Many women of today's society are under high stress. They may seem publicly confident but secretly they feel a sense of failure, vulnerability, exhaustion, being overwhelmed, and defeat by society. Part of being a woman
is the acceptance that, in fact, one day our age will catch up to us and we will be "old." This causes many women to succumb to a state of total
and utter depression. Beauty advertising companies hone into these vulnerable
feelings and promote their products as though it is a cure for all physical and emotional ailments of a woman. Hair dye, creams and wrinkle
minimizing makeup are only the start to how far women will go to appear beautiful and
young again. Advertisements also portray women as sex objects and define what is popular and what is the "perfect look". Modern consumer culture
has linked sexuality with beauty to the extent that they cannot be separated.
Today, one cannot turn on the television, open a magazine or walk down a public street without being bombarded with images of seductive women being used to sell anything from bottled water to luxury cars. Why are these images so powerful? How do they shape and define the self-concept of both men and women? How does linking beauty with sexuality and desirability influence the way we relate to each other?
Historian Susan G. Cole writes that the way to instill social values is to eroticize them. The feminist movement that began in the 1960's fought
for equal rights for women in the workplace. In the 1970's women began upholding positions of real power as they entered the workforce. This shift in power was seen as a threat to the structure of institutions, government and
society. This threat created a backlash to sustain women's dependence on men and keep women and men apart in order to uphold power: "Images that turn women into objects or eroticize the degradation of women have arisen to
counterbalance women's recent self-a...