Most people like to think advertising doesn't affect them. Women don't buy into this because we're shallow or vain or stupid but because the stakes are high. Men do leave their wives for younger, more beautiful women as their wives age. There is manifest contempt and real-life consequences for women who don't measure up. These images work to keep us in line.
Girls get terrible messages about sex from advertising and popular culture.
Girls are told that boys are out for sex at all times, and girls should always look as if they are ready to give it. The emphasis for girls and women is always on being desirable, not being agents of their own desire. Girls are supposed to somehow be innocent and seductive, virginal and experienced, all at the same time. Girls are particularly targeted by the diet industry. The obsession with thinness is about cutting girls down to size, making sure they're not too powerful in any sense of the word.