The Female Ideal: Images of Women in Advertising

The Internet is the newest avenue for young girls exploring their self-esteem. Americans see an average of 3,000 ads a day, and that number is steadily increasing as Internet advertising becomes more pervasive. According to several recent news stories exploring Web user trends, girls and young women are now the most prolific web users.

Of course, that audience has a hard time avoiding the less positive influences that are so pervasive online. Miss Bimbo, an avatar-based game for young girls, recently launched in the U.K. So far, the site has attracted more than 200,000 users in the U.K. and more than a million in France. On Miss Bimbo, young girls engage in financial transactions (the cost of a text message) for their avatars that involve plastic surgery, weight loss and dressing them in lingerie. The site has been condemned by British health officials and parent groups, and has been compared to pro-anorexia Web sites.

American Apparel is a successful, American-made producer of “basic” clothing. But while its message of “locally grown” products is commendable, its advertisements are not. Photographed by CEO Dov Charney, the ads often feature scantily clad young women in overly sexualized positions. This “hipster” version of lascivious advertising has provoked much online discussion. Jessica Bennett’s article in Newsweek scrutinizes the company and its so-called alternative message.

Feminist activist Janet Kilbourne is raising awareness of contemporary ads’ damaging influence on young women. In “Hooked,” a 2000 Ms. Magazine article, Kilbourne criticizes magazine advertisers for sending sexualized and often degrading messages to readers, even when promoting the most innocuous-seeming products.

A good supplement to the Ms. article is the 6-minute trailer for “Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women,” a documentary created by Kilbourne in 2000.

The question, “How thin is too thin?” has permeated young celebrity culture in recent years. Kilbourne eagerly approaches the subject in a second documentary, “Slim Hopes: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness.” Watch a lecture on that topic on YouTube.

Kilbourne remarks in “Slim Hopes” that, “Girls tend to feel fine about themselves when they’re 8, 9, 10, but when they reach adolescence, they hit a wall.” But most advertisers won’t voluntarily improve themselves for girls’ sakes. Kilbourne says the companies find it "profitable" for girls and women to feel bad about themselves.

The prevalence of celebrity gossip magazines is hard to ignore, and very young girls are taking an interest in the light fare contained within their pages. But the same magazines that poke fun at celebrities’ flaws also criticize too-skinny actresses and celebrities with drug and alcohol problems. Alongside it, girls find a similarly mixed bag of hopeful and hopeless ads.

One refreshing new example is Calvin Klein, which has chosen Eva Mendez as the new spokesperson for its underwear line, sidelining the frighteningly skinny actress Kate Bosworth, who models its jeans line, and the infamous Kate Moss before her.

Another company that has done billboards a service is Dove, whose ads encourage a “Love me for me” mantra. Proudly bearing their bodies in its ads, women of all ages and sizes—regular people, not models—have helped change the status quo. Recently, Dove also put out an ad directed specifically at parents, reminding them of the constant influx of sexualized and otherwise grown-up imagery that girls see every day. The message is simply, “Get to them before the ads do.”

See this ad and several other fascinating installments from Dove’s “Evolution” series on YouTube.

Just this week it was announced that France is forging ahead with legislation that will help eliminate pro-anorexia Web sites from disseminating their "thinspiring" messages. France wants to impose fines and bans on Web sites, design houses, and modeling agencies, to target several of the media sources that encourage young people to lose weight. But not surprisingly, designers oppose the law. Jean-Paul Gaultier said that changes could only be made through "understanding," not law. Get more on the story from the London Times.