Advertisements: The Beauty of Nothing at All.

Daniela Sanches, Flickr, Creative Commons

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Many years ago when I was still a feisty and impressionable college student, one of my favorite class subjects was Sociology & Women's Studies.

At that time, I was introduced to a video that would forever change how I saw women, beauty, gender and sexuality. That video was distributed through the Media Education Foundation and is still available today.

Entitled "Killing Us Softly" - a documentary by Jean Kilbourne, this video is now in it's 4th itieration and as important as ever, if not moreso for the young girls and women of today.

For the very first time in my life, my eyes were opened to the world around me in an "a-ha" moment like never before. For the first time, I saw the subjugation of women, the sexualization of girls, the gender inequalities that seem oh so very normal in our every day lives - so much so that we don't blink an eyelid any more. I understood more about how the advertising, fashion and beauty industries are strange bedfellows and how the young girl at the consumer end is so profoundly affected by all of this - but more dangerously so, at the sub-conscious level. And most of this video is about North America, in fact - not some third world nation with laws that sometimes inherently and intentionally displace women and girls.

This is NOT an ad and is used here for purposes of this blog.

They say we are each exposed to at least 5,000 ads a day now - easily, if not more - on TV, in magazines, on the internet, in the street, and many more digital avenues.

"How HOT can you be?" asks QuickTrim. "Keep up with Kim and Khloe."

Because, of course, the measure of "hotness" is the central factor when considering the integrity and beauty of a human being.

And the kicker is to "keep up", because if you don't, well, then you Fail as a human being, but specifically as a woman.

Impossible bodies, PhotoShopped to gauntness and clear, poreless skin, flowing hair, makeup just-so. This has become the ideal for women today. Below, a video recently released was watched by over 5 million people:

One participant in the video went from this to this after being PhotoShopped:

There was nothing wrong with her "Before" - in fact she was gorgeous just as is!