Although this story comes from New Zealand, it is much relevant to our lives in America and increasingly in the rest of the world too. First of all let me say that even though I dress somewhat conservatively but I do not have any problem with women dressing in (almost) any manner that they want however I do have problem with behaving in a certain manner so as to turn themselves into objects. Many of my friends are not exactly prudes and really do dress like stars but they use the special thing about them is their brains and not their looseness. The most damaging thing is that many women themselves do not consider such acts deplorable and objectification of women is being passed as the right of a women to do whatever she wants. The following except about pole dancing is disturbing to say the least.
Young women, far from sternly rising up to form feminist action groups to throw Burger King and the bikini girls off campus, appear to be themselves enthusiastic players in the slapperisation of New Zealand. In bars, managers have found that if they provide poles they don’t even have to hire pole dancers, because female patrons will do it for free.
Advertisement seems to have been reduced to sex, sex and sex.
In an environment such as this, the twin objections of feminism and moralistic concerns have become muted, leaving advertisers with a free hand. Only the most ludicrous or awful displays of women’s bodies arouse complaints, such as a recent Auckland billboard for muesli featuring a pair of giant female breasts. The tagline was “need something real?”
Of course the advertisers use such tactics because they know how to exploit the hard-wired instincts of men and women.
Ads like these, says Starr, capitalise on what is known as the “involuntary attention” phenomenon. Like a train wreck, there are some sights you cannot not look at.
“Pretty much anything involving bodies of either sex is going to have some involuntary attention because it’s hard- wired in,” says Starr.
Ads that grab attention are particularly effective for products that people don’t much care about, called “low- interest” products, says Starr. For a “high-interest” product such as a computer, consumers will research their purchase, carefully weighing up competing products before making a decision.
But no one spends much energy deciding which burger or beer or muesli bar they will buy. For low-interest products such as these, advertisers have to attract attention and create a buzz by using colour, sound or imagery. Or bodies.
The following quote is telling since it says that girls LEARN such behavior. I was in a store the other day and came accross the Bratz dolls that the article mentions, I mean the dolls are ugly. Its not just what you are dress but how you are dressed makes a difference. I mean look at Princess Arial, she looks cute innocent but for Bratz, I hope they burn in hell.
Girls “learn to treat themselves as objects to be looked at and evaluated for their appearance”, said the report.
The cultural influences are everywhere – from highly sexual music videos, to Bratz dolls dressed like hookers, to girl mags with their focus on boys and “crushes”, to sexually exhibitionistic celebrities such as Britney Spears. In school playgrounds, eight-year-old girls can be heard singing The Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me”.
Art is the proper task of life 