Women as Objects

Along with racial stereotypes, gender stereotypes still play a very strong role in our society's advertisements. I would say gender stereotypes are even more common than racial stereotypes because people are less likely to complain about it. 

As a young woman, I am very concerned with the way women are portrayed in the media and advertisements. One of the biggest issues is using women as objects. There truly are infinite examples of this, but here are just a few:

When advertisers choose to literally turn women into objects it does something to anyone viewing it. The woman is no longer perceived as a person, but as a literal object. This automatically makes women be viewed as lesser to men and also validates wrongful acts towards women. If a woman is not a person, she doesn't need to be treated as one. Although it is jarring to think about, these kinds of advertisements promote rape culture. To quote Killing Us Softly 4, "Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step towards justifying violence against that person." Killing Us Softly is a set of documentaries that should be viewed by every student, teacher and professional in the advertising industry.