25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Advertisements Analysis

Advertisements often implied that women were only useful in kitchen, cooking and taking care of the kids. Image A displays a women in the kitchen looking outside the kitchen window at her husband with her daughter. The kitchen is portrayed with light white, yellow, and beige colors. The advertisement has a caption placed at the bottom and it states, “Women don’t leave the kitchen!” The caption was the quote in a big font and then in a smaller font it talks about how a woman’s place is in the kitchen. The purpose

One of the the oldest advertising agencies in America since its creation in 1869, N.W. Ayer and Son, produced a compilation of their ads in order to teach how marketing could be used to convince customers to buy their goods. In this booklet they state “Out of magazines and newspapers they [customers] glean the ideas that are to rule their daily lives” (In Behalf). This statement reiterates the fact that advertising was particularly focused on promoting goods as useful in order to appeal to a wide variety of customers. Though this statement from N.W. Ayer and Son does not speak to any specific gender, it can be inferred that they were speaking about women as Estelle Freedman, an acclaimed American historian specializing in women and social reform, as well as a professor of history at Stanford University, writes how “Home economics became woman’s professional realm…” (Freedman 391).

The use of sexualization also reinforces a pattern of gender roles that are currently circulating throughout advertisements. More often than not, women who are used as ploys in ads are seen doing household chores like vacuuming, changing the toilet paper, or making coffee. Females are rarely ever seen in a work place, and definitely not in a powerful position. In fact, the directors of most of these ads place women below or behind the man to show who has the power in actuality. Women are seen as skinny, fragile, and immobile in high heels, while men are strong and powerful. By setting up such a strong binary between the two different groups, it is obvious that the majority of the American society will not be able to fit into these roles, and it leaves a sense of rejection for the average person. This rejection, accepted by the viewers, manifests

Gender role bias in advertisements has been so prevalent for so long that the untrained eye wouldn't even discern it. All the same, these biases, for the most part, put women in subordinate positions and men in dominant ones. This assumption on both the genders is unfair and demeaning. These ads portray women as subservient and play toys for men. Not only do the models depict an image nowhere near close to reality, but their bodies are scantily clad and what few clothes they are wearing are very revealing.

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

Pozner reinforces Devor because they both talk about how advertisers use sexism in order to advertise to women. Craig argues that advertisers play with the stereotype that women are suppose to be perfect in order to get a man. Craig says “As in the Weight Watchers Commercials, it is the woman’s body that is portrayed as the source of the man’s attraction.” Based on Craig, advertisers advertise in a way that make women believe that to have a man, they must have a perfect body. Pozner enforces Craig’s argument by arguing that advertisers use women insecurities to advertise their products. Pozner says that Rebecca Traister says ”advertisers have always told us to hate our bodies...the message is “love your ass but not the fat no it.” Advertisers

In advertisements such as GE, media promoted gender stereotypes by portraying women as the “happy homemaker”. The ad is a series of images of a savvy, new

The advertisement that I pick was a true or false Modess advertisement. This advertisement really represent the 1950’s and 60’s because at that time women were allowed to vote, but didn't how a out of house job. A female's job at that time was to stay at home cook, clean, be a wife, and a mother. As for a male's job he was a work and was “allowed” to clean he just had to go to work and provide money for the family. The show I Love Lucy is an example of what was the job for a women in the 1950’s was. The Brady Bunch was in the late 1960’s, but it still show how life was back then and how were gender roles took place in a family. On that note women weren't allowed to be all feminin. This product makes me think that the human body back then, especially

In 2016, the United States spent 190 billion U.S. dollars on advertisements, almost double the amount of money on advertising than the next largest ad market (Statista). These ads advertise a multitude of different products. The ads are exposed to society in many different ways, from the breaks in between songs on the radio, to the ads shown online. Ads are targeted to a specific group of people, usually, the target demographic the brand wants to buy their product. Brands will often use women’s bodies in a sexual way to get people to stop and look at their ads. Over the last few decades, speakers and activists have seen advertisements becoming more sexual and more demeaning towards women. Activist Jean Kilbourne has been analyzing ads and has been bringing awareness to this issue for years through her four documentaries. In her documentary, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne asserts women’s bodies are often dismembered, portrayed with an unattainable, “ideal” body type, and despite advances in the women’s movement, the objectification of women in ads have gotten worse. The two images below illustrate these ideas.

The 1952 Schlitz advertisement that is shocking to most modern day feminists, was trying to normalize the “imperfect woman” by advertising beer. The printed ad states: “Don’t worry darling, you didn’t burn the beer!” After WWII, women were slowly gaining independence as most of the male population was away at war. The women had to fill in the spots of males in society, transcending from the private sphere, being confined to the home, to the public sphere, where they would work for wages. Once the men returned home from war, so did the women. The women became confined to their homes and became what we know as the stereotypical housewife: caretakers of their children, caterers to their husbands, and makers of the home. The media continued to build upon the ideas of the perfect housewife, and while perfect housewives were ubiquitously depicted in their ads, they strategically used women as bait to conform to the development of the dramatic consumerist ideologies.

To some viewers, however, the Old Spice commercial is sexist and targets the female’s boyfriends or husbands. A potential problem for the advertisement is that many women nowadays are independent, savvy, and strong that does not need a man to take care of them. In fact, many women may tell their men to purchase their own personal-care products instead. Furthermore, the humor in the commercial is heavily geared towards men. Using logical fallacy of ad hominem, however, the Old Spice commercial shifts the audience attention from the argument to the Old Spice man. The Old Spice man indirectly attacks the female audience’s boyfriend or husband’s appearance such as

In the 1960’s women only advertised for things made for women, now women are using their bodies to help sell cologne for men. In the 1960’s women would be seen in ads such as Hoover ads and Kenwood chef ads because that was what women did in that time, they cooked and cleaned. These ads showed women to do nothing more. The Kenwood chef ad caption was “The chef does everything but cook- that’s what a wives are for.” This advertisement targets an audience of married men. In the Kenmore Chef ad, the husband is pictured in a suit and he was neatly groomed and his wife was dressed in a conservative outfit with beautiful manicured nails. She is affectionately hugging her husband and the two are both smiling. The image in the ad accurately reflects

Throughout the years, advertisements have influenced and supported the cultural myth of gender roles to society. Advertisements that demonstrate men and women in their traditional roles can affect an individual’s perception. First, they might focus their products on individuals that still believe in traditional gender roles. Second, they might have society talking about the modern approach that the product is being advertised. Various cultures have made men and women believe what roles they should be doing. Unfortunately, many advertisements still show the idea that men are the providers and women are the housewives. However, since today we are gradually adapting and beginning to live in a modern world, the gender role myth is starting to slowly change in advertisements as men are beginning to take on traditional female roles that are considered less masculine and women have adopted male roles. The Le Creuset advertisement supports and rejects the traditional female gender role myth by demonstrating a father and a daughter both taking the position of a traditional female.

Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have

On television commercials, billboards, the radio, public transportation advertisements, planes, the internet, and almost everywhere people go there is always directed broadcasting of advertisements for companies to sell their product; a product that is never promoted for all of the general public to use, but instead to emphasize on specific categories of consumption . Whether it may be categorized in the decadent, the money saving, health, cleaning, cooking, automotive, or whatever sub category it may be; and bigger roles that play in to commercialism are gender roles . Men and women have very different lifestyles, what they buy, do, consume, and produce. As stated in Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, “Popular conceptions of femininity