in the advertising media.

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

J2B (not verified)

at 12:20 on November 26th, 2009

there's a news site which seems to have these kind of adverts, I wonder how the members of the site, especially the women, feel about having those ads alongside their posts? Goes against the grain, really, don't you think?

Barbara McPherson

at 12:49 on November 26th, 2009

Thank you for the recommend and for the comments. I would think that the women would be very annoyed.

Jordan Yerman

at 12:59 on November 26th, 2009

Have you seen the wide variety of vintage sexist ads that have been scanned over the years? It used to all be a bit more blatant.

marianmo

at 16:03 on November 26th, 2009

i would hope that in this age of supposed enlightenment, that women would be treated in a non sexist and reality based way... a valued way ....another aspect of this is the portrayal of older women as somehow impotent and worthless.

many cultures enjoy a matriarchal system in which older women have power...i wonder how those supporting a return to values of years past view older women...and womens roles in general.....

i d be most interested in hearing..

ty for this posr

Babel-Fish

at 16:07 on November 26th, 2009

Men are also exploited in adverts the sexual thing is always been a tool to sell products. However it's not the use of such a tool but the over stepping of common decency and sexual respect.

The use of half clothed women and men to add sexual attraction to the advertising message then the constant bombardment to indoctrinate prospective customers is become the norm within the advertising industry.

I personally hate advertisement on the Internet its become very annoying especial pop ups and all the spam in its different forms. But what really does bug me is religious advertising its just as bad as the sex ads and gambling ads.

What really should annoy women as well is the women the models and then the prostitutes (escorts) that allow them selves to be exploited. It would be very easy to ban porn and other related sites on the Internet but its never been done.

But I am for banning advertising on the internet and bringing back to its original form as being a useful academic tool. But people like to make money, site owners can not control google and some of the other advertising media. It's best if they run their own advertising on site and not advertising they can not control.

By the way women also make money from advertising sleazy stuff. Men are also exploited but of course women are more vulnerable because many want to look sexy and beautiful but not be seen as a sex object.

J2B (not verified)

at 18:15 on November 26th, 2009

90% of the net is about porn and it ain't going away any time soon but with adblocks and filters at least you can avoid most of it. I don't get to "enjoy" the ads on this site cause I can't see them...

Rory Cripps

at 17:01 on November 26th, 2009

Barbara: Interesting post! Thanks! Unfortunately, there are many "high maintenance" young women out there that conform to virtually everything that the advertising world portrays young women to be. Whether art is imitating life, or vice versa, is not always clear. I have to agree here with much of Babel-Fish's comment . . . .