The harmful impacts of sexualisation, exploitation and stereotyping of women within all aspects of the media industry
By Bethany Doble
How often are we exposed to sexualised advertising? Is this form of advertising still present in the 21st century? Despite all the leaps and bounds made within the feminism and gender equality movement, why are we still quagmired in caveman thinking, relying overtly on sexualising women to make sales?
For the last century, women have been actively fighting for equality to their fellow man. From getting the right to vote (still not in every country) (5), to closing the gender pay gap (still the majority of countries don’t enforce equal pay between genders), to simply not being ‘wolf whistled’ at when walking the street and of course to not have their gender constantly sexualised within media and advertising. Although, there have been significant changes and many improvements within the majority of these areas, the sexualisation, objectification and stereotyping of women within contemporary media is still a major issue that is yet to be properly addressed. With many major brands and companies continuing to rely on the age old marketing rule of ‘sex sells’, the harmful impacts of this mindset will continue to effect the women, and the men, within society. Researchers at Wesleyan University did a print media study and discovered “that on average, across 58 different magazines, 51.8 percent of advertisements that featured women portrayed them as sex objects. However, when women appeared in advertisements in men’s magazines, they were objectified 76 percent of the time”. (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008)
These statistics provide a clear indication of how far we as a global society are from gender equality and equal representation within the media industry. Together we will explore the impacts sexual advertisements have on young girls and boys, females within the professional workspace, gender pay gaps, female representation within media company’s leadership and much more! Buckle up, it’s a rough ride.
The impact sexualisation of women has on young girls around the world.
Sexualization is everywhere: in movies, kids shows, advertising, video games, retail, marketing campaigns, social media posts, pornography, and in so many more places. Through frequent exposure, girls are often pressured by society to be more sexually attractive to members of the opposite sex and to wear shorter, tighter clothes, to post more sexy photos, to act ‘like a lady’ (whatever that may mean in our pluralistic society), etc. Many recent studies have linked the continued sexualization of women to various health and mental health issues: through the continued enforcing of gender stereotypes. Some of the most common include: low self-esteem, anxiety, various eating disorders, depression, self-harm, and behaviours leading to suicide.
An article written by UNICEF USA entitled ‘Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls’, depicted a chilling story of the impact sexualisation is having on young girls around the world. Here is a direct extract from this article:
“Research conducted for the Dove Self Esteem Project found that only 11 percent of girls worldwide would call themselves beautiful and six in ten girls avoid participating in life activities because of concerns about the way they look. One-third of all 6-year-olds in Japan experience low body confidence. Australian girls list body image as one of their top three worries in life, while 81 percent of 10-year old girls in the U.S. say are afraid of being fat.”(Swift & Gould, 2021)
Not only is overt sexualisation teaching our young girls that they’re ‘not good enough’, it is also inadvertently training our young men to sexualise and objectify the opposite sex. Stereotypical advertising subconsciously trains one to believe and act as though gender stereotypes such as the following are true: women are meant to be in the kitchen, women are bad driver’s, a woman’s body is more important than her brain and that all men see women as sexual objects
Why media industry professionals should care.
The impact of the derogatory ‘sex sells’ mindset within advertising doesn’t only impact the audience, but its toxicity spreads throughout society. It infiltrates the adult workplace and the effects of this can be clearly seen to impact media professionals in several significant ways. The following tables were taken from Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media and they visually demonstrate the inequality women, particularly within the field of Journalism, are currently subject to. In table 4.2.2 it is shown that within the Governance level of news companies the average high income of men is $1,391,025.64 and the women’s salary high, within the exact same position, is a disturbingly low total of $8,317.95. No, that is not a typo, although it seems almost impossible for these to be so different, those are the correct numbers. So, you might be thinking that maybe this inequality is only seen at the CEO level? I’m sure if we go further down the table that this might even out?
As you read through those statistics you would’ve noticed that out of the eight different occupational levels, in only two were the women’s salary higher than the men’s. So why should media professional’s care about the sexualisation and stereotyping of women? Because these negative, toxic and derogatory mindsets are impacting their own careers and salaries.
Key social and cultural forces perpetuating the issue.
There are a variety of different social and cultural forces that are perpetuating the problem, many of which stem from traditional stereotypes, lack of regulations around marketing and media entertainment and lack of female representation among news and media outlets.
As addressed earlier, the belief that ‘sex sells’ is one that is harmful to young girls, it degrades and belittles women and impacts the professional careers of women working in media. This traditional mindset, which causes ‘58.1% of print media’ (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008) to include sexualisation of women to market, is something marketing team’s must fight against. That this is still occurring after all the research and studies indicating its harmful nature, can no longer be brushed off as naïveté but rather a reckless neglect of duty of care, a shameful laissez faire attitude enshrining the status quo. It is imperative that marketing teams be held accountable. Pairing with these outdated marketing mindsets, are outdated marketing rules and regulations. In Australia, marketing and advertising standards are enforced by Adstandards, their regulations around sexualisation and stereotyping are flimsy at best and completely sexist at worst. An example of these visceral regulations were seen in 2016 when numerous complaints were lodged in regards to a General Pants Co. advertisement (refer to the image below). Within this particular ‘fit in’ campaign photo, the men are all seen almost completely clothed, whereas three out of the four women are needlessly and explicitly exposed. Two of these women are only wearing bras and one is completely topless. Despite the fact that the model being topless is completely irrelevant to the jeans advertised, the complaints against this advertisement were rejected.
The Advertising Standards Board ruled that the ad was not discriminatory because the topless woman is not depicted in a demeaning manner and is not represented in a less favourable way. A direct quote from the ASB case study states:
“The Board considered that the advertisement portrays all the models as confident and felt that the advertisement did not discriminate against or vilify women in particular, as they were treated as equal in the group and the woman without the top was equally confident.” (Advertising Standards Board, 2021)
This ‘loophole’ in sexualised advertising is what the blog ‘The Conversationalist’ refers to as “the confidence trick” (Ketchell, 2019). In regards to the impact such loopholes can have they go on to say:
“Despite more than 130 studies over the past 20 years indicating sexualised or idealised images of women in advertisements damage women’s self-esteem and satisfaction with their bodies, and that this can occur even when women are shown as sexually powerful and in control. Further, experimental studies suggest exposure to sexualised images of women leads both women and men to have “a diminished view of women’s competence, morality and humanity”.” (Ketchell, 2019)
The impact advertisements such as this one can have on the public is one that ethically, both the board of the company — in this case General Pants co. — and the Advisory Standards Board should be held accountable for.
We need more female representation within media companies.
I believe that one of the significant reasons why not much has changed in marketing and the on-going sexualisation of women is because nothing has changed. Nothing changes, if nothing changes! Australian media companies are still dominated by male CEO’s and predominantly male leadership. Recent research into the occupational status Australian News companies and the female/male ratio (refer to the image below), shows us that within governance and leadership roles, female representation is consistently fewer than 20%. The number spikes slightly in the senior/junior level to just over 40% female, with the only area over 50% being in sales, finance and administration. How can we expect equal, unstereotypical representation within the media if the very foundations of these media companies aren’t made up of equal male and female representation?
Interestingly, in 2020 the ABC network released a study that was based on six years of data collected from Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency. This data proved that companies with a female CEO “increased their market value by 5 per cent”(Crabb, 2020), equating to a financial increase average of nearly $80 million per company. If media and entertainment companies were to utilise the female talent they so constantly ignore, the research shows that this would not only be beneficial in providing equality within their publications, but it would also help aid them financially!
Additionally, the World Economic Forum released an article stating that only “24% of news sources are women’’ (Macharia & Burke, 2020), this was only 7% higher than a similar study done in 1995. Meaning in 20 years there was only an increase of 7% and at this rate it would take nearly three quarters of a century to even the numbers in this gender gap. (Macharia & Burke, 2020)
Concluding thoughts and a call for change
In conclusion, contemporary media’s insistence on the continued sexualisation, exploitation and stereotyping of women as a marketing strategy, negatively impacts society on numerous levels. Despite the fight for gender equality expanding over countless decades, we as women are still experiencing the harsh reality that our gender is continuously exploited by the media industry in order to ‘boost’ sales. From the allowed General Pants Co. ‘Fit In’ advertisement, to over 58% of print magazines containing women in sexualised manner’s, to the significant impact this sexualisation is having on young girls, to major gender pay gaps and finally to the significant lack of female representation both within the media and within the leadership of media companies. Although, traditional misogynistic views may have some people asking if sex sells, then why change? But if that was always the case then we would still be living in caves and eating our neighbours. It’s about time society starts moving on and recognises the need for equality.The only solution to this global crisis: CHANGE. I call for change in ASB regulations to consider not just the situational circumstances of the ad but the impact this ad has on its viewers, in particular the impact sexualisation will have on the mental and physical health of young women. I call for a change in the gender pay gap. The work of a woman needs to be considered equal to that of a man if we are ever to see equality within these companies’ marketing. I call for a change in media companies’ leadership. For equality and the desexualisation of female’s in advertising, there needs to be equal representation within the companies’ leadership team.
References
Advertising Standards Board. (2021). Case Report (pp. 1–5). Turner, ACT. Retrieved from https://ms.adstandards.com.au/cases/0161-16.pdf
Byerly, C. (2011). Global Report on the Status of Women in the News MediA [Ebook]. INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MEDIA FOUNDATION. Retrieved 4 June 2021, from https://www.iwmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IWMF-Global-Report.pdf.
Crabb, A. (2020). World-first research shows female CEOs boost companies by $80m on average. Abc.net.au. Retrieved 18 May 2021, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-19/women-in-leadership-boost-success/12370516.
General Pants Co. ‘Fit In’ campaign. (2021). [Image]. Retrieved 5 May 2021, from https://www.nowtolove.com.au/news/local-news/general-pants-under-fire-for-sexist-ad-8107.
Hallejane. (2021). [Image]. Retrieved 7 June 2021, from https://ethicsoffashionadvertising.wordpress.com/tag/mens-magazine/.
Haynes, C. (2019). Why are we still banging on about the gender pay gap?. Campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 8 June 2021, from https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-banging-gender-pay-gap/1665780.
Ketchell, M. (2019). Sexualised and stereotyped: why Australian advertising is stuck in a sexist past. The Conversation. Retrieved 13 May 2021, from https://theconversation.com/sexualised-and-stereotyped-why-australian-advertising-is-stuck-in-a-sexist-past-125704.
Kids Helpline. (2021). Eating Disorders [Image]. Retrieved 11 June 2021, from https://kidshelpline.com.au/teens/issues/eating-disorders.
Macharia, S., & Burke, M. (2020). Just 24% of news sources are women. Here’s why that’s a problem. World Economic Forum. Retrieved 11 June 2021, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/women-representation-in-media/.
Stankiewicz, J., & Rosselli, F. (2008). Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements. Sex Roles, 58(7–8), 579–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9359-1
Swift, J., & Gould, H. (2021). Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls. UNICEF USA. Retrieved 1 June 2021, from https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/not-object-sexualization-and-exploitation-women-and-girls/30366.