Clothing has always been a big part of society and has played a key role in how people express themselves. Advertising is how the general public has always known what to wear and what to avoid. Today’s fashions have changed drastically compared to what they were 20 years ago and many people think they have changed for the worse. For example, Abercrombie Kids has been known to advertise thong underwear in children's sizes with provocative statements on the butt. The company says that they are meant to be “cute“, but many parents think otherwise (Goodin, 2011). Younger and older women have begun to feel the pressure created by the media to dress differently. Body-image is a growing concern in today’s culture as well. Advertising has influenced how women/girls dress and how they see their bodies in order to meet the standards that media has created.
Many experiments have been conducted to help prove that when women are exposed to some media images their views of their own bodies change. One study done was conducted to see if the women participating would feel differently when it came to self-esteem. 68 females (all undergraduate students) were told that they were participating in a long-term memory survey. They were randomly assigned into either the control group or the experimental group. The control group watched commercials that contained no people. Instead they were exposed to things like cell phones and gas station advertisements. The experimental group had to watch commercials that advertised merchandise such as Victoria’s Secret bras, which had very slender women in the commercial modeling them. After watching all of these commercials the people conducting the study made the participants take a break. During this break they filled out a questionnaire that measured their appearance self esteem and public self-consciousness. As was expected, the experimental group that viewed the skinny models scored lower in appearance self esteem and higher in public self-consciousness. Seeing the images of models made the women base their self-worth more on their appearance (their body) and since they felt self-conscious it made them uneasy about their self-worth. “Participants who viewed the ideal images were less satisfied with their bodies than were participants who viewed the neutral commercials“ (Strahan, 2008).
Another study was done with 39 undergraduate females. The control group looked at magazines that had to do with the news and the experimental group looked at fashion magazines that portrayed slim models. After viewing these magazines the test subjects took body image satisfaction surveys. As expected, the experimental group who viewed the fashion magazines were less satisfied with their body and wanted to weigh less. After this experiment, more research was conducted to figure out why being skinny is the focus of much of the nation’s women. It is pointed out, “Body image dissatisfaction is a crucial area of investigation because of its relationship with low self esteem and to depression“ (Turner, 1997). There has been a rise in diet fads as well. Girls as young as 10 have been known to start dieting because they are not happy with their bodies (Strahan, 2008).
Another trend that has risen in younger girls can be found in clothing stores such as Abercrombie Kids. Many items of clothing have been branded with the term “sexualizing“ because they “revealed or emphasized a sexualized body part, had characteristics associated with sexiness, and/or had sexually suggestive writing“ (Goodin, 2011). All of these articles of clothing are generally sized 6-14 and are known as “tween“ clothing since they are made for kids in between being a child and being a teenager. Whether it be putting on their mother’s lipstick when they are four to wearing dipping necklines at age ten so they can look like their older sister, young girls always want to look older. This is one of the reasons this clothing line sells so well (Goodin, 2011). Another reason they sell is because they are being advertised at an age group that is just starting to become interested in fashion but doesn’t know how to go about starting. Through the help of these ads, young girls know what to look for and how to dress “in style“ (Guy, 2001). These types of clothing also help support the abstract objectification theory, which states that women in Western cultures tend to be portrayed as objects for males to look at. Since women are expressed this way in many types of advertising, lot of women have started to think of themselves in ways that media says they should look like. This has been found in multiple studies. These views of how women should dress has led to clothing becoming shorter, tighter, and lower dipping necklines.
Objects only found in pornography ten years ago such as thongs or stiletto heels are now part of pop culture and porn websites have increased between 1998 and 2004 by 1800%. “Cultivation theory asserts that exposure to repeated themes and images over time leads a person to assimilate these themes into their view of the world. Accordingly, exposure to sexually-objectifying media has been linked with self-objectification, body surveillance, body shame, and anxiety over appearance“ (Goodin, 2011). It could be argued that as more porn was accessible on the internet and as more people watched it, girls started to accept the way the women dressed in the videos and adopted it as their own style. Many girls have been called names like “slut“ because of the way they dress, but they are just copying some of the trends that can be found readily on the internet at any time.
Throughout history women have always been criticized for one reason or another. Pomerantz (2008) points out, “Girls are always accused of being too mature, too sexual, too hard-working, too rule-following, not rational enough, always in trouble--always too something and not something enough.“ Advertisements in magazines and on television help keep this trend going. However, this time around it’s more-so the young women who are criticizing themselves. Something found in research that is very interesting is that almost every single young woman asked about their feelings toward how the media portrays women will say that they disagree with how they are exposed. However, like “media sheep“, they follow the trends in order to blend in with their peers and in many cases to attract boys (Pomerantz, 2008).
The actresses in movies who get the guy are always gorgeous and almost always thin. Many songs in the top 40 today sing about sexy, thin girls hooking up with these artists. Models in magazine advertisements are abnormally small and very tall and beautiful. Strahan (2008) has found that, “the average American woman is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds, whereas the average model is 5 feet 11 inches and weighs 117 pounds.“ They have also found that, “fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women.“ With all of these media stimuli being thrown at normal girls across the world constantly, it’s no wonder that the number of young women not happy with their appearance has risen.
Many adults would agree that their adolescent years were rough and they went through many tough spots in their lives. However, they don’t normally recall as many girls developing eating disorders, cutting themselves, or becoming depressed or suicidal. They recall it a little, but not as often as it occurs with adolescents today. The rise in these disorders has been positively correlated in many studies with the rise in body image pressure from the media. Even though correlation does not prove causation, these research findings have helped shed light on some of the reasons girls become depressed or develop another disorder (Pomerantz, 2008). Pop culture figures such as Lady Gaga have tried to do their part in telling girls that they are beautiful and that the media is corrupted and almost always false (Lady Gaga).
So, why does media portray women as skinny sexual objects the majority of the time? Models have gotten smaller and smaller in the past fifty years. “In 1960 the average weight of Playboy models was 91% of the population mean. By 1978, mean weight of the models has dropped to 84% of the population mean“ (Turner, 1997). If this trend is effecting so many young girls in negative ways, why is it continuing? It continues because it sells. A group of girls may buy an issue of Cosmopolitan so that they can laugh at the articles, but they are still being exposed to the provocative images and sexy stories in that magazine. All society can do for young women is to make sure they understand that models are not normal sized and to look like one of them would put you into a 2 percentile of the country. Advertising does play a huge role in how women view themselves, but with the right mindset they can start viewing themselves positively and not negatively.