Abstract
The objectification of women in the Western media has been extensively studied and is now an established
field of feminist scholarship. However, women representation and their objectification in television
advertisements have received little attention in Pakistan. Therefore, it is imperative to critically examine
representation of women in television advertisements in Pakistan. The key aim of this paper, then, is to
examine how television advertisements in Pakistan objectify women and idealize particular images of
svelte, thin and soft female bodies as feminine capital. We employ qualitative methodology (critical
discourse analysis) to highlight how sexist media construct unattainable or objectified images of feminine
beauty. We argue that the image of an ideal woman (as presented in advertisements and other popular
textualizations) relegates women to mere objects of desire, leisure, sex, rather than people (human beings)
with emotions and feelings. The study concludes with an assertion that the intensification and
normalization of physical appearances and body exposure as standards of feminine beauty upon
