A Speech From a Feminist

A Speech From a Feminist

            Today, I went to audit a communication class of Professor Coker. A student Kyle had a speech about sexism in advertisement. I found that it was similar to what our classes were talking about----feminist.

            Although sexism in advertisement and sexism in films seems different, they sometimes they have many similarities. After all they both belong to mass communication.

            In Kyle’s speech, he pointed out some forms of sexism in advertisements: some adverts reflect elements of violence against women; insulting women’ body; degrading women’s dignity and personality; causing audiences to misunderstand the significances of women; discriminating the social status of women. Some forms are so similar to what I have read in my text book Introduction to Film Criticism. “The use of masculine reinforcing the notion that males are more important to society than females.” This is similar to “discriminating the social status of women.” When Kyle explained this form, he said, “When women appear in advertisement, they often act as housewives, and when men are the subject of advertisements, the adverts often show how successful, how mature, and how confident they are. It’s like that women are the appendant of men.”

            I also can find some connections between sexism in advertisement and sexism in films that our text book does not point out obviously. When Kyle talked about “causing audiences to misunderstand the significances of women”, he mentioned that adverts often used beautiful women and showed their perfect body and perfect body, so the more important part inner beauty was ignored. Nowadays, most films choose beauties to enact female characters. And sometimes they use women’s naked body to catch audiences’ eyes. So I think it’s little like what Kyle said--- “insulting women’ body; degrading women’s dignity and personality”.