What Persuades Women

 

Women of North American culture have been conditioned to constantly work on ways to cover or disguise their flaws. This is because women in the media perpetuate this idea of the 'ideal woman'. The media's 'ideal woman' is a mythological creature to many women, although most women know this body type is unreal they still hold this to be the ideal. Women have been taught through advertising and Western culture that the female body is a source of power, far more important than the brain. Marshall McLuhan describes this quite effectively.

"To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points, which she has been taught to tailor, but as parts of the success kit rather than erotically or sensuously. She swings her legs from the hip . . . she knows that a "long-legged girl can go places." As such, her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects like the grille on a car." (Essential McLuhan, 1995. P. 24)

McLuhan is pointing out that women objectify themselves in an effort to please men. This is in reaction to men objectifying women for their own financial gain. Culturally, a woman's importance has been attributed to her body parts and her ability to keep them looking young. Women being so entrenched in these beliefs have paved the way for the persuasive techniques utilized in ads today.