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There have been some campaigns in Turkey conducted by several non–governmental organisations with the purpose of preventing the abuse of sexual elements in media, as there is an increasing trend in the multimedia means to make use of sexual elements to attract more attention and to influence people to make them watch their contents. In order to achieve their goal of increasing the rating records, the multimedia means resort to sexual contents and use of sexism in each item turns out to be indispensable. Even in the simplest advertisements, such as bubble gum or battery or mobile phone advertisements, along with the television series, television programmes, newspapers, such contents are used and apparently the actual objective of these advertisements deviates from their actual goals. 
It is for sure that the women are the most abused group in the society concerning this phenomenon. Whether the content of the programme is relevant or not or whether its main target group is the women or not, the object used for this purpose is generally the femininity of the women. To illustrate, a woman is lying on a piano, and she is wearing sexy nightwear–like clothes, and she is acting as if she tried to entice and seduce a man, but this is just an advertisement for a bubble gum company. Considering the relevance between the advertisement object and the product, it becomes clear that the commercial advertisement is a sheer ‘sex sell’. Another example may be the brand–new expensive cars that are put on display at malls. Generally, the cars are advertised with a female model in extra–mini clothes and an exaggerated make–up to draw people’s attention on the product. Even though it is hard to try to set relevance between these two objects, it is not hard to understand the reason for resorting to this ‘sex sell method’. This method gains favour from both sexes in a society repressed both socially and sexually. Through the male and female perspective, a sexy and beautiful woman body is a desirable object, since a great majority of men would like to see this kind of scenes. Not only the men, but also the women would like to see such scenes as well, as this type of scene is that they wish to be like.
In spite of the fact that the women are the main group used in media means, it is not possible to say that women and men are represented at media means equally, as it has been stated previously, the primary intention of using the women in media means is to make use of their aesthetic and physical beauties in order to draw much more attention. Basically, this is the actual basis that “stop sexism in media” campaigns criticize mostly, as they want the women to be represented more in the newspapers, on televisions, on columns and in other programmes or positions in business life. However, it seems hard to change this deep–rooted tradition in a short time, because the women have been presented on these media means by their femininity; for instance, at the rear page of the newspaper there is generally a half-naked model or in the magazines or in most television programmes, the women are depicted with certain roles. Therefore, it will be hard for these campaigns to change such roles and image of women in the society. In parallel to this, it will be hard for the women to get more or less the similar or equal status in media means and business life or administrative positions like the men. With the purpose of finding a solution to this challenging case, some non–governmental organisations have initiated campaigns claiming that all media means should make an attempt to assign women to important posts and positions. Besides assigning to higher positions, allocation of certain amount of seat, or in another words quota, in certain institutions in order to overcome the sexism and men dominance.
In this respect, the editor of feministing.com and a women’s right worker, Ann Friedman , says that
“Doubtlessly, it is necessary for all newspapers to take steps in appointing the successful journalists to the critical positions including executive editor position. Nevertheless, it seems hard for this attempt itself be helpful in solving the problems regarding sexism and sexual discrimination.”
This alternative is only a minor part of the whole picture; this mentality should be applicable to the other cases as well: quota for the women parliamentarians in the Parliament, increase in the number of television and radio programmes presented by the women on TV and Radio, allocation of certain number of seats in various boards such as executive, scientific and administrative boards, or introducing a compulsory percentage for the works to be produced by the women. It is considered by these non-governmental organisations, which are mostly pro–feminist, such appointments and seat or position allocation will help the women to remove the deep–rooted sexism and men-dominance; however the following question should not be neglected: which one is more important, the high number or the quality?

By Eduard Alan Bulut