Advertising And Women's Roles Of Women And Advertising

Frederick Lewis Allen, in his famous chronicle of the 1920s Only Yesterday, contended that women’s “growing independence” had accelerated a “revolution in manners and morals” in American society (95). The 1920s did bring significant changes to the lives of American women. World War I, industrialization, suffrage, urbanization, and birth control increased women’s economic, political, and sexual freedom. However, with these advances came pressure to conform to powerful but contradictory archetypes. Women were expected to be both flapper and wife, sex object and mother. Furthermore, Hollywood and the emerging “science” of advertising increasingly tied conceptions of femininity to

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

The 1920s were a time of change. The years that preceded were filled with new technology, inventions, and mass media. A new way of life was created. Although these advancements may seem beneficial to us, there were unforeseen consequences that affected the women of the 1920s and beyond. Popular culture in the 1920’s including movies, magazines, and advertisements transformed the way in which Americans viewed women. Some of these depictions liberated women, but they also constrained them.

Government campaigns stressed the message that women needed to sustain their “feminity” so they provided beautiful posters of feminine women who were nicely groomed as nurses, volunteers, or factory workers. Additionally in Europe as well as the United States, “Attempts were made to maintain the boundary between masculinity and femininity.” In the United States and Europe many women stepped in opened occupations, media affected women greatly, and even though women were raised in a feminine way they still entered the workforce and volunteered for military service.

From 1890 to 1940, advertisements were produced in such a way of generalizing groups of people to make goods more appealing. Advertisements directed at women generally concerned beauty products and household goods, which were women’s main concern in this time period. These advertisements capitalized on women’s inferiority to men, and motherhood. However, women were also used to help sell goods, by making men think they will attract more women, or be able to provide for their woman with certain products. People of color were treated as almost a whole other species. African Americans were used on labels to represent a richness about the product, in that people who had this product seemed to have the resources to hire a person of color to work

Women Can Do Everything? In Jean Kilbourne’s film, “Killing Us Softly”, she examines popular stereotypes of women in advertising. Her work has helped to develop the study of gender and how it is depicted in advertising. Gender stereotyping of women in advertising is everywhere today; television, internet, billboards, movies, magazines, airlines, taxis, subways, videos, and other digital media.

According to Kim Bartel, the stereotype of a housewife was created through the continuation, and constant exposure of consumers to patterns of imagery (91). The female role has naturalized in popular culture, especially in advertisements. These advertisement constantly portray women as either the cook, maid, or caretaker of the home. During the early 1950s and late 60s advertisements start to objectify female identity in order to use their images to sell either products or a lifestyle. In this sense marketer begin to realize the value women had on selling items.

America during the nineteenth century saw a rise of the modern middle class. With this came dramatic changes in family dynamics. It can be seen that most middle-class American families remained quite patriarchal throughout the 1900s, however, it was women not their husbands who actually controlled the homes and tended for life at home. Due to this, I believe that the advertisement targeted household women.

For centuries, businesses have used advertisement as a means to market their products or services. A good advertising company can be key in a business success rate. Many hours are invested in research and development of each advertisement ad that we see in television ads, commercials, magazines, and billboards. A marketing tactic that continues in popularity is women used to grasp the attention of the viewer, which ultimately would hope to result in higher sales. Over the past 60 years, women have been shown in stereotypical gender roles that are usually portrayed as younger, actively fit women, not the typical middle aged women we see every day.

In Society today, women are seen equal to men. The women are taking more men’s roles and the men are taking more of the women’s roles. Women have a lot of freedom then they did back in the day, which means gender portrayals have changed in modern advertising; men are seen in more of “housewife” types of advertisements and women are seen more in job recruiting advertisements and alcohol related advertisements. Women and men now are seen differently in advertisements; there has been an excessive change in advertisements.

During the 1940s to 1950s the government would utilize advertisements to promote gender roles in society, in attempt to encourage women to return home and resume the role of the perfect domestic housewife who is always attentive to her husbands needs. Evidently, women’s freedoms were extremely limited due to society’s pressures and expectations. Similarly, throughout the time period society regarded women as inferior, however despite the expectations of society many women expressed their opinions and sentiments through writing, stimulating the feminist movement.

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

The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following