Dove - The Media and Objectification.

I wanted to research onto the reverse side of my opinion towards the beauty and fashion industry. I wanted to see if society as it is becoming patriarchal and the differences between man and woman are becoming more even if the objectification of women is becoming less common. I wanted to look into how industry's can possibly be used to promote women. I did this through researching into various Dove campaigns.

Dove for years have used real women as models in order to promote themselves as women and to help women love themselves. I looked into two of their campaigns the first was a campaign where Dove asked women off the streets to draw themselves, this allowed Dove to see what women physically thought of themselves. While the women drew themselves, Dove asked a random stranger to also draw the women. When comparing both the images, the drawing that the women drew of themselves were always very unrealistic and based on their flaws rather than how they physically did look.

The second campaign I looked into Dove asked women on the streets if they would take part in a photoshoot. Before they went in, Dove asked the women to describe their physical appearance in word. After the shoot the women's photos were revealed and the women were asked once again to describe themselves. Their words drastically changed from being very self hating to self loving.

I do think of these campaigns as a positive change to media and beauty industry as they are very raw and uncut in how they use normal people to advertise their products not size 0 models. It gives a more realistic view of the world we live in. This does argue towards the belief that the industry is changing and that it is no longer prejudice towards the way women look and the way women are treated. Despite this,I do believe that there can be two reactions towards these campaigns, and although the campaigns are about women and confidence it does objectify woman as the weaker sex. Through the media and beauty commercials Dove preach out how women actually feel about themselves, their body, their face, their skin concluding that women are insecure. This can be hidden through objectification to make it appears as confidence. In the last image Dove use labelling to describe the women and objectify them by physical features of theirs rather than their personality themselves. 'Grey' doesn't give us any information about the lady other than her hair colour. How can women's place in the media and fashion industry be improved when we still label them like objects?