Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

I think that Kilbourne makes a very good and almost indisputable argument that objectification of women and their sexuality is rampant in advertising.  The images and ads she presents portray women as weak, vulnerable, sex objects and encourage women and girls to focus on their physical attractiveness and keep their thoughts and opinions to themselves.  Even ads featuring young children show submissive girls looking up to aggressive boys, and the trend continues and worsens as the models grow older.

Very young children are continuously bombarded with pervasive sexism in the media, and through out the rest of their lives, women are forced to question their self-images and sexuality because of their portrayal in advertising.  Such bold images of women as commodities, valued only for their sexuality, physical appearance and demure, no doubt, have bold implications for gender identity development.  From a cognitive standpoint on theories of  gender identity, the depiction of women in advertising will help young girls to establish their gender schemas–schemas which will view sexual exploitation, defenselessness, and an obsession with image as uniquely feminine traits.  Social learning theorists might argue that through media, our society reinforces and punishes different behaviors for males and females.  As Kilbourne points out, the behaviors most lauded in females are perfecting outward appearances and offering one’s body for the sexual pleasure of men, while the behaviors most punished are developing opinions and speaking one’s mind; conversely, men in the media are portrayed as powerful, aggressive, and violent, and seem to be rewarded for acting out these “masculine” traits, but discouraged from intimacy, nurturance, and gentleness–traditionally “feminine” traits.  Cultural theorists, no doubt, will view mass-media as a tool that mediates gender socialization, and may see that the devaluation of women in the media will lead the devaluation of women in society and to self-deprecation in females.  Developmentalists from any background are certain to see the media’s portrayal of women as problematic for girls and adolescent females already struggling to positively define their femininity in a largely patriarchal society. By rigidly defining what it means to be a woman in American society, sexist advertising is also detrimental to the gender identity development of boys and men, who must now ignore their complex emotional lives and strive to act out self-destructive behaviors like excessive aggression and promiscuity.

It is clear  that in America, even the youngest of children are exposed to mass media on a very regular basis.  During the critical periods of their lives, when children are forming their identities and developing scripts and schemas about the world around them, they are constantly faced with images of sex, violence, and inequality.  Though parents and educators may try to derail the notions put forth by mass media, advertising is everywhere and will undoubtedly play a role in the social and emotional development of all American children.