by Zach Bigalke

Created on: July 12, 2007

The problem with the argument that advertisements using sex to sell products degrades women is that these women willingly participate in the creation of these ads for large sums of money. If anything, it is women using sexuality to exploit those who would pay them for their poses. We are no longer in an era where women have few choices in what to do with their lives. And women, smarter than ever, have learned that their bodies are money-generating machines which can easily draw much larger paychecks than most other jobs.

The modeling industry is one of the few where women can easily make much more money than men. Women consciously choose to participate in these photo shoots; if a particular woman believes that she is degraded when she sees such ads, then it is her right and prerogative to voice that opinion to those women who choose to engage in such professions. While the use of good looks to achieve financial stability might be an unpalatable way to earn a living to some people, it does not degrade. If the modeling agencies and the photographers and advertisers purchasing the photos and video of these women were not paying them to do their job, or were exploiting them with lower wages than men, then the case could be made that sexuality degrades women.

What we forget to realize, however, is that the women participating in these advertisements embrace and celebrate sexuality, both the general concept and their own individualized reality. By focusing on such a silly notion of degradation, we fail to focus on real instances of female degradation in the workplace. The case of Lilly Ledbetter, who recently lost her Supreme Court decision against Goodyear Tire and Rubber for years of inequality in pay versus the compensation of men performing the same role, does more to degrade the struggle of women to attain equal rights in the nation than does any seductive advertisement. When we focus on the Hollywood culture more than real injustices, we only degrade further.

It is high time that we spend more resources on combatting injustices such as the inequal pay of men and women at executive levels of Fortune 500 corporations, and fewer resources on Judeo-Christian moral outrage and Puritanical ideas of sexuality. Only once we spend more time scrutinizing business practices toward women and less time criticizing women who choose to make a financially-sound career move will we take real steps toward ending the degradation of women in the United States.

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