Effects of Advertising

In my own words, male gaze is when you look at an object, you are seeing more than just the thing itself; you are seeing the relation between the object and yourself. People these days always easily compare themselves to an object or want to be the ideal model on the screen. This gaze makes males believe they are stronger than female, and women are doing things that were told by men.
According the “Introduction of Where the Girls Are,” Douglas explains the reason why males have the feelings of entitlement and ownership. She simply brings out the history, “According to the prevailing cultural history of our times, the impact of the boys was serious, lasting, and authentic. They were thoughtful, dedicated rebels, the counter-culture leaders, the ones who made history.” (Douglas, 5) In the past, women were supposed take care of children and do all kind of house works. They did things that men asked them to. They were raised up and taught by the society. As of today, many company sales their products based on marketing needs, be specific, it is base on what male gaze. Most of the female dress up themselves for catching male’s attentions. For example, many perfume advertises use strategy of how seduce a man or capture man’s attention. Women care about other’s gaze, especially men’s. According to Kibourne, she explains woman deeply influence by the advertising, “Girls try to make sense o the contradictory expectations of themselves in a culture dominated by advertising. Advertising is one of the most potent messengers in a culture that can be toxic for girl’s self-esteem.” (Kibourne, 131)
Both of Douglas and Kibourne believe that children are also raise up by mass media beside their parents. According Douglas, she explains that the mass media has deeply affected our daily lives, especially for women, “Along with our parents, the mass media raised us, socialized us, entertained us, comforted us, deceived us, disciplined us, told us what we could do and told us what we couldn’t. and they played a key role in turning each of us into not one woman but many women – a pastiche of all the good women and bad women that came to us through the printing presses, projectors, and airwaves of America.” (Douglas, 13)
Kibourne focuses the target on adolescent girl, but Douglas focuses on women. Kibourne believes that Mass Media, such as advertising on magazine change the way they look at themselves and the world. The adolescent girls change their expectative of themselves, “The culture, both reflected and reinforced by advertising, urgres girls to adopt a false self, to bury alive their real selves, to become “feminine,” which means to be nice and kind and sweet, to compete with other girls for the attention of boys, and to value romantic relationships with boys above all else.” (Kirbourne, 130) In other words, the expectation of males are strongly influence female’s attitude toward life and herself.
The mass media causes many problems in today’s society. Let me ask you, what is the perfect size for a girl? I have asked few of my girl friends, their answers are around size 2 to size 6. However, how many American women have “ideal body”? In order to pursue their goal of being “perfect”, they are crazily on diet, which causes eating disorders. In “The More You Subtract, The More You Add”, Kibourne pointes out that the advertising also causes alcoholism. She also concludes the problems that occurs by advertising, “Advertising does promote abusive and abnormal attitudes about eating, drinking, and thinness. It thus provides fertile soil for these obsessions to take root in and creates a climate of denial in which these diseases flourish.” (Kibourne, 135)
In conclusion, the advertising has strongly and deeply influences our life, especially female. We are told to be quiet, skin, long hair and pretty. But hey, who cares? I do not care. I live in my own life. I hope most of women have the same thinking as I do. In that way, we laugh as loud as we can, we dress up for ourselves but for others. Let’s put all the gazes behind and live your own life!