Term paper on Fashion Photography: Impact of the image on women

First, the image stresses the inferiority of women, although the primary goal of the image is to stress the beauty and sexuality of women. At first glance, the image depicts a sexually attractive woman, who wears a beautiful dress. However, her posture and the actions of the police officer behind her show her full obedience and subordination to the police officer. The woman is detained and the police officer conducts the search with his hand on her hips, while the woman seems to be unable and unwilling to resist. In such a way, the photo depicts the full subordination of the woman to man that emphasizes her inferiority. Therefore, the photo is offensive for women and cannot be released.

The woman is depicted virtually as a mere commodity, a subject to sexually aggressive behavior of a man wearing the form of a police officer. In fact, fashion photography should respect human rights and dignity and avoid sexually explicit images (Gross, 47). However, the contemporary fashion industry tends to violate this norm concerning female sexuality and avoidance of sexually explicit images (Wilson, 69). At any rate, the current image clearly emphasizes the sexuality of the woman and her inferiority.

The image is not just sexually explicit but it is also offensive in relation to women. In this regard, the image has gone too far in an attempt to depict female sexuality since the image has affected the human dignity of women through the depiction of the woman as a mere subject to the sexual aggression from the part of the man. In fact, the image leads to the formation of a biased view on women as subjects to sexual aggression from the part of men. The image raises the clear implication to the inability of the woman to resist to sexually explicit actions of the police officer. Being released in fashion media, this image can lead to the development of the biased attitude to women, while women viewing such an image may grow accustomed to their inferiority.

However, today, this is a common trend to depict women being inferior to men, although, ideally, fashion photography should avoid gender inequality (Berger, 18). Otherwise, fashion photography would be discriminatory in relation to women. At this point, it is worth mentioning the enormous image of fashion industry on the consciousness of women as well as men. The image created by the fashion industry can affect consistently the perception of gender roles. The current image is definitely offensive in relation to women and, therefore, can have a negative impact on the public perception of women and on women’s perception by the public and women.



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