Advertising - Gender and Social Stereotypes Essay

In Jean Kilbourne’s video, Killing Us Softly 4, Jean expresses how advertisements have been portraying women as a sex symbol or even as just a typical housewife. She talks about how the advertisements have sold various products by not necessarily selling the product itself, but by using women or men to sell the product for them. Ad agencies have used sex and body image to create a type of selling factor for their product. These selling strategies have shaped the way society views women and how women are treated (Killing Us Softly). When looking at two advertisements for Newport Cigarettes in both Sports Illustrated and Star magazine, we see a variety of differences. The Sports Illustrated issue is from October 26th, 2015 and the Star issue

Advertisements from the early 1900s to today’s marketing propaganda have changed dramatically in terms of picture and context through the years. Some similarities still remain through the evolution of marketing merchandise, but many differences can be seen in more recent ads. The Palmolive soap company’s advertisements from the 1900s exemplify the issue of sexism that took place in that time period. The ads primarily focus on the youth and beauty of women and how it appeals to men. The advertisement creators target the insecurities of women and threaten the achievement of being loved by a man. Women are made to believe that their intelligence does not contribute to a man’s affection, but only beauty will grant a woman the gift of eternal love

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

Society’s deeply ingrained standards for women created by the media demonstrate the corruption of self image as seen through ads from the 1950s that feed off of insecurities. History demonstrates the obsession with perfection by showing how women were viewed before and after advertising influence, “Men wouldn 't look at me when I was skinny… Since I’ve gained 10 pounds, I have all the dates I want” (Lewis). Ads such as this swayed women from the 1950s to 1960s to physically appear in a

A commercial is one of the advertisements that we could see in life. When you turn on television, you could see a lot of commercials before programs start. In Men’s Men and Women’s Women, Steve Craig, an author, claims that “advertisers seem quite willing to manipulate … fantasies and exploit our anxieties, especially those concerning our gender identities.” However, Stan Hope disagrees since he assumes that “the ads he describes are just light hearted to stories designed to entertain, rather than exploit. Consumers are way too smart to be so easily manipulated in any case.” Advertisements could just describe stores for entertainment like Hope said. However, advertisers should think carefully about gender identities because men and women’s favors are different.

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.

My thought process when collecting my magazine ads was that I wanted to showcase the various age groups of each gender. Many magazines have a specific audience in mind meaning that magazines aimed towards a young teen would not be as explicit as a magazine aimed towards a grown woman even though they might both contain the same message. I collected samples from three prominent magazines for females: J-14 (age range 8-14), Seventeen (age range 10-21), and Cosmopolitan (age range 18-34). I also repeated the process and collected samples from magazines aimed at males: Sports Illustrated for Kids (age range 8-15) and ESPN (age range 15+). I collected four ads per female magazine and three ads per male magazine for a total of twenty ads. Each magazine that I used was from 2016 in order to ensure that the ads were relevant because of how gender roles have changed over time. The limitations for my sample include the fact that not all magazines aimed towards females are strictly about beauty and fashion. There are many other types of magazines that appeal to women such as cooking, health, and décor.

This essay discusses the representations of women in media and advertising, including the effects they have on individuals in society. Firstly, I will review the literature on stereotypical gender roles within media and advertising. This will include traditional roles such as the housewife, and modern roles such as the sex object. Secondly, I will critically evaluate and examine the effects of these roles on women, and even men, in today’s society. Effects include body dissatisfaction, thin idealisation and, in extreme cases, violence against women. Thirdly, I will aim to make conclusions on whether gender representations and roles within media have impacts on men and women in society.

Advertising has been engrained in our lives since birth. It is something that is everywhere, whether be on a wall, on TV, or on a billboard on a busy highway. You might not think you are aware of its effects, but it triggers something subconsciously. Advertisement has been sexualized in a way that appeals and affects people in an unconscious level, it may also influence one’s view of gender roles. In the film Killing US Softly, Jean Kilbourne discusses how advertising has changed the way not only women, but also how man view themselves. A woman must look beautiful, be sexy and thin, while a man must be attractive, muscular and powerful to achieve the “perfect look” and in doing so, both gain acceptance.

The so called housewife draws her bath settles in and thinks of the many duties that she has to do for the day, she calls her husband and tells him about her wonderful bath and the amazing soap she is using just like everyone else would. This is a 1950s dove ad, an ad that sexualizes and characterizes the women as something she is not and creates a stereotype of a stay home mom and skinny women who have nothing better to do. The appearance of people in ads has changed a lot over time, in the 1950's women were degraded and sexualized throughout advertisements to be skinny. Whereas now some companies are fighting to change this vicious cycle. Although many companies still portray the same perspective as they did in the 1950's, there is now hope.

We live in a world that bombards us with over-sexualised images to aspire to. This sets standards for both women and young girls which are unrealistic and unattainable. Society is becoming more and more sexualised, leading to future generations becoming obsessed with vanity and looks. "Our children should no longer be sacrificed on the altar of the obsession with celebrity culture and the 'beauty' industry it has spawned."

Even though today’s society still uses sexual connotation to persuade the public to use their product, the view has changed dramatically. Most women of today would agree that this advertisement could be considered degrading. A man blowing cigarette smoke in a woman’s face would never be considered appropriate in the 21st century. That doesn’t stop advertisements such as these to lose sexual connotation, but it does widen the audience by generalizing the product to a bigger audience. In the seventies, this product would only be marketed towards men. In today’s times, cigarettes are marketed to both men and women. In order to reach women though, the advertisements had to be changed from a male based audience to a general audience. This shows that even though advertisements have

A commercial advertising a new barbeque burger for Carl’s Jr/ Hardee’s was first aired during the 2013 Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens versus the San Francisco 49ers and is a prime example expressing gender stereotyping in advertisements. The scene is taken place in Memphis, Tn at a local barbeque cookoff, mid-summer in the smoldering heat two main characters walk in with very revealing clothing. Sara Underwood, a model from Playboy as well as an actress; Emily Ratajkowski, also a model and actress. The two exchange glances and proceed to fight over the items on the grill, in the midst of the feud the items on the grill land on top of another, thus creating the main purpose of the commercial, the barbeque burger.

When looking at Kilbourne’s two premises it is easy to agree with premise one, that commercials do degrade women, but there doesn’t seem to be the connection between women being degraded, to these commercials being manipulative. In the printed ad “Cigarette Women,” there is a small picture with a male and female actress, not very clear, but still noticeable. To the ignorant eye, it would be viewed as harmless, but in the eyes of Kilbourne it speaks so much more. The position of the women in the picture could be seen as helpless and dependent on the man who has a powerful stance. The clothes on these two models could be seen in a similar way with the man being fully clothed in a business, while the woman is in a short white dress. These are two factors that do show this picture to be degrading and provocative, but it isn’t manipulating.

In gender advertisement, images are used to portray stereotypical gender roles. In this advert I would briefly describe its and then I would do the analysis. The advertisement is for Huggies diapers a company that sell baby supplies. The purpose of the advert is to establish the role of a particular gender against the other. The advert shows a father and his child. The attention of the advert is to challenge the gender stereotypes because it shows a man who is taking care of the child. The context of the advert is to show that the father is responsible for taking care of the child which is strange because mother is usually take care of children. Most of the ads associated with childcare prefers women so it is not common to see a man taking care of a child. The whole point of the is that the company us trying to say that father is also responsible for taking care for the child not only mother.