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Women exploited through advertising
By Kathleen Miller/Contributing Writer
 Media Credit: Leslie Andres/News Editor Laura Kuhn, founder of Media Action Alliance, speaks at Atwood Theater Tuesday about �Images of women in advertising� as part of Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Kuhn�s group works to educate the public about the harmful effects of sexist and violent images and messages in the media.
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As part of Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Laura Kuhn, founder of the Media Action Alliance, gave a presentation entitled "Images of Woman in Advertising" in the Atwood Theater Tuesday.
Educating and informing the public about the negative problems associated with sexist and violent content in the media is the main goal of the Media Action Alliance. Kuhn has been involved with this kind of advocacy for approximately 10 years.
Kuhn used to have a poor body image and then she began to think beyond her own feelings to what was causing those feelings. The negative images of women in the media had a large effect on Kuhn as it continues to have an equally large effect on other people today.
"Women's bodies are used to sell just about everything," Kuhn said as she showed many slides proving this fact.
She had slides of very scantily clad woman advertising everything from shoes to cologne to cars. All of the women in these adds had what most people would see as the "perfect" body when the truth is that most, if not all, of the pictures have been airbrushed.
In an attempt to achieve the kind of body of one of these models, many turn to plastic surgery. Kuhn said that plastic surgery is a $300 million-a-year industry and about 90 percent of those surgeries are elective.
"Media creates ideal standards that women are supposed to live up to," Kuhn said.
Media images have a large influence in most people's lives. The average person sees about 3,000 ads every day. In the ads which have a woman in them, more often than not that woman is seen as an object.
Kuhn said that in countless ads, only a few parts of a woman's body can be seen. She is turned from a whole person into a pair of legs to sell shoes, or a pair of lips to sell tooth whitener.
Women are also seen as vulnerable and as the victim in countless ads. The women are posed in vulnerable and provocative positions, whereas men are usually seen in confident poses.
Kuhn said media images have a large influence on our culture and that is why there are thousands of individuals starving themselves to try to achieve the almost impossible goal of looking like one of the models in these ads. Over 70 percent of women feel dissatisfied with their bodies after looking at a women's magazine for three minutes, she said.
Many students who attended the presentation did not know that media images had such an large effect on their self image.
"I never thought about how seeing ads like these day after day could have a negative effect on my life," said Niki Frohman, junior.
Kuhn and the Media Action Alliance have worked on several projects to help reduce the number of negative images of women in the media. They have gotten several billboards taken down and discouraged negative ads in newspapers. The group also compliments good ads and encourages them to continue the effort to show more realistic people in the ads.
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