Women in Advertising: A Teenager's View

Guest Post by Oldest Son

Our oldest son (still a young teenager) writes some great essays. I'd love to say that he gets it from me, but alas, he surpassed his mother's abilities years ago. Anyhoo, he kindly gave me permission to share his treatise with the Fluffy Readers. (I have published it "as is" without corrections or amendments.) Yes I know you may well disagree with much of the content, but it makes an interesting snapshot of how a typical modern British teenager views how women are portrayed in the media and the effect the celeb culture has had on teenagers today.

00’s:

Nowadays, women are no longer represented as slaves of the kitchen, or their husbands. Their power is now held within their bodies. Beautiful women who endorse today’s products have such a great lifestyle and are so beautiful, most girls and young women want to look and be as good as them, no matter the cost. This is not a good thing. The youth of today are influenced by the thin and beautiful women in the media. Constantly, the girls of our youth are trying to follow these role models of how to be beautiful, when they can’t reach the impossible standards of the women. Because of new technology such as Photoshop, you can get such photorealistic images and after effects; how will women be able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy? This gives birth to many psychological problems teenage girls must face such as anorexia, bulimia, etc.

This shows how much power women hold in advertising nowadays. Do they really need to gain powers by effectively selling their bodies? Maybe. They have already earned power and independence after events such as the contraception pill, able to now choose if they wanted children or not. They could finally deviate away from the paths of their husbands, and become their own, free women. But is this what women want to be seen as? After reading some comments from supermodels after looking at Photoshop adverts of themselves, they said that they looked like plastic Barbie dolls afterwards. It may be that it is not the models who choose to look like this in adverts, but the advertisers.



Consider this magazine advertisement. The way her hand is brushing her lip down makes her look like she is lusting for the person looking at the advert. She exposes herself an awful lot, but really, the shoes that the image is advertising aren’t being emphasised in the ad at all, only the woman who is endorsing them. It is very different from the old adverts, because the end product is not obvious until you read the ad’s writing. The black and white background makes the ad seem classical and stylish, and the woman too. This makes it seem like the product should be bought because it will make your life a lot more stylish.

The problem is, to me, she really doesn’t look that bright; she is a blonde Barbie doll. She gets her power through her body, which she has exposed a great deal. This really shows how women have got their power over the decades.



Again, in this ad, the pregnant woman exposes her body, even more than the ad beforehand.

‘Non-alcoholic Nova Schin’ makes this drink ideal for any woman, those who are beautiful, or are planning to have a child, both of which this woman is.

The woman here looks fairly educated, but still gets her power through her body. She looks more intellectual compared to the last ad, mainly because of her hair. Today’s stereotype makes blonde women appear less intellectual than those of other hair colours. The colossal glass she is holding makes the drink seem not only more masculine but also kind of healthy for the woman. As I have said earlier, her skin is completely perfect, as is her body. Women believe that if they buy the product, they will look like the perfect woman. When this doesn’t work, they go to great lengths to try to look as perfect. This can sometimes go too far. So is trying to be like an advert worth all the trouble when the products don't actually make the womens' lives any more like the fantasy?

70’s:

It seems that in this decade, women were in the perfect position to start attacking men, and glamourising women. ‘Perfect’ is used a lot in the 1970’s magazine culture; the advertisers presented the world with the perfect women who use their products. There were also a greater number of more masculine adverts for women in this period, such as the Michelob beer advert. Advertisers chose to embrace the independent march of angry women, probably afraid they would be caught in the blast if they didn’t. (An example of the advertising campaign for independent women was the Women Against Pornography or WAP movement, which was said to combat the demeaning of women.)

This decade showed the world that women were not ordinary, housewife women, but as good as the men; they could go out, get a job and live by themselves if they wanted to.

The wrath of the women started to die down after the 1970’s, as we will see, but they will still hold an iron grasp within the adverts.

90’s:

By this time, much of womens' advertising had moved to the television, so advertisers could make their products move! What fun! Women were watching an awful lot of television, since many popular programs were in full bloom, such as the American soaps or Coronation Street, which feature strong independent women, which I’m sure many women would love to see. They like to see either a better fantasy lifestyle, in which they can hope for, or a worse lifestyle to compare to theirs, and think what a better life they have.

This is an important decade (as is any other), otherwise known as the ‘Golden Years.’ The perfect woman of the 90’s was a woman who could manage a dynamic and well paying job, whilst looking after the husband and children at home. With the money (lots of), she would go out and buy luxury goods, such as perfume, and designer clothes which also became a big hit, and were available for everyone. It showed the woman’s wealth if she went around wearing these.

Technology also rocketed as companies experimented with different appliances. Soon, there was a piece of equipment for every household job that needed doing. Dishwasher, rice steamer, hoovers, you name it, it was there. The more appliances you had, the more independent the woman you were.



A huge part of the new decade was being thin. Advertisers created the image of a thin woman; it was an icon of being feminine. If you weren’t thin, you weren’t as female as the other people who were. Many women who were overweight were not as successful as those who were slim.

With new technology such as Photoshop, it became easier than Airbrush to make the perfect women in advertising. And so the women became thinner and thinner and more fantastical.

Consider the woman in the advert above. Shiny designer clothes show her fantastic wealth, style and superiority compared to the dull rest of the world. A slim and passionate shape shows her feminine side and her clothes and stance are powerful. The man is dazzled by her power, and she puts her hand to him to push him away, to show him who is boss. The only exposed part of her body is her chest and her face, the two parts that the man most looks at.

It strikes me as a puzzle that women spend the money to look like models in magazines in the hope they will be more attractive to men, whilst the men aren’t interested in women's magazine ads in any way. It’s a sort of vicious circle.

Conclusion:

Over the last 40 years, the advertisers have attempted to objectify women, and have succeeded. They have made women more obsessed about their weight and appearance, rather than allowing women to like themselves for who they are.

The ads have taken power away from women, not given it to them. The more women wish they were someone else, they can’t accept themselves for who they really are.

Women must rise above the adverts and love themselves for their personality, rather than aspire for a fictional ideal that doesn’t exist apart from in a glossy magazine ad.

Redemption

Unlike some states in the U.S, the U.K. doesn’t have the death penalty. Instead the more dangerous offenders are sentenced to life, usually 15 years (but out on 8 for good behaviour) or for the very worst offences, life with a recommendation that a minimum number of years be served (usually over 20.) What happens to these lifers once they are locked up? To be honest, I doubt whether very many of you give a rat’s ass. The opinion of the general public is that these offenders are evil and should be made to suffer for the pain they have inflicted. Enough said! Out of sight, out of mind, right?

In my idealistic twenties, I worked on a voluntary basis as part of a prisoner support group for male prisoners. These were the days of innovative penal reform and prison psychiatrists realised that giving prisoners a link to the outside world resulted in much better behaviour and a lesser likelihood of reoffending. Volunteers like myself were allocated up to five prisoners to write to, the idea being that because some prisoners had no friends or relatives, they would be provided with someone on the outside to talk to. Correspondence was via P.O. boxes, and either side could opt out at any time. It was as simple as that.

For about a five year period I used to write regularly to several male lifers in British prisons. All of them were convicted murderers so they were (at least for the early stages of their sentences) in maximum security prisons where the cells were small and the inmates were all very hardcore. Many of these men were involved in beatings and worse, with the guards mostly turning a blind eye to the goings on. Drugs were rife of course and an atmosphere of danger and oppression was present at all times.

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For these men, life in prison was a very small world: a mixture of violence, loneliness, concrete and darkness. There was little or no grass, and sometimes not even a glimpse of sky. Maximum security prisons aren’t known as “living hell” for nothing. Mostly I wrote to these guys, but on a few occasions I was granted special permission to visit them. These visits always left me shaken – I practically kissed the ground after I reached the outside world again. (On a personal note, IMO if potential offenders knew what these places were really like, there’d be a heck of a lot fewer crimes committed, that’s for sure.)

The lifers I wrote to were usually scrupulously polite. Many simply wanted contact with the outside world, and they had no-one else to turn to. The fact that I was a young female was doubtless an added bonus, but other than the occasional emotional outburst, no-one overstepped the mark at any point. These guys were just interested in talking about anything and everything other than the crime for which they had been convicted. I would write to them about all sorts of things, but especially about literature and art. When permitted I would send them books, usually my favourite classics as the authorities didn’t mind them reading the likes of Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy or Dickens. Photographs of the outside weren’t allowed, but I would send them articles about art and I spent much of my time encouraging these convicts to draw or paint (pencils were sometimes permitted if the inmate wasn’t considered a risk to himself or others) with the principle that it gave them something to focus on during the many hours they were alone. Sometimes they were allowed to send me the results of their efforts, which were usually beautiful, as you’d expect, as Lord knows they had enough time to practice. Over the years a couple of them actually became excellent artists and I’ve actually kept some of their work.

There has been a great deal of criticism about prisons not working, of conditions being too cushy and of inmates re-offending when they are released, but in my experience prison is a very effective punishment for lifers. They get to spend all day, every day with nothing other than their own thoughts, obsessing about what they did wrong. For these men, the majority of whom do have a conscience, the mental self-torture is far worse than anything that happens to them physically. I know this because I used to read their long, agonised letters and I can’t even begin to describe to you just how dark a place these men were in, day-in-day-out with no change, no hope, no joy. But let’s face it, this is the precise objective of prison. The system works.

Now I’m not excusing what these men did in any shape or form. They were all there for a very good reason. I guess what I’m saying is that IMO this experience worked both ways. I’d like to think I provided these guys with some sort of outlet, a reassurance that they were not completely forgotten and that there was a real world waiting for them if or when they ever got out. Through encouraging them towards literature and art, I also hoped to remind them that there was beauty in this world if only they could reach out and make the effort to try to see it.

In return, these men taught me not to judge others. I learned that although some people are capable of committing acts of unspeakable evil, they are also capable of creating works of great passion and artistry.

No-one is beyond redemption. Every sane person has some inner beauty in him or her, providing someone cares enough to look for it. Call me naïve, but I really do believe that.

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Images are of Althaia

Pimping Perfume

It’s Christmas time again folks, and that can only mean one thing…Yay! It’s time for those tacky perfume ads on T.V. According to the telly, perfume is the standard present of choice for Christmas. Few things make you feel as fabulous as unwrapping a jewel-like bottle of sweet, captivating fragrance. Perfume is the ultimate mood booster, an affordable luxury, and guaranteed to get you in touch with your inner sensuality. So the adverts tell us anyway.

Now I love watching Nicole Kidman sweat for her millions as much as the next girl, but does any right-minded intelligent woman actually kid herself she’ll be like our lovely Nicole, just by spraying herself with Chanel No. 5? Do men actually believe that their women will feel loved and pampered if they buy them an exquisitely designed bottle of the world’s best selling perfume? Who the hell cares what chemical gloop is inside it, as long as the advert says it’s sexy, right?

The smell is largely irrelevant to most fragrance sales, as long as it’s fairly pleasant and doesn’t make the object of your attraction blow chunks. It’s more important that the woman likes the packaging. The important thing is the pretty glass container and the clever marketing-speak that goes with the liquid, because it reflects how you see yourself. It’s the image that counts for everything. In the same way that a beautiful fashion photograph in a woman’s magazine sells fantasies to women, so too that gorgeous sexy bottle of amber coloured liquid promises that you will suddenly become irresistible to the opposite sex. If you spray yourself with this wonder-gloop, you too will be a glamorous sex goddess, you will suddenly have ravishing young men turning their heads in the street, following you round, buying you flowers. Your life will be perfect, because you too will become Nicole Kidman, because you too WILL FEEL BEAUTIFUL.



It’s not just about the glamorous advert of course. The bottles are what sell the scent, and they have to be works of art. The shape of the bottle dictates what market the perfume is aimed at, and the marketing-speak that accompanies the advert is geared accordingly. For young trendy hip-young-things, you have the “spontaneous and seductive” CK1 (simple but chic frosted bottle shape). For the up-market older woman, you have crystal glassware, such as the Versace “Bright Crystal” “for the confident glamorous woman," in a divine shade of vivid pink cut glass, with a bottle stopper that looks like a humungous diamond the size of my Aunty Aggie’s giant bunion.

Now let's consider the secondary element, the scent. Perfumes contain a variety of natural and chemical concoctions designed to react with human sweat to produce an enticing smell which emulates ovulation hormones. Because no one person’s sweat smells the same, the perfume does react differently with each person. Thus what may smell bloody horny on you, may make me smell absolutely awful. My skin is very acidic in nature, and thus most perfumes smell like cat’s pee after I’ve worn them for an hour or two. That’s why “Poison” really does smell like rat poison on me, but “hump me Big Boy” on you.

And don’t even get me started on wearing perfumes that contain real pheromones. Yes I’ve tried them, in the hope of suddenly making my dear husband find me utterly irresistible and want to bonk me all night. Unfortunately all Rich ended up with was a mammoth splitting headache that lasted for two days, and needless to say, no hanky-panky at all. The stuff which was guaranteed to make me sex-personified, actually ended up being sprayed in the loo to freshen it, whereupon visitors suddenly started to spend a heck of a lot more time in my lavatory than they ever used to. Clearly my toilet is hornier than I am.

So, ladies, do you ever fall for the ultra-subtle marketing-speak? For example, do try Sean Paul’s bogglingly-named “Unforgivable,” “created to reflect the warmth and sensuality of a woman’s body.” (In actual fact this smells like “eau-de-wet-Labrador-after-rolling-in-mud,” and the best I can say about it is that it should indeed be for the “bold, confident woman,” because you’d have to be insanely brave to try it. Still at least the name is apt.)

Who writes this crap? Dammit, I wanna go work for these marketing companies. Somebody please pay me to write this rubbish. I can’t imagine a job that would be more fun. Those perfume advertisers must think we were born yesterday. Seriously…….I mean SERIOUSLY…..would any self-respecting woman believe all that hype?

By the way Rich, as it’s Christmas, I’m rather taken with that new Christina Aguilera perfume. Sexy bottle, plus it‘s covered in “seductive” black lace, plus the pong is not unpleasant either….Obviously this will make me feel “classy, sensual and in touch with my inner woman.”. And according to the marketing hype, it will reflect the real me…“sexy, juicy and daringly different.”
Yeah right. At the cost of a month’s lattes at my local coffee shop, it may turn out to be the most expensive juicy loo-freshener ever.



In case you are actually wondering if I do wear perfume, or if instead I just embrace my inner glow and really reek like a pole-cat, my long term scent is Cerruti 1881. This is traditionally viewed as an old lady’s perfume, which goes splendidly with my glamorous “mad old cat lady” image. So what if I wear perfume for geriatrics? I rather like the smell actually. Of the perfume, I mean, not the geriatrics.

The Christmassy images are of course of Pirate Maiden.

What do you consider beautiful and why?

Melvin Moten challenged me on Friday to define my concept of beauty.

Oh dear. Time for another incredibly long blog post, then.

It really isn’t possible for me to define what beauty is for everyone, because beauty is subjective. Everyone will have a different concept of what they find beautiful, so we’ll just go for my view.

Now I read Harpers and Queen as much as the next girl. I do love my fantasies. The images of women inside are beautiful, no doubt about it, but I’m not kidding myself – they are an illusion, a mixture of good photography, MUA’s and Photoshop. Great Art though. And an enjoyable fantasy on a warm summer’s evening when I’m curled up on the sofa drinking a glass of chilled chardonnay. I don’t kid myself that I could ever look like that, and nor would I want to, truth be told. I bet those models don’t look so great when they get up in the morning after four hours sleep either. I don’t look at those images and think, wow they are beautiful, I have to look like that…in fact the images are often pretty samey after a while. So beautiful women in womens' magazines? Nope, not real beauty to me, I’m afraid.

To me, real beauty is the beauty of the soul.

AMOST ALL people, no matter who they are, have something beautiful inside them. To me, the psyche defines the person, and it is irrelevant what they look like.
I just don’t care.

I have found beauty in the most unlikely places, as well as the most conventional ones. I have several friends who have suffered tremendously with cancer, and come out of it with dignity, courage and a burning thirst for life. They may be bald from the chemo, emaciated, exhausted, tired and grumpy, but their spirits are all beautiful because they remain undefeated by their ordeal.

O.K. you say, but what about people who have done evil? There’s no beauty in them.

Many moons ago, I used to do befriending work in my spare time with prisoners – letter writing, visiting them in prison (because no-one else would) and so forth. I met quite a few unfortunates whom society locked up and threw away the key. I wrote to and visited several guys over the years. It was difficult stuff, and sometimes hard for me to cope with emotionally, but I persisted, and one or two even became (almost) friends. On the whole they were nice people, usually “normal” (whatever that is), severely mentally scarred of course, and they had done terrible things, but these guys definitely had inner beauty, the same as you and I.

One guy, who hacked his girlfriend to death with a kitchen-knife, eventually had the immense courage to face his wrong-doing. He knew he had evil inside him, he faced it, and wanted to talk about it, although it took him two years before he could trust me enough to tell me exactly what happened on that awful night when he committed the murder. Now if It had been my daughter who had been murdered, I’m damn sure I wouldn’t have found any inner beauty in him at all, but as it is, prison befrienders have to try to look beyond the evil, to try to help these people, to convince them that there is a way back from the abyss, that their soul does possess the capacity to be beautiful. And if being a prison befriender sounds like a weird thing to do, so be it. But it certainly gives you a unique insight into good and evil.

So do I see myself as beautiful? Well, of course I run myself down in the blog sometimes, much to the annoyance of many of you, but yes, I DO see myself as beautiful, and ugly too.

Have you ever read D.H. Lawrence ?
He had a concept running through many of his books called “ugly beautiful”. Basically you can’t have one without the other. Ugly and beautiful aren’t far apart at all. They are both inside us, and they are inexorably intertwined. When I look at myself, I have both beauty and ugliness inside and out. I am, after all, only human, and I am both good and evil. Not in the same balance as the guy who murdered his girlfriend, of course, but still a mixture of light and dark.

Such is the nature of the soul.

Daniel Defoe once said, “The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear”

I’d like to think that good photographers help take out that diamond, admire its beauty and its flaws, and then give it a quick polish, before putting it back in the box.




The lovely Kate, from last year.