Is It Necessary To Use Women As An Advertising Tool?
The roles of women in print advertising are stereotypical and limiting, as unfortunately being seen in all form of media. Studies has been made such as by Courtney and Whipple (1983) and by Barthel (1987) confirm that the association of women and specific domestic roles has been agreed in popular culture, especially in advertising. The question is, is it necessary to use women as an advertising tool? There are pros and cons in this situation. But my opinion is more to disagree than to agree. First of all, the term women are defined as an adult female person in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Updated Edition. Whereas, the dictionary also defines advertising is the activity or business of promoting things on television, in newspapers, and many other things and the term tool in this context means someone who is used by someone else. So my stand is, it is not a must to have women to promote things.
To begin with, women are always addressed as the sex object in almost all advertisements. Heather Price claims in her article, Sex and Advertising : An “Organic” Experience, that advertisers usually plays on several tactics to attract people to notice their products by humours, self esteem, peer pressure, but the most popular and most effective tactic is using sex in advertising. Since the motive of advertising is to persuade people to buy a product, usually by making the products look more appealing than the actual, so they play upon what almost all people seek the most, sex. Women always be the sex object mainly because of the gender roles. According to Richard F. Taflinger, PhD, "Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation. Its strength is biological and instinctive, the genetic imperative of reproduction,” Men feels that they have to impregnate as many women as they can to carry on their genes, so they consider sex is required and a priority. However women...