Relegating the status of women to objects has a proven strong visual impact. Sex sells.
However, this can have a very negative effect, especially when ads use violence against women to sell their products. violence against women is still considered an appropriate way to market products to consumers. Consider this sampling of disturbing images used by prominent fashion brands to advertise in women's magazines.
One of the pictures from a spread from a Bulgarian fashion magazine.
A recent Calvin Klein ad showing a man creeping up on an unsuspecting woman.
An image dating back to 2010 when America's Next Top Model televised a photo shoot where models were instructed to play dead.
An ad for Istanbul's Beyman Blender, in a magazine in Instanbul.
One of the bloody Lindsey Lohan portraits that hung at London's Tyler Shields exhibition in 2010.
Advertisers may think it's OK to deliberately perpetuate violence against women, but here's the truth about violence against women that every one of these companies needs to hear, courtesy of feminist writer Soraya Chemaly: Every nine seconds in the U.S., a woman is assaulted or beaten. Someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes in the U.S. (overwhelmingly women). One-third of women murdered each year in the U.S. are killed by an intimate partner. At least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused during her lifetime around the world.
violence against women is entirely preventable. According to the WHO, the very fact that violence against women varies so much amongst and within countries is evidence that the problem is the result of nurture, not nature.
Preventing this kind violence begins with changing the very attitudes that perpetuate it.
A UN report found that we can reduce the incidence of gender-based violence simply by making violence against women unacceptable and by promoting non-violent and caring ways to be a man.
Ads that promote masculinity through the violent repression of women really are unacceptable and dangerous.
Task: Watch the trailer for the feature film Charlie's Angels and considering Mulvey's Male Gaze theory describe how visual codes and conventions have been used to show sexiness even when this has little to do with the narrative. Also note down examples of female empowerment and how this has been encoded.
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