Lucky Brand Woman

By: Caroline R
http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/menincontrol/pics/mencontrol3.jpg

In this ad the women is very fixed up and is wearing revealing clothing. Her body is the so called, “perfect” figure. She has on tiny shorts and very high red high heels and is sitting on a bar. Her nails are manicured and she is covering her apple red lips with one hand while the other is pouring a man coffee. Her body is being used to sell Lucky Brand Fragrances, if you take out all of the words the picture does not advertise the product what so ever. I think this ad is offensive to women, she is serving a man and above his head it reads, “Get Lucky!” Why does a women pouring coffee mean anything but that? Why didn’t the company use a barely dressed male to pour a women coffee, after all the fragrance is for men and women. The answer is easy, women are viewed as people who should serve men, and this advertisement does nothing to change that stereotype. The words, “Get Lucky” above the man feeds into the ideology that men are looking to get something from women. I would have viewed this ad as sexy if it was just of this man and woman posing, but instead they had to put a coffee pot in her hand, which makes it sexist. I do not think the intention of this ad was to be anti-feminist but I would have to choose that over feminist. Advertisements cannot get much more anti-feminist then having a woman barely dressed serving a man.

I believe advertisement destroys body image for young girls and women. Even if a parent never buys a magazine, every child goes to the grocery store and there they are in the checkout line at eye level for every young girl to see. What has recently surprised me is the barely clothed pregnant celebrities posing for magazine covers. Some may view this as a positive advertisement, but when you take a closer look at those covers, the moms to be are barely dressed and are advertising how little weight they have gained. It is horrible when women begin bragging about how few pounds they gain which are suppose to be nourishing their baby with. Even the magazines aimed for younger girls are promoting the, “picture perfect teenager,” the only difference is they have a little more clothing on. It is the responsibility of advertisement companies to promote a healthy, diverse image of young women. It is great to see that Dove finally decided to change their campaign and photograph real women. Think about your everyday life, sure we all compare ourselves to others and wish something could be different about ourselves, but when have you ever seen a women that looks like a cover model? The answer to that should prove to us that those models are not real women and are usually air-brushed; it is disturbing that for most of us it takes a long time to figure that out. The best way to protest this negative advertising is for women to quit buying the magazines that target us and promise to help us in every aspect of our life. Every single woman’s magazine says something on the cover about losing weight, having sex and cooking. Why do we keep buying these, they are filled with tiny, fake women and products that promise to help us look like that. If the magazine editors are so into helping women why don’t they write about something more than skin deep topics?

For a final thought on the magazine industry, think about the cover of Cosmo verse the cover of Forbes and then think about why women are viewed as inferior to men. My response is, Forbes is all about money, leadership, business and technology. Cosmopolitian is about sex, dieting, guys and gossip, what message does that give women and young girls.