In the library by Barbara Clarke Advertising exerts negative influence on women Advertising, one of the nation's most powerful industries, exerts enormous influence on everyone. For many years Jean Kilbourne has been exposing advertising and its negative impact, particularly on women and girls. Kilbourne, who produced the documentary Killing Us Softly, estimates that the average American is exposed to about three thousand advertisements every day. Advertisers, who are well versed in psychology, encourage consumers to develop relationships with products, which can be relied upon when people fail to live up to expectations. This is a particularly attractive proposition for many women and girls, who are assured that unhappiness and emptiness can be cured by purchasing and using goods and services.
Women are particularly vulnerable to the messages of advertisers.
Kilbourne discusses sexism in advertising, how the industry has depicted female bodies over the years and to what extent women and girls are affected by these images. She is particularly concerned about ads for alcohol and cigarettes and how the industry aims to create addicts. She also focuses on violence and pornography, and on advertisements for food, cars and diet aids. Advertisers promise to cure the symptoms of many of society's public health and social problems with products, according to the writer, who suggests that instead the underlying problems should be solved. Gender inequality produces difference, and the differences produced are then used to justify gender inequality.