Emerald Management Review:
The sexual objectification of women in advertising: a contemporary cultural perspective

Abstract:

Purpose - Explores how young, educated women feel about the portrayal of women in advertisements.

Design/methodology/approach - Reports how the sexual content in advertisements, and in the media generally, has dramatically increased; highlights how women's bodies are routinely used to advertise a large number of products. Outlines previous studies on the portrayal of women in advertising from the 1960s onwards; draws attention to the Ford, LaTour and Lundstrom (1991) research and undertakes to examine how women's attitudes towards advertising have changes since this study, exploring, among other things, the impact made by 'third wave' feminism. Describes the collection of data from women who had higher incomes, younger, were better educated, less tradition-oriented and from higher status households in the US.

Findings - Reveals how the women did not think that highly sexualised advertising was 'offensive, extremely irritating or unethical' even though the advertisement contained high levels of sexual objectification of women. Highlights how purchase decisions were not affected by the advertising and that attitude towards the brand appeared as more important than attitude towards the advertisement.

Research limitations/implications - Examine the attitudes of older women.

Originality/value - Finds evidence that young educated women are accepting the 'sexual objectification of their gender'.

Keywords:

Article Type:

Research paper

Reference:

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