Sexism in Ads Blog

Kilbourne believes that it is very dangerous to depict not only women, but also men, as sex objects because it leads to people viewing the opposite gender as an object to be used, instead of an actual person. This then makes it much easier for the person to be hurt emotionally, or more often, physically. This disconnect makes people feel like they are not hurting a person, so much as they are using an object for their own gain. Though I do agree that this could be a side effect, I disliked the way in which Kilbourne made it seem like ads made everyone feel that way. She made it seem like sexual abuse was always happening and that these ads forced people to act that way instead of going after the fact that, while semi-influential, the ads are not forcing the attacks. Kilbourne thinks the objectification of women is more troubling because women are often viewed as the weaker of the two sexes and more likely to be abused, thus the images rub off on men and persuade them to attack women more often. I agree that it is more troubling because women are attacked more than men, but I don’t think it is necessarily due to all males being shit like she seemed to think and I further disliked the assumptions she would make in regards to commercials being wrong if genders were swapped. Though I think she did have a good point about the effect of commercials and the images they conveyed, I felt that she made many assumptions (mostly in regards to the commercials) and that she seemed like she was out to make all men look like shit throughout the whole thing.