Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

Throughout the past few decades, advertisements have evolved from attracting individuals to specific products to defining the role of gender in society. Ads associate masculinity with violence and superiority and femininity with innocence and passiveness. They portray men as perpetrators of violence and women as vulnerable sex objects. Research has proven that sex in advertising sells products.

In Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly” videos, Kilbourne argues that advertisements have been used not only to sell products, but also to generalize how men and women are depicted in society. I agree with Kilbourne’s argument that ads are placing gender roles on men and women to follow that lead to destructive behaviors. As Kilbourne had said, advertisements portray women with non-existent body types; there are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do. Because women are concerned about how they look, many women try to imitate the ideal female beauty shown in ads, which is absurd and ridiculous. Girls who become obsessed with thinness begin to cut down in size by eating less and even starving themselves. This destructive behavior leads to the development of eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. Teenage girls are also hyper sexualized by the explicit context of ads, which can explain why the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy. As Kilbourne further stated, the problem isn’t sex; it’s the trivialization of sex and the culture’s pornographic altitude toward sex.

Kilbourne’s argument can relate to ideas from the social learning theory about gender and gender identity development, as well as children and the media. The social learning theory focuses on modeling, the process in which children observe and imitate individuals of the same sex as themselves. When children are exposed to advertisements that portray individuals of their respective sex, they attempt to imitate the actions of those individuals. By doing so, children develop gender roles that are not authentic or freely chosen. This ideology supports Kilbourne’s argument that advertisements place gender roles on children to follow. Besides acquiring gender-role identity by imitating others of the same sex, children also rely on the gender stereotypes communicated in their cultures through television and other media to understand their gender role.

Although advertisements are used to sell products, they can also have adverse effects on the development of gender roles in society. Kilbourne concludes her argument by stating that not only must ads be changed, but also society’s attitudes toward men and women.