How we see and read images - Essay Example

While Kilbourne puts more stress on the impact of advertisements on female and teenage representatives, Bordo manages to refer to the impact on both, male and female social groups, providing a reader with a profound historical background as well as real-life cases. Kilbourne’s approach to the advertisement tendencies seems to express a strong feministic point of view according to which women are depicted exclusively either as sex objects or housewives. Bordo’s comments are also valid to this point of view; according to her, such social perception can be explained by men’s desire to bring an uppity woman down to size by reminding her that she is just “the sex,” even though she has built a successful career” (172).

In order to support this point of view Bordo uses different sources of information including historical data, literature reviews as well as personal feelings and experience. Both writers assume that women are constantly exploited through their bodies as well as parts of it as if it is in need of change or improvement (Kilbourne). According to Kilbourne, “a woman is conditioned to view her face as a mask and her body as an object, as things separate from and more important than her real self, constantly in need of alteration, improvement, and disguise.

” Different perception and judgment of man and woman within a society are also discussed by Bordo who refers in her story to the British film The Full Monty. Here, men are playing main roles being exposed to some of the stereotypes women are usually exposed to: “the naked penis is a symbol for male exposure, vulnerability to an evaluation and judgment that women experience all the time”, either they are closed or naked (Bordo 173). While men merely look undressed for some reason, women are perceived to be in their natural state (Bordo 177).

However, further Bordo refers not only to the issue of naked and near naked female