(no subject)
*** Don't mind this entry, I just need this for later
Samantha Torres
Mr. Hinnen
English 1302 004
6 May 2005
We’ve come a Long Way, Baby …Well, Sort Of
Although the art of advertising is believed to have developed during the 13th century, forms of advertising have been found throughout the ancient ruins of the city of Pompeii and have even “graced the walls of Babylon” (Gold 3). It was during these ancient times that those such as the Romans and Greeks utilized the most common form of advertising known as “word of mouth” as well as advertising stands, similar to today’s billboards, allowing for citizens to learn about the various services that were available to them within their community (Andresen). Nevertheless, during the 15th and 16th centuries, as the printing press began to develop, the advertising industry began to take on its modern form, as it is known today. While years ago, most individuals could go through one day without even seeing at least 20 different advertisements, the industry has grown to be such an influence, that according to James B. Twitchell, the author of 20 Ads that Changed the World: The Century’s Most Groundbreaking Advertising and How it Changed Us All, today’s average young adult often sees “some 5,000 ads each day, in almost every minute” (2). Clearly, with advances in several forms of communication, this form of “paid persuasion” has in the words of Dr. Earl Andresen, a professor of Communications at the University of Texas at Arlington, become “an essence of every democratic society.” With what is seen as a key ingredient to the success of an organization, advertising, although it is sometimes seen as a devious practice, has proven to provide important information for many individuals. For example, because American citizens are well-educated about smoking, many people have taken several means to stop the bad habit while those in countries such as Italy who are not as educated about the effects that smoking will have on their bodies are more likely to smoke (Andresen).
Today, advertising has grown to encompass our daily lives as soon as we begin each day. On the radio, across the billboards, and on television, the industry seems to have taken over the American way of life in terms of shaping our ethics, values, and various roles in society, particularly the female gender. While advertisers and others that control the media have responded to the needs of a more culturally diverse audience, they have come to target and stereotype many groups based on several factors including gender, which has in turn led to some serious consequences (Waters 91). However, although such stereotypes often lead to conflicts among those groups who may take an offense to various advertisements, these stereotypes have not only influenced many groups, such as women to alter their lifestyles in both negative and positive ways, but at the same time they have led women to become victims of the media. Even though some advertisers claim to unknowingly target women as their primary audience, it remains a shared responsibility between the consumer and the advertiser to decide the true ethics of advertising (Spence 213). Therefore, we as a society, both men and women, must decide which values are important enough that they should not be destroyed by the advertising industry as well as the effects that they are likely to have on our personal lifestyles. However, while some may argue that advertising simply reflects the modern woman in relation to her role and practices in society instead of aiding in its creation, it is clearly evident that advertising has become a prevalent influence that has helped the female gender to evolve with the times and occurrences that America has endured.
From the beginning, advertisers have not only looked to advertising to older women, who according to Daniel Delis Hill, the author of Advertising to the American Woman: 1990-1999, have “influenced the purchase of as much as 85 percent of all…goods including those far beyond groceries and gowns” (vii), but in the past they have also looked to using images of young girls in their advertisements. In doing so, mothers were encouraged to train their daughters to evolve into the little homemaker that they had been for years. It was especially during the mid-1900s that advertisers showed mothers that their daughters were able to take part in the easier house chores like dusting and vacuuming in order to ease the burden of housekeeping as well as learn the values of brand loyalty, providing a future market for advertisers (Hill 210-211). In turn, young girls were taught to enjoy the arduous tasks of being a homemaker as well contain their loyalty to certain household brands. Because advertisers were able to influence women to teach their young daughters the values of being a homemaker, young girls also learned from their mothers that advertisements were a part of life. These advertisements not only taught their mothers how to live, but they went onto instruct young girls how to attract men and manage a home while growing into a socially accepted being (Sivulka xiii). Through this advertising trend that lasted through the 1970s, young girls learned how to behave and accept her role as a woman living in America. Many ads showed women going about their daily chores, which according to Hill, told a woman that not only was she supposed to “care for her [family]” (213), but she was expected to do it all happily while portraying herself as an individual without any concerns except for those that were related to the wellness of her family. In turn, due to the so-called training that young girls received from their mothers, in part due to the images that were portrayed through several advertising campaigns, some women took this image as one that went onto shape their lives. Along with help from “a host of …general marketers” (Hill 213), such as General Foods and General Mills, women began to look for new ways to improve their lifestyle as a homemaker while aspiring to become like that of the image that advertisers featured in their ads.
However, while many advertising campaigns continued to focus on the relationship between a mother and her daughter for years, others went on to shifting their focus onto the independent woman. In doing so, several ads were able influence a woman’s actions in reference to various anticipated socially accepted behavioral patterns that before ads made them admissible for women to take part in were considered a “social taboo” (Hill ix). For example, because of a few years of aggressive advertising from the tobacco industry, smoking for women, which before the mid-1920s was seen as disgraceful and an “absolute social taboo” (Hill ix), became a necessity for millions of women across the country. In fact, when Jean Kilbourne, a widely published writer and speaker who is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising, began to collect ads and talk about the influences that they tended to have on women, she noticed that a 1951 ad for Marlboro cigarettes advised an overworked mother “to light up in order to calm down to Virginia Slim's now-infamous co-opting of feminist imagery ("You've come a long way, baby")” while promising her “a better…and more attractive self, if only…[she] bought the product” (Simon). In effect, because advertisers did not have a strong base for modeling their advertisements, by creating cigarette campaigns that presented smoking in an appealing manner along with women who possessed images of youthfulness, survival, and slight independence, advertisers were able to create what eventually became the aspirations of their consumers. In doing so, despite the hidden health consequences of smoking that were later highlighted during the late 1990s, many women, took up the habit of smoking, that before ads made them acceptable for women to take part in, were seen as a man’s vice.
With many important social occurrences that went on to change society, the events of World War II were perhaps the most evident events that went on to forever change the average, age old image of the American woman. Although the advertisements that graced many mediums during World War II did eventually begin to mirror the new image of women, they did so only because of the fact that the type of individual that the woman soon became was shaped by the ad campaigns that were created throughout the war. Because the needs of the country called for women to take on the roles of their husbands who were at war, women were brought into the economy and forced into positions that although were never typical of a woman’s stereotyped image, enabled their voices to be heard. Of course, these changes did not come from their own personal initiatives to take on new societal roles, however, but instead, they mainly came from the influences of the advertising campaigns that called for women to become involved with the war and the economy. For example, in dealing with men being at war, and women remaining at home, the government, in times of economic need, created “war bonds,” which limited the intake of various goods so that the scarce quantity of goods could remain available to everyone (The Advertising Council). In turn, women essentially were called upon to take over their husband’s shops and other stores that were dominantly run by men as well as the factories so that the American economy and lifestyle could have a chance at survival. According to Judith Waters and George Ellis, the authors of “The Selling of Gender Identity,” because of the strong influence that advertisements like those of World War II, which portrayed the image of a new, independent woman, advertisers now look to social changes in order to influence women to shed their image as the “gatekeepers for the household,” (93) for that of an individual who is able make her own choices.
However, even though the images in advertising have helped women to exuviate her traditional role within the home for that of an independent individual, advertising campaigns have also come to show a pattern in which they spark negative influences upon many women across the country. In fact, advertising firms are now continually providing images of more youthful, tall, thin, and sexy women than ever before. However, even with the assumption that the young models who appear in these ads are simply high school dropouts who live on “coffee and cigarettes to maintain their anorectic images” (Waters 96), gender-related advertising, which is increasingly aimed towards women, has come to influence many women to take on different self images of themselves. In fact, according to Edward Spence and Brett Van Heerkeren, the authors of Advertising Ethics, a 1997 study found that one of advertising’s unintended effects was the strong impact that the image of the models who are commonly used in ads has had on many women, causing them to compare their own self images to that of this particular image (61). Thus, because a woman’s “self-esteem is [highly] effected” (Spence 61), they often turn to consequential dieting methods, resulting in anorexia nervosa or bulimia. Because of such negative effects, many continually question what lines advertisers have a right to cross and what issues they should not even think of touching upon when creating campaigns that are likely to affect a mass audience in various ways (Waters 98-102). However, in seeing the response that an increasingly number of women have had to this specific advertising tactic, many feminist mentors have begun to teach young women to remain aware of the effects that advertising may have on not only their minds, but their self-identities as well. For instance, Renee Hobbs, an associate professor of communication at Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater as well as one of the nation’s leading authorities on media literacy education reports in her article, “Does Media Literacy Work? An Empirical Study of Learning How to Analyze Advertisements,” that many public high schools across the country are now providing media literacy programs to not only women, but to all of their students in hopes that by teaching them about the “advertising production process and techniques for critically analyzing media messages,” students will learn to separate fact from fiction. Many like Jean Kilbourne view such programs as a way to provide some of the most important lessons to the youth of America because, “a truly critical audience would be less easily manipulated” (Simon). As a result of media literacy programs, many students, both male and female, are now beginning to “identify the message's purpose, target audience, point of view, and qualities of representation” (Hobbs). With this, it is the hope of many educators and feminist activists that more young women will continue to sway their goals from that of a homemaker, and instead look to success and aggressiveness rather than failure and submissiveness. Therefore, because advertising plays a heavy role in the lives of many American women, young women will not grow in to Susie homemaker, but she will instead be less likely to follow through with aspiring to become like the images of those that are presented in advertisements, whether they would positively or negatively affect her life.
Even though many advertising campaigns have clearly influenced many women across America to alter their lifestyles in order to mirror the images that are presented in various ads, there are still many individuals who look, like Hill look to the fact that advertising may “simply reflect society’s view of itself” (213) instead of influencing an individual to become the person that advertisements portray to the public. In fact, according to Liz Mcfall, the author of Advertising: A Cultural Economy professes the fact that “journalists, historians, sociologists, and cultural theorists concur - ads mirror dominant values, attitudes and habits” (2) that women have possessed in both the past and present. On this side of the issue, advertisers appear to have changed the images that were presented within their ads in an attempt to maintain their appeal to their target audiences instead of trying to alter a person’s lifestyle. For instance, as it has been mentioned, advertising heavily influenced many women to take part in new practices due to the images that were presented to them through ad campaigns such as those that appeared during World War II. However, others see that the changing lifestyle of the American woman did not transform because of the images that were given to her through advertisements, rather, women were possibly responding to the foreseen needs that would have to be fulfilled in order to assure the survival of the country’s economy and the safety of the men who were at war. Also, by taking into consideration the more modern example of the lack of self-confidence in many women, some look at the use of thin, beautiful women in advertisements as an image that women have always aspired to become and now in this modern age have come to bear (Hill 213). In other words, the negative self-image that the women of today hold for themselves is not a result of advertising tactics, but it is instead a result of their own gender-identities. Certainly, without advertising to showcase the stereotypes of genders, in particular, women, contentious issues concerning women as well as prejudice against them might not be as big of an issue as it has progressed to become.
While advertising, which, according to Ronald Berman, the author of Advertising and Social Change has become “the voice of the industrial enterprise” (76) first developed as a means to sell a product or service, it has gone on to attract “the attention of scholars as a rich repository of our cultural attitudes and values” (Cross xii) as it also continues to climb “a steep hill” (Batstone 27) all in an attempt to maintain its influence and shape the lives of many American women. Yet, although women now hold a greater intelligence in part due to the influences that have been brought upon their lives as a result of advertising, many are still entertained by the idea that they have not experienced life unless they buy a certain product or transform into a new being (Simon). However, because “we all have the bad taste [and] the poor judgment, to grow older” (Simon), women are likely to continue to follow through with what advertising industries want. At the same time advertisers will continue to feed women with their influence, even if they are forced to convey more rational rather than emotional messages that many ads have always been credited with (Ind 14). In effect, looking back at the historical advertisements that many claim to have changed society, it is important to marvel their claims and the lifestyles that they influenced rather than the products that they were looking to promote (O’Barr 1). By taking into consideration the relationship between advertisements of the 20th century and the American woman, one must realize what burdens these images have placed upon the female gender. Nevertheless, although a newly, self-proclaimed independent woman would like to think that advertising has never influenced her life, the influences of advertising, whether it has caused her to take on a new habit or altered her self-image, is an inescapable fact. Sure, some male chauvinist enjoy mocking the fact that the lifestyles of many women have been shaped by images in the media, no one can blame women for doing so because there is “no way not to be influenced by advertising” (Simon). In essence, as each minute passes by, the industry continues to grow and will eventually influence all of society, and yes that includes men as well. Therefore, because women have long found themselves to be true victims of the media, it has become their responsibility to “break through the denial…and act against whatever bad feeling ads inspire” (Simon) by taking part in any actions against the industry’s influence. With this fight, advertisers may be more likely to put issues that are perceived as negative into an educational form such as informing the public on the health consequences of AIDS or smoking. By doing so, ethical boundaries can be set and the future preserved (Spence 112-113). With this, it may also be possible for many women to realize that “ads do nothing but burn money” (Hawkins 360) and more importantly there will be a possibility for the elimination of advertising’s strong influence. In doing so, all women, whether young or old, will be able to look at their fight against advertising and truly believe that they have come a long way.
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