Commercialisation of women's body

Schwartz projects women as an object for commercial purpose in modern day through the channel of mass media. The poem portrays how a body of women is commercialised in Television. Her physical appearance is glorified undermining the inner quality of women, putting forth the issue of objectification of women. According to Fredrickson and Roberts (1997), objectification of women has become a permanent part of the western culture and the increase of sexualized female images in mass media has been so rapid and pervasive that it is impossible for anyone, anywhere or anytime to avoid them. Weitz (1977), argues that television has built and maintained certain images of gender roles that are generally recognized by society. The culture and people have a mutual influence on each other. Women are portrayed in a stereotypical way in television. A stereotype is defined as a group of people who share large similarities in characteristics or physical and mental attributes to be depicted in certain fixed ways (Liebert, & Sparfkin, 1988). It often results in conceiving negative generalizations and if accepted as truth by the people, it may lead to negative preconception or create a poor image of women. To some extent, television educates people in how a society is formed and works, as well as reflects and reinforces supporting social values (Furnham, Mak, & Tanidjojo, 2000).

In the lines, “ On TV, someone is selling the idea of buying/ by way of a happy family by way of a cleaning product” (Schwartz, 2018), she indicates how a women’s physical body is used as an object to popularize the commodity to be sold. Women’s physical body being depicted in media and advertising has become a widely discussed and broadly studied topic of recent decades. The depiction of women in media is often criticized as unrealistic, objectifying and narrow, reinforcing the body culture and the glorifying of “ perfectness” (Bower 2001; Lin & Yeh 2009). The appearance of women has been found to affect their life experiences significantly; overweight women are, for example, more likely to achieve low educational, professional and income levels than slim women, who are physically closer to the current western beauty ideal (Fredrickson & Roberts 1997). Advertising is often accused of reproducing stereotypes about gender, race, sexual orientation and social class and of causing consumer practices harmful to health (Csikszentmihalyi 2000).