Women: More Than a Body + Face
Our organization strives to create a world where women feel empowered and have a healthy perspective on how they look. In order to achieve this, we believe female-geared companies must relay that beauty is not the highest achievement for women and that women are more than their appearances.
For so long in television, movies, advertising, and other mediums, women were and still are portrayed as just objects of beauty. This line of thinking ignores the individuality of women.
Women are smart and love to code, women are artistic and paint intricate portraits, women are tough and athletic, women are so much more than just objects of beauty.
​
Below we will discuss brands that are presenting women as more than a body and face, how they are accomplishing this, and who will be impacted by this type of advertising.
​
Aerie and their #AerieReal campaign:
The lingerie, swimsuit, athletic, and loungewear brand of American Eagle Outfitters, Aerie, promotes this multifaceted aspect of women.
The #AerieReal campaign began in 2014 when Aerie promised to only “use un-airbrushed, un-photoshopped images of models in their ads” (Kane). The pledge to be #AerieReal has only expanded from that initial successful change.
At the beginning of 2019, Aerie released the next installment of their #AerieReal campaign, the Role Models. The announcement reads:
​
-
Actor, The New York Times bestselling author and host of E!’s late-night show BUSY TONIGHT Busy Philipps,
-
actress and activist Samira Wiley,
-
actor, writer and activist Jameela Jamil,
-
gold medal para snowboarder Brenna Huckaby and
-
creator Molly Burke
will join current Role Models Iskra Lawrence, Aly Raisman, Cleo Wade and Jenna Kutcher in Aerie’s ongoing mission to empower its customers. (Owen)
This campaign includes “real conversations around body confidence and social causes at stores across the country” as well as a diverse group of women (Owen).
Not only are the women visually diverse, but their passions and personalities vary as well. Aerie has chosen women in their campaign to not only encompass multiple physical features but lifestyles and professions as well.
Including actresses, activists, writers, athletes, and more shows Aerie’s commitment to portraying women as more than just their beauty. These women are not professional models whose whole life revolves around beauty; their hobbies and lifestyles differ to show that women are more than just their looks.
This message is best highlighted in the ad below where the Role Models answer the question, “What is your real power?”. None of their answers consist of anything beauty-related, demonstrating that these women view their strongest assets apart from their appearances.
Aerie’s #AerieReal campaign depicts women as individuals, not objects of beauty. Not only do their Role Models embody this message, but Aerie’s website promotes this idea as well.
​
​
​
The Role Models tab allows you to learn about the Role Models, read articles about motherhood, mindfulness, and self-care, and learn about female members of the Special Olympics. Also, you can read and watch multiple Real Talks, where Role Models and other women are interviewed about topics such as “being an empowered woman” and “the power of individuality”.
These articles and stories speak to women as a whole, realizing that they are more than just their appearances. These women have dreams, jobs, and families. They deserve to be seen as holistic people who are more than just their looks. Click the Role Models Tab button to view more:
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Next to this tab is the Better World section, listing organizations that Aerie works with as well as more articles. These include stories such as “How a 14-year-old is championing body confidence” and “Celebrating Sami from Make-A-Wish”. These articles celebrate strong women overcoming obstacles, showing that women are more than their looks. Click the Better World Tab button to view more:
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Always and their #LikeAGirl campaign:
Like Aerie, Always, the feminine hygiene brand of the Procter and Gamble company is also advocating that women are more than their beauty. In 2014, Always initiated their #LikeAGirl campaign “to make sure that girls everywhere keep their confidence through puberty and beyond by tackling the societal limitations that stand in their way” (“Our Epic Battle”).
​
​
​
​
How is Always making a difference?
Like Aerie, Always depicts females as more than their beauty. By acknowledging the gender stereotypes in the phrase “like a girl”, Always is addressing the limitations forced onto girls at a young age that follows into adulthood. Asking young girls to perform actions like a girl, viewers witness the confidence inherent in their answers. In comparison to the answers of the older participants, society has taught them that doing something like a girl means doing it wrong, means acting stupid, means worrying about your looks.
Furthermore, the “Keep Playing” commercial promotes girls’ participation in sports, acknowledging they are more than just their beauty. By depicting girls playing sports and feeling confident, Always depicts that beauty is not the highest accomplishment for women.
Why is it important that women are viewed as more than a body and face?
If female appearance would not be viewed as the biggest achievement for women, women will benefit by possessing higher self-esteem. Because women are constantly judged by their looks and compared to beauty standards, “women and girls consistently report greater dissatisfaction with their appearance and their bodies than boys and men do” (Kling et al. 472).
If women’s appearance and perceptions of beauty are linked to their self-esteem and feeling of self-worth, imagine how women would feel if they based their self-confidence on other facets of themselves. If beauty would not be highly valued for women, women’s self-esteem will be based on their other traits and achievements.
​Another way in which women would be impacted by this deemphasizing of beauty is their view of other women. When women are viewed as only their bodies, they are “stripped of their individuality and personality” (Puvia and Vaes 485).
Therefore, a correlation exists between oppressive beauty standards and dehumanizing sexually-objectified women.
When women subscribe to these harmful ideas, they view other women negatively. If these female participants did not value beauty so much, their views of other objectified women would expand to seeing the whole person, a perspective that the female participants do not even offer themselves.
In conclusion, if women lessen the worth they place on beauty standards, they would view themselves and other women more positively and equally.
Who else would be impacted by the idea that women are more than their beauty?
Another group that would be affected by the idea that women are more than their beauty is men.
In a study of 159 men and 194 women (both college-aged), researchers Forbes et al. discovered “endorsement of Western beauty ideals and practices was associated with hostility toward women, traditional sexism, hostile sexism, and, to a lesser extent, benevolent sexism” (265).
More specifically, they found that men scored higher on measures of the three forms of sexism and hostility (269).
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
As said previously about women, “the tendency to chronically and pervasively focus on one’s physical appearance can translate in perceiving the objectified as not fully human” (Puvia and Vaes 485).
Like the female participants, men dehumanized women, “[associating] sexually objectified female targets less with uniquely human attributes compared to equally attractive, non-objectified women whose bodies were less emphasized” (Puvia and Vaes 486).
​
This is another aspect where men can be impacted by the notion that beauty is not the highest accomplishment. This idea will affect men’s view of women, allowing them to see women as whole individuals.
​
​
​
Hey, you made it to the bottom of the page! Thanks for reading!
​
Looking for something else to explore? Here are some links to our other webpages.
​
​
Lastly, the Get REAL tab offers in their words “workshops, advice, & stories that empower”. Click the Get REAL Tab button to view more:
How is Aerie making a difference?
Their campaign and website prove Aerie’s persistence in acknowledging women as individuals with rich personalities, various hobbies and professions, and differing lives.
Aerie and their #AerieReal campaign empower women by relaying that beauty is not the highest accomplishment and that women are more than their looks.
Debuted during the 2015 Super Bowl, the #LikeAGirl commercial tackles the limitations and stereotypes that come with the phrase, “like a girl”.
When asking teenage and young adult men and women what it means to do an action “like a girl”, the responses showed how gender stereotypes shaped their answers.
When asked to perform how to throw, hit, and run like a girl, the participants responded by acting out girls as incompetent.
Another commercial that embodies this mission is titled “Keep Playing” which depicts young female athletes who have experienced pushback to their participation in sports. Again, Always brings in the statistic that young girls’ self-confidence drops during puberty and, as a result, they quit sports. The young girls in the ad beam with happiness when talking about their sports and encourage the watcher to keep playing.
​
“Why can’t run like a girl
also mean win the race?”
- participant in the #LikeAGirl commercial
“You are worth it and you deserve to play whatever sport you want to play. So don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it.”
- participant in the "Keep Playing" commercial
A young girl could be really talented at coding and computer science skills but because she is not conventionally beautiful, she could have low self-esteem.
If more advertisements promoted women as holistic individuals and society adopted these values, this young girl and many others would not base their self-worth on their appearances.
Rather, they would learn to embrace the other aspects of what makes them unique.
Surprisingly, not only men objectify women, but “women [also] dehumanize their sexually objectified counterparts” (Puvia and Vaes 486).
In their study, Puvia and Vaes found that their female participants “associate[d] the pictures of the non-objectified female targets with human related words… while the same was not true for sexually objectified female targets” (490).
The women in the study who were “motivated to look attractive to men, those who internalized the sociocultural beauty standards, and those who self-objectified dehumanized the sexually objectified female targets to a greater extent” (Puvia and Vaes 490).
If women were viewed as more holistic people and not just objects of beauty, men would not feel so hostile towards women.
​
As well, since beauty standards are oppressive and controlling of women, the eradication of these values could serve as an equalizer of men and women.
If men and women were both viewed as whole people, men’s sexist feelings would lessen.
Women and men dehumanize sexually-objectified women (Puvia and Vaes 486).