PETA’s Objectification of Women

PETA’s Objectification of Women

In support of my argument I came across this article written by Abir Malik (2014) that reinforces my argument around the treatment of women in western societies in industry has the desired purpose and belief that ‘man’ has the power to make a real change. As pointed out in the article 60-80% of Peta’s active members are women however this still does not reflect in its target market in its advertising. The purpose of these adverts is to not only shock its audience, which is what Peta is known for but to use it to gain sponsorship and money from people viewing this advert. In a society where the average male counterparts earn 15.7% (Daily Telegraph 2013) more than a female these adverts are directed towards these individuals. People who are ideal candidates for targeting towards are middle class families with two incomes and research shows that in this demographic the male of the family is far more likely to be earning more. Furthermore, this ideology is so embedded into western societies, organisations such as Peta are willing to contradict their own ethical approaches in order to gain responses from its audience.

Even more damaging to the message these advertisements are having is that this organisation is set up for the prevention of cruelty to animals. These advertisements such as the one above portray women as equal to or lesser than animals. Where these adverts have a positive or negative effect on the campaign Peta use of shock advertisement is purely designed to draw attention to the organisation. Society has bread such a culture where these adverts are acceptable and with this idea that ‘man’ is the spectator women will be subjected to this kind of treatment until change is forced to happen, like laws in France.  Research has also shown that these kinds of imagery are more negative than positive for such organisations. Bongiorno’s research concluded that men found the sexual advertisements to be arousing but that did not relate to the support for the cause. This proved their hypothesis that using sexualized advertisements for ethical cause would actually decrease the intention of supporting the cause (Bongiorno, 2013)