Women and their bodies are used to convey  ads in a way that makes consumers want to purchase more of what is being advertised. These companies use women to appeal to other people’s senses. First, it falsely portrays the female as nothing more or less than a “piece of meat,” a slang phrase used today to describe how meaningless something may be. It is also influencing our youth. Young girls and teenagers do not even have a chance to build their self-esteem because they are so busy comparing themselves to women of “status.” They are also being shown it is okay to act in an unacceptable manner in order to get the attention they want. 

Magazines, billboards, commercials and ads everywhere send messages that both genders are targeting the other when trying to make the best of their product sales. It just seems to be more popular to exploit women. For example, the Hardee’s commercial for their new burger featured a beautiful, barely-clothed woman eating a cheeseburger in an extremely unladylike manner. This is a prime example of how large businesses and corporations use gender to their advantage by attempting to appeal to a certain audience by their methods of advertising — this audience being primarily male. 

In the early days of television, such advertising would not be allowed. However, back in the early days of television, women were indeed portrayed as having the same specific role: she cooked, cleaned and took care of the children. You know, June Cleaver from “Leave it to Beaver?”  The option of creating your own image is available, but seems to be frowned upon by society who pushes girls especially to fit in with the “norms.” Take Kim Kardashian for example. She is no doubt a successful woman — but how? Why? Society portrays her as doing nothing but carrying expensive bags and looking beautiful all the time. So naturally, a stereotypical image is created and girls will feel the incessant need to fit that stereotype, and they will try to follow in the footsteps of certain more recognized people. This can cause extreme self-esteem issues and unhappy and unsuccessful lives. It’s a lose-lose situation at times; fit in with the norms and risk looking ridiculous to others, or be your own person and risk looking ridiculous to others. Sexism in advertising is harmful to people — especially women — and  influences social attitudes towards everyone.