Advertising is over 100 billion industry and affects all of us in daily lives. We are exposed to greater than 2000 ads per day. Advertising is part of our life, some people will say we are not influenced by advertising but at the same time they would be wearing a GAP t-shirt. Advertising is a massive subject to have a debate but it will be convenient for us to focus on women's portrayal in advertising as our subject for research paper. Advertising can be considered ethically brutal as it influences moral standards, norms and alters our thinking and makes us buy things we don't really need and use of women and their bodies and beauties to sell household commodities could be justified by capitalism but not really by social and/or ethical thinkers who believe that objectification of women in advertising is ethically unacceptable.
             Let's look back into history of women's portrayal in advertising. The women's image in mass media is related to how women have progressed throughout our history. The advertising started in 1870's and flourished in 1920's and after World War II advertising has progressed and grew more influential in our society. According to Betty Friedman, an author and researcher who studied the way women were portrayed in magazines in 1940's and 1950's. She found that women were portrayed as glamorous heroines in 1930's seeking to fulfill their own personal goals, in the 1940's they were rewarded and praised for running their households. Study done in 1976 by Belkaoui and Belkaoui studied advertising in general interest magazines from 1958 found that advertising depicted women differently in working occupations, non-working roles and nature of buying. The predominant working role being secretarial, clerical and non-working role being housewife. Courtney and Lockeretz studied advertising in 1970's and found that percentage of women in working roles have gone down from 1958, of the 9% of working w...