“Cigarettes are like women. The best ones are thin and rich.” – Vintage Ads by Silva Thins From the 1960s

“Cigarettes are like women. The best ones are thin and rich.” The advertisers for Silva Thins filter cigarettes have plastered this caption at the top of their ads. These ads depict an image that is simultaneously selling a product and has an underlying message that projects unhealthy morals, unrealistic goals, and the objectification of women. These types of ads utilize the “ideal” version of a woman in society, which perpetuates maintain arbitrary concepts of beauty.

Many advertisers produce ads that unfortunately have one single idea of beauty; this disregards the importance of the representation of various races and body types. Systematically, the world of advertisement continuously present women as objects, either comparing them to inanimate items or illustrating them as a tangible product that businesses are attempting to sell to the public. It goes without saying that advertising as a whole has been the main factor in the harm towards women, mentally and physically, by instilling in the minds of the public immoral ideas and sexist thoughts.

These ads appeal to the sights of men and smokers, and only sexist men would agreed with the idea that thin and rich women are only deemed “worthy”. The ads mock women while selling cigarettes; they use sexist ideals to profit from. Sexism plays a role in this ad in a subtle way with relating a women to a disposable item and a temporary means of satisfaction. Images like these sustain the idea that women are inferior compared to men.

Silva wants you to think that buying those cigarettes will bring color (men) to your life by saying that if you smoke these cigarettes you’d be considered worthy because the man is the “cool” guy that the men want to be, or the girls want to be with. This ultimately results in the man being the one with the power in the ad, limiting the control women have over their own lives.

(via Medium)