The Physical Self - Man and Woman as Object of Beauty

In this generation, people are exposed to the new technologies starting at a young age to older
generations. Most people consider it as a necessity in our everyday lives. One of the most common type of
technology is communication and entertainment technology which consists the use of mobile devices such
as cellphones, television and many more. If you watch tv or any videos you might probably came across an
advertisement. Advertising is a method used to draw the attention of individuals. For businesses to make
themselves known, advertisement is an essential and easy procedure. With this, it comes with negative
effects on our society. One of which is gender stereotype and sexual objectification. First is gender
stereotype, within the field of advertisement, there seems to be a fundamental disparity in the way woman
and man are presented. This is a strong source of gender stereotyping in media. In an ads that I unfortunately
stumble upon, a woman is depicted as the unintelligent customer and dependent on a man, whereas the man
is viewed as the figure of authority, handy man and a smart decision-maker. Sometimes, other businesses
are unaware that they are encouraging or persuading the public to believe that women and men are ought to
be or should be like that. Second is sexual objectification, Advertising typically uses visual image of men
and women to catch our attention and encourage us to purchase a product. In this modern day, we could see
that female objectification has become apparent though advertisement, television programs, music and
magazine. In men, mostly their upper body is shown. In ads, the objectification of women is greater than the
objectification of men. Men and women are objectified because they are viewed as an object with their
primary purpose being for the use and pleasure of others. sexual remarks, objectifying gazes, body
evaluation are one of the outcomes of a bad advertisement. For ourselves, we unconsciously put in our
minds what the media or advertisement tells us. It takes care virtually every facet of our lives, from how to
look, what to wear , what to eat, what our homes should look like, etc. That is the power of advertisement.

I’ve noticed that TV advertisements have been biased on the representation of gender, majorly favoring the
males. Women who are objectified are seen as less than completely human, assumed to have less of a mind
for opinions or choices, and deemed by some to be less deserving of a moral treatment. In many social
decisions and prejudices, appearance is an influential factor, including perceived personality traits and
professional successes. With this, media use has a major impact on gender self-destruction and self-
construction, especially among female users. Although the sexual objectification of women is well-
understood by most, it remains relatively unknown that female self-objectification in an entirely different
phenomenon. The principle underpinning female self-objectification is that girls and women are routinely
subjected to objective encounters in social situations to engage in female self-objectification. This just
means that women embrace being treated as sex objects worth the value of their combined body parts and
this depersonalization is internalized. Self objectification ensues when we as women, begin to internalize
and embrace the beliefs that the media and culture imposes upon us. A direct result of social sexual
objectification of women is female self-objectification. It leads us to grow self-consciousness or the habitual
monitoring of how our body looks externally, to see ourselves as sexual objects. A disruption in our
consciousness is generated by internalizing the sexual objectification patterns of our culture and engaging in
habitual body surveillance. This pervades our states of emotionality, concentration, and motivation.
According to what I read before, an average woman engages in habitual body monitoring every 30 seconds.
The more we as woman internalize sexual objectification the higher rates we are exposing ourselves to
depression, body image issues, eating disorder, body shaming, depressed cognitive functioning (habitual
body monitoring takes away time from cognitive functioning), sexual dysfunction, decreases our self-
esteem, decreases our academic grades, decreases political efficacy (the belief that we have a voice in
politics), decreases our ability to build rapport and makes connections with other women as we engage in
female competition. The effect of women internalizing social sexual objectification is female self-
objectification. For male gratification, our culture or media has conditioned young girls and women to see
themselves as sex objects or body parts in the eyes of the people. Self-objectification allows women to
indulge in self-surveillance, which poses major psycholigical and future threats to mental health. One of the
results of sexual objectification is getting an eating disorder. Mental and physical damage may be incurred
by having an eating disorder . Eating disorder may be called by some sort of irregular and or disruption of
eating. Social Networking is one of the best resources for communication and has altered the way we
communicate with each other. If we upload a photo, see pictures of models and influencers, or update our
status, the social media enables us to interact and communicate with everyone anywhere. As little or as
much as we want, our lives can be on full display. For those suffering from an eating disorder or someone
who constantly checks up on their appearance, it has the potential to wreck havoc and be much more
dangerous to others in recovery. Although social media alone is usually not the primary cause of an eating
disorder. On social media, a person usually spend about more than two hours a day potentially exposed to
unrealistic standards of appearance, diet talk, body shaming, posts for weight loss and more. Another
analysis of users of social media found that greater use of media such as Instagram which is bombarded with
advertisements was correlated with symptoms of orthorexia nervosa, demonstrating the effect of media on
physiological well-being. Social Media photo, many of which are edited, play a role in how recognition is
sought, often finding our value by how much likes and comments we get. I have been with people who have
used this to assess whether or not they are going to eat that day. Selfies can actually send a message on
social media that our appearance defines our worth and our body, a message that many struggle with an
eating disorder. The fashion industry was built around making people want to look for others and for
themselves, but people took risky views of how worldwide beauty should be seen in the advent of
advertising. People have always wanted to look beautiful since time immemorial, to have a slimmer waist
line large, to have large breasts, flawless skin and a perfect hair that falls into place. But why in fact, have
these standards become so called? Why are individuals trying to look particularly glazed and unhealthy just
to be called beautiful? Who has set these physical guidelines that made people believe that you have to look
this way or that way? Not really registering that something posed to offer physical perfection a sense of fact
when it can not really be accomplished even by the actual model themselves. Via billboards and TV
advertisements has developed these standards that objectify women in every way possible. In a video I have
watched which is “Killing me Softly” Jean Kilbourne gives a powerful wake up call to the general public
who are aware of what is happening in an advertisement with the portrayal of femininity but do not fully
understand the effect of collective picture they offer . Sex and in particular, the “complete female body”
which are commonly used to advertise various goods, to draw interests and to generate a social stir in their
origins that can be spoken about and rehashed and thus research more ears. As it might appear to others,
unethical and inappropriate sex information attracts the public. Sex evokes a hardwired emotional reaction
linked to the survival of a specie. People can’t help our eyes and ears get attracted to it because emotional
information can pierce our fields of awareness by rising above other environmental information trying to get
our attention. It is easier to blame the advertising industry for the distorted image given to women’s
sensuality, but we must take into account that advertising agencies are only told most of the time what they
need to do and mostly perceive how the business stands on the market and then translate how the company
wants to be seen in advertising. From the first part of her speech seen in the video, Jean Kilbourne drove her
point home. To quote “Advertisements sell more than the goods”. They sell ideas, they sell images of love,
sexuality, of success and perhaps most importantly, normalcy. They tell us to a great degree, who we are and
who we should be.

Although the need to advertise goods in such a way that they need to be recognized and marketed easily is
understandable, people should not be bound by what they see on media and learn to think beyond ads. While
these ads can be used in a positive note as an encouragement of an individuals to aspire themselves to look
and feel good and at some stage still influenced but stereotypes, though this is best culturally inevitable),
media still need to show bodies in variety of shapes, sizes, and physical abilities In advertisements, let’s
substitute the thin youthful, glamorous ideal with photos of real people which are muscular athletes, women
and men in wheel chair, survivors of breast cancer, women over the age of fifty. Let’s think that women and
girls have more than the sex objects and stereotypes we often see in advertisements. And then let us insist
that it is believed by advertisers, too.