Advertising’s Affects on Self-Esteem Essay

As most of us know so sanitary by now, when a five-year-old lady enters adolescence, she faces a series of losses- loss of self-confidence, loss of a sense of efficacy and ambition, and the loss of her voice, the sense of being a unique and powerful self that she had in childhood states Jean Kilbourne in her essay, The More You Subtract, The More You Add. These losses in adolescent girls are natural yet worsened by advertisement and entirely overlooked. As media and advertising cause these effects, they also devise to offer just as Jean Kilbourne says, Advertisers are aware of their role and do non hesitate to take advantage of the insecurities and anxieties of young people, usually in the guise of offering solutions. Naturally, advertising has a negative and damaging effect on immature girls self-esteem.Generally speaking, adapting teenage girls strive to be what they see. Commonly, when surrounded by advertising of flawless and repress girls, their goal is then to achieve th e same qualities which brings dissatisfaction with their own bole. In order to achieve these goals, teenage girls may go to extremes. When size zero models are consistently advertised, that size becomes desired by teenage girls who may not have the ability to be that size. With this desire, comes eating disorders. To reduce this issue, girls shouldnt be surrounded by only overly thin women in advertisements to avoid added on pressure from advertising when that pressure is already naturally present during adolescence.Advertising produces subtleties that women should remain quiet and have less voice. Advertisements oft include models with their hands and fingers top their mouths with catch phrases adding to the negative message. Kilbourne illustrates this well in her essay by saying, indeed this is one of the primary messages of the culture to adolescent girls. The silence of a look female genital organ reveal more than words, says another perfume ad, this one featuring a woman ly ing on her back. This expectation can be troubling for young girls, giving them the impression that having too much of a voice is bad, that they should speak in a different way other than using their voice. This as well creates an inequality between boys and girls, that girls should be more ashamed of their opinions and voice.The most distinct negative effect advertising has on teenage girls self-esteem is the sexual objectification frequently present in advertising. Advertisements tend to draw a strong emphasis towards sexuality. Girls are taught to be overtly sexy and attractive but essentially passive and virginal (Kilbourne) at a young age. In The Merchants of Cool they explain a midriff role present in the 1990s explained as your body being your best asset to flaunt even if you dont understand it. Young teenage girls are prime examples of midriffs because they dont instead understand their adolescent bodies yet they are pressured from the sexuality shown in advertising to fla unt it the most rather than their brain.Even during Marilyn Monroes era, there were advertisements to improve your shank size rather than to reduce it because being curvy was the trend rather than being thin at the time. Yet even this had the issue of excluding naturally thin women that were unable to gain those extra pounds to achieve a thicker bust or waist size. There will always be issues in advertising in society however, these issues shouldnt be targeted to negatively effect teenage girls self esteem.