Using Women's Bodies to Sell - Pin-Up Girls, Objectification of Women, and Self-Objectification

Summary:

            Focusing on modern advertisements, women are most commonly used to advertise most of the products we see on TV, hear on the radio, see on billboards, etc. Although women are the more commonly targeted demographic for products like yogurt, clothing, and cereal and are used for the advertising of these products, women are also used for the advertising of products not commonly used by women: car parts, heavy duty tools, etc. (Lowen, 2008). Such advertisements with the objectification of women don’t even phase society in this day in age; people are so used to being surrounded by it constantly.

This is nothing new, objectifying women for advertisements unrelated to them dates back to the 1950s. Pin Up images were found in calendars meant to advertise tools for a male-targeted demographic during this time period (Lowen, 2008). Pin ups often became famous through this type of advertising. Pin Up girls usually gained even more fame through their images that accentuated their strongest features and “hid” their weaker ones (Lowen, 2008).

Many people reacted to images of Pin up girls created by painters with a negative opinion, believing that the images were unrealistic depictions of what the ideal woman should aspire to look like because that was the woman that men fantasized about. There is no doubt that the earlier Pin Up images that were painted, not photographed, were altered and unrealistic. A painter of Pin Up girls himself stated that he “felt the ideal pin-up was a fifteen-year-old face on a twenty-year-old body” (Lowen, 2008). Today’s “Pin Up” girls (not identified as such anymore) are more commonly photographed rather than drawn/painted. Still altered, these photographs are said to be more believable because of the power of Photoshop/digital altering, and not as capable of being perceived as more imaginative yet reality-based such as the painted images from the 30s, 40s, and 50s (Lowen, 2008).

Whether it be the painted images of Pin Up girls or the photographs of Pin Up girls (both having been altered as an unrealistic depiction of a woman), a concern has risen. A “dangerous trend” supposedly exists and is leading to the development of eating disorders among young women because of obsessions, accusingly created by these images, of how people view them and their bodies. “A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions of women feeds a poisonous trend in women's and girl's perceptions of their bodies, one that has recently been recognized by social scientists as self-objectification -- viewing one's body as a sex object to be consumed by the male gaze” (Lowen, 2008).

           

           

Analysis:

            This article has an overall negative outlook on Pin Up images, not only of today, but from the early and mid 1900s as well. It’s been proven that images in the media can be a major factor in depression and eating disorders amongst young women. It’s a fact that the images today are extremely altered, touched, and retouched to the point where the ensuing image is one of a woman that does not exist. Yet society is brainwashed, and even knowing this information, girls will see these images and still feel they must strive to look this way, though it’s impossible, in order to be “pretty” or “desired”. Not to mention the fact that these images encourage that girls have to feel that they must be “pretty” or “desired” at all, making it seem like that’s everything and all they are worth being a female. Having that type of mentality that society has created amongst many women is very dangerous and is only getting worse by the decade. 

           The article makes a point to mention that the painted pictures of Pin Up girls in the 30s, 40s, and 50s are altered, yet we’re able to “recognize them as images created from the imagination, even if they're based on life,” (Lowen, 2008) making it seem like what we have today is much worse. Either way, both are images of “fake” women, so to speak, and produce the same effect on women, today’s images are just more realistic because of the advancement in technology and are more thrown in your face. It’s important to remember the photographs, not paintings, of Pin Up girls from the early-to-mid 1900s, though. These images were barely tweaked like they are today and the ideal of what was considered beautiful and sexy was far more “voluptuous” in that time period. The ideal image of a woman has changed, which must be kept in mind. The photographs taken of women in that time period were natural and healthy in comparison to those of today, which are altered to be unhealthily skinny and with man-made body parts. So in that respect, it wasn’t such a terrible thing for girls to look at images of these women and strive to look like as they do because that was a reachable goal of a real woman.

Reflection Questions:

1.      What made painters of the first Pin Up girls create a “unrealistic” depiction of a woman to be considered ideal?

2.      What was the true cause of “the dangerous trend” (self-objectification), was it the Pin Up girls originally painted, the photographs we are only now seeing in the most recent decade, or is there a possible other cause?

Lowen, L. (2008, August 14). Using women's bodies to sell - pin-up girls, objectification of women, and self-objectification. Retrieved from http://womensissues.about.com/b/2008/08/14/using-womens-bodies-to-sell-pin-up-girls-objectification-of-women-and-self-objectification.htm