'Ideal' Beauty

Today, women are still depicted as sexual desire objects in advertisements because advertising agencies feel that people prefer to look at pleasant things and that they are only adhering to what their clients want. They also feel that even if they used larger-sized or darker-skinned women in their advertisements, people might accuse them of being discriminative. The design and acceptance of an advertisement is dependent on society values. Furthermore, as advertising agencies are afraid to break away from these stereotypes, they end up reinforcing images of women that are rather distinctively different from reality. Women are also portrayed to be second in any image. The most detrimental impact of these advertisements is its depiction of beauty which is pressurising young girls to be dissatisfied with their bodies and seek change.

In my opinion, it is undeniably true that advertisements continue to put a tremendous amount of pressure on young girls and even women due to the media's depiction of 'ideal' beauty. Advertisers tend to choose women who have flawless skin, impeccable body structure, fair skin and those that are in their early twenties (Global Status of Women 2009). Thus, this creates the impression that only such women will be accepted by the society and if one does not fit this 'idealistic' characteristics, they will be shunned and deemed unfavourable. The popular media has increasingly held up a thinner and thinner body and now ever more physically fit image as the ideal for women (National Institute on Media and the Family, 2002, p. 1). Being constantly bombarded by images of young attractive women who are slim, with big eyes, luscious lips, high cheek bones and flawless skin, people and generally women are made to believe that this are real images and can be attained (Morris and Nichols 2013). This has a negative toll on women in relation to self-image, eating disorders, and other culturally induced diseases (Morris and Nichols 2013). Therefore, advertisers need to break away from such depiction of 'ideal' beauty to ensure there is a balance between practicality and reality in relation to what is perceived to be beauty.

Reference

Global Status of Women 2009, Portrayal of Women in the Popular Media, World Savvy Monitor, accessed on 10 November 2013, .

National Institute on Media and the Family 2002, Media Effects on Family, Parent Further, accessed on 10 November 2013, .

Morris, P & Nichols, K 2013, 'Conceptualizing Beauty: A Content Analysis of U.S and French Women's Fashion Magazine Advertisements', Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, vol.3, no.1, pp.52.