Photo Credit: beautyredifined.net
Finding confidence in one’s self is something that everyone goes through. Advertisements, television shows, magazines, and the world of fashion are telling girls that women are to be passive, thin, and blonde. When targeting men however, they are to be masculine and never show their feminine side. In honor of Nation Eating Disorder Awareness Week, John Carroll, NAMI of Great Cleveland, and the Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders had a seminar to make students aware of what we were subconsciously swallowing everyday of our lives.
With the help of the Psychology Department, John Carroll has been able to put on this event for two years now. The seminar started off with the film “Killing Us Softly 4” by Jean Kilbourne. In her career she has made four films now to make others aware of what she sees everyday on billboards, television, and on the streets. Her films started in 1979 when she created her first “Killing Us Softly” film. Since then, Kilbourne has made making her audiences aware of how much we are exposed to the subliminal messages of how men and women should act.
The film focused mainly on the advertisements and how some are creating the social normal of our society. When everyone looks at the advertisements, they do not realize that woman has either been photo shopped 20 times or is not one woman at all. However, the “woman” we see can be made up of four or five different women. She points out that women have been taking the rule as sexualized objects in many advertisements. One that flashed up on the screen showed a women with the picture of a car morphed into her body. Women are being compared to things such as kegs, beer bottles, cars, and even fruit. Many of the advertisements were so funny that the audience could not help but laugh, but then realize what that advertisement really meant. As she pointed out, this is how we react during such moments like Super Bowl commercials with all the sexualized women to sell alcohol.
Not only are women being treated as objects, but advertisements often show women as being the submissive sex. There was even a recent scandal of the advertisements that symbolized women getting raped. Others show advertisements with women bound and covering their mouths so they are only seen, not heard. What kind of image does this give to a young girl? Well, many of the advertisements are targeted at teenage girls. On advertisement was for jeans claiming that if a boy said he noticed you first for your personality, he was lying. Many think this type of advertising only effects the minds of women. However, men are also affected by the advertisements showing them to never be feminine because that makes your voiceless or submissive. This makes advertising devalue feminism and tells men that they must have no emotions if they want be “true men”.
The seminar closed with an open panel for students and those in the community. Their main message: speak up. This toxic culture makes women turn on one another and create this unrealistic expectation for one another. If girls do not make the cut of size zero, they does not make the cut at all. That zero is the symbol for nothing. That is what society wants women to do: reduce ourselves to nothing. So, go out there and challenge the advertisement. Always ask why the advertisements are trying to make viewers feel that way, and walk away. Awareness is the first step of changing how the fashion world and advertisements view the human body, but we can’t stop there. We must take action.