Society today is surrounded and dominated by visual images of mass media in which we are subconsciously taking in and manipulated by. We are engrossed by the visual image wether this be our own image or those of others and we gain a natural anxiety about how these images measure up to a 'socially prescribed ideal' we are brought up into knowing. This image of mass media is a clear example of how our unconscious and conscious obsession with image is used to produce anxiety and power within our society. The culture is in the advantage of the male as these visual images are for men and made my men as expressed in this quote: 'The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. Here, men can and do stare at women; men assess, judge and make advances on the basis of these visual impressions. The ability to scrutinise is premised on power. Indeed the look confers power; women's inability to return such a critical and aggressive look is a sign of subordination..' They become merely a recipient of the assessment and generate an endless fantasy for men as the women in the image will gaze back with availability whereas women in real life avoid the gaze. The women in this image is in a very sexual, semi nude pose and staring straight in the camera lens. With men in control of the saturation of visual media in society they encourage images like this to maintain a sense of security and power over women. The control and power of women only takes effect because of the subconscious connecting social ideals with image: 'women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been elevated to the position of holding the key to our physic well-being, our social success, and indeed to whether or not we will be loved.' Women have become to look at images of the media like the one featured and started to think they have to look like that in order for men to like them and this has lead to create a self-fulling prophecy. They see a young, attractive, skinny female openly sexual and in a pair of denim shorts. These adverts should make women angry of men exploiting the female body however 'Instead, advertisements, health and beauty advice, fashion tips are effective precisely because somewhere, perhaps even subconsciously, an anxiety, rather than a pleasurable identification, is awakened.' Self image is now combined with judgements about desirability and how desirable you are has been raised up for being the pivotal reason for sexual relations. Women's understanding of possibly being loved is therefore featured on how there appearance is received by others. These sexual adverts fuel the anxiety of not measuring up to the desirability society needs for you to be loved by someone. Consumption of the product featured therefore is the only way out of the anxiety and you can then adopt the desirability you need to be loved. 'Advertising in this society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that, unless we measure up, we will not be loved.' Within the insecurities built up in these images, picking on every part of the body and sexualising it, comes a product which will 'fix' the feeling of not being good enough because it will transform your self image into the fantasy image you see.
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