"Two ways a woman can get hurt" by Jean Kilbourne.

Essay by bilkaUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, October 2003

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How and why sex and violence is used to represent women in advertising?

In our competitive world of business and products, the sale is the highest goal for the companies and the most effective so far tool to raise it is throughout the advertisement. The sellers are willing to pay a big money for a short message that will be watched by the potential viewers. The industry consider an add as effective when brings to the sale of the product. Nevertheless, in the world where the potential financial resources of viewers are limited, the immediate sale of the product will only occur if a specific add win over tens or hundreds of others watched at the same day by the same viewer. Therefore, the advertisement must be original and appealing to be able to persuade the viewers to buying the product. Another problem for advertisement is the limited memory of the viewers.

For that reason, the marketing people concentrate on creating images that will not be easily forgotten. If the add drew the attention of the viewer there is a big chance the product for gaining a prospective buyer. The easiest way to do that of is to link the product with the ideas that all people are familiar or the opposite: the ideas that will shock the viewers. Therefore, the sex and attributes of gender as well as violence are so widely used in a modern world of advertisement. The advertisement researchers know that neutral scenes do not stay in our memory as long as violence and sex scenes.

The differentiation between the genders are one of very important skill a man learns when he/she is a child. Soon follow the rules, the girls wear dresses and play the dolls while all boys have short hairs and play with...