Short Post 3/3

Text from Ads form the 1950s-1990s: “Show her it’s a man’s world”-ad for ties, “We dedicate this collection of toilet secrets not to pretty women (they have advantages enough, without being told how to double their beauty) but to their plain sisterhood” –ad for a book, “if she doesn’t want to give it to you get it yourself” –ad for aftershave, “a women’s wealth is her constant beauty” poster displayed at industrial fair in 1950’s, “if a women wants more excitement in her life she can wear it” –ad for Neiman Marcus. “Can you compete with your daughter’s “little girl look?”- ad for soap, “is it always illegal to kill a woman?”- ad for a toaster, “so the harder a wife works, the cuter she looks!”- ad for cereal, “your guy the number one reason for midol. Be the way he likes you”- ad for midol, “skinny girls are not glamour girls” –Numal a nutritional supplement”

The reading for this class period inspired me to look up some vintage sexist ads and they never cease to be shocking to me. I also found it even more disturbing to see the text from the ads without any picture behind it. Within this short survey of ads the text suggests domestic violence on multiple occasions, which people dismiss as a joke because of the picture. Without the image the severity of encouraging this kind of action seems much more real.

Even if everyone does understand the intended comedy of these ads one theme that was so prevalent in these ads as well as the reading was the criticism that women face regarding their appearance. The attitudes towards women’s appearance in the social media remind me of the bird cage analogy. It seems like there is no right way for women to be and it is never accepted that an attractive body can be a variety of different sizes. A perfect example is the last ad that I quoted above which tell women that being skinny is not sexy. While in modern society this seems like an odd claim, but there was a time when being voluptuous was the ultimate body shape. Women strived to achieve this and it is as difficult for some women to be voluptuous as it is for other women to be skinny. This shows just how arbitrary ideas of beauty are and how sad it is that these images of beauty become an obsession for many women. Last class we discussed how often it is women who are more critical of the female form then men, while this may be true one wonder who dictates the images and text that society is bombarded with everyday.

It is difficult to rid society of an ideal beauty, but perhaps it is possible encourage women to be less critical of each other’s appearance. I believe that the best way to accomplish this is to focus on the intelligence, creativity and achievement of the amazing women in our lives and in our society. This approach takes a positive angle to create a difference rather than just focusing solely on everything wrong with our society. This was one the issues that I had with the “super girls” brown bag, while I believe that striving for super achievement may be stressful of some girls it seems like not we are being critical of girls for trying too hard. It seems that we are always too skinny or too fat, too hard working or not hard working enough etc. We will be closer to equality when we realize that just like men there are a variety of personalities and body types embodied by our gender.