In our society, there has always a been an ongoing debate about the way women are depicted in advertisements. Most ads exhibit the ‘ideal woman’ to be very slender such as in Victorias Secret advertisements, which give the message that only skinny women are seen as beautiful. There has been a new trend for brands such as Dove to use plus sized models in their advertisements and escape the usual tendency for ads to feature skinny women. Irina Costei raised the discussion of how both the Dove and Victorias Secret commercials are on opposite ends of the spectrum, featuring only skinny or only plus sized models, without any diversity in between. I agree with Irina Costei that Dove’s marketing is equally as flawed as Victorias Secret’s as it has the same effect on people. Bigger women who look at Victorias Secret’s adds may not think they are beautiful enough to buy Victoria’s secret products and vise versa with the Dove commercials. I believe that Dove’s new advertising campaign is a step in the right direction for advertisements pertaining to women’s body image, however the first brand to feature both skinny and plus sized models simultaneously will earn a lot of respect from consumers and appeal to a wider range of customers as well.

Sources:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/irinacostei/2012/09/29/dove-vs-victorias-secret-raises-body-image-debate/

So far Canada has again and again refused to give monetary aid to a bailout fund through the International Monetary fund to help the troubled European economies. According to the Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, “not enough has been done” and that European countries “need to do much more”. He also stated that “the European countries themselves have more than the adequate resources to do so.” There has been much controversy on whether Canada should possibly rethink it’s position on the European crisis. The main argument for Canada not bailing out the Europeans is that Canada has nothing to do with the crisis and that it’s strictly a European issue. The other side of the argument is that we are talking about an interconnected global economy, where if Europe or one country in Europe defaults it will cause credit to subside which will in turn have a feedback affect and effect everybody. Germany’s ambassador, Georg Witschel stated to Canada in an interview that “Canada should realize that the entire global economy will be at risk if the European economy falters.” The benefit to Canada for helping Europe would be that if Europe becomes more stable then the return to Canada will be much higher. One thing Canada has to think about is that if it decides to assist Europe, it may receive no return or a lower return on that money. It could be a huge loss to Canada because Canada would be getting a lower rate of return than it would if it invested that money in the financial system. I think that Canada needs to look at the time value of money when coming to a decision in this crisis.

Works Cited

Gollom, Mark. “Should Canada Help With a European Bailout?” CBC News Canada. CBC News, 16 Aug. 2012. Web. 6 Oct. 2012.

“Harper’s Refusal to Help Bail Out Europe Draws Germany’s Ire.” The Globe And Mail. The Globe and Mail, 8 Jun. 2012. Web. 6 Oct 2012.