Pop Culture Critique #1: Kilbourne

1. "The image isn't real its artificial, constructed, its impossible but real women and girls measure themselves with it every single day."
2. The United States is the only developed nation in the world that doesn't teach sex education in its schools, but kids are getting sex education from advertisements."
3. "Girls exposed to more sexualized images at a young age are prone to eating disorders, depression,and low self esteem."
4. "Advertisements normalize dangerous attitudes."

The goal of Kilbourne's TED talk is to teach her audience just how dangerous advertisements can be if things do not start to change. Not only do advertisements sexualize women, but it also harms their self-esteem, and it normalizes dangerous attitudes. If advertisements do not change how much they Photoshop models and the vulgar poses they use, it will not only effect adult women, but as well as young girls. They create impossible images of women by using computer technology to give them flawless skin, tiny waists, and thigh gaps, which pressure women into trying to reach these unrealistic standards. This can lead to future eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem.

In Kilbourne's speech she critiques the culture of advertising by using real slogans that companies use to show how they degrade women, as well as how they pose women in photos to look passive, vulnerable, and submissive. For example, at the start of the video she shows the audience quotes such as "Feminine odor is everyone's problem,""If your hair isn't beautiful the rest hardly matters," and "I'd probably never be married if I hadn't lost 49 pounds." These quotes make it seem like a woman's body and looks is the only thing that is important. Women in advertisements are photo shopped so much that they look like a completely different person and almost cartoon like. Kilbourne uses the argument that men are photo shopped as well to advantage. For example, she agrees that men are photo shopped, but it mainly focuses on their muscles and body, while women it is their facial features. Also, companies don't use harsh slogans about men like they do women, in her speech she uses an example of an advertisement the degrades a woman's breast but at least she can have good looking hair. 

The rate of young females who are depressed and/or having eating disorders is only increasing as the years go by. This is why I agree with Kilbourne, young women are held at such high standards when it comes to their looks. They are expected to have this perfect body with skin that has no blemishes or flaws. However, this is not physically possible because everyone has their own set of flaws that they can't change. It is wrong to force women to think that if they don't look like the models in the advertisements then they are not beautiful. Most advertisement to this day still degrade women despite all the attempts to make women and men equal.

If advertisements keep on degrading women, not only will it affect young girls, but as well as women in the workforce. If women are just something that can be sexualized, they won't be shown the same respect as men, despite the fact they do the same amount of work. Advertisements for some companies are beaning to make changes in how they edit and pose their models, but unless all companies around the world do it as well, this change will not have any effect. However, some organizations are starting to step up and fight against advertisement companies such as Brave Girl Alliance and Media Literacy Project. If these organizations fight back and people, especially women, start to fight back as well, we can make this needed change in advertisements.

This photo demonstrates how women are still sexualized in advertisements today. This is an advertisement from American apparels for a unisex flannel shirt that they recently released. This is the exact same shirt on both of the models just posed extremely different. As well as the difference of editing between the two.