preview

American Apparel: Gender Stereotypes

Good Essays

No matter where you go in the world, there are brand advertisements everywhere. Whether this is for clothes, perfume, make up, cars, ect or shown on billboards, televisions, or magazines. But what do all of these advertisements have in common? They all use sex, and a present a particular race and gender to sell their products.
Take American Apparel as one of the brand for example. American Apparel is an American sweatshop-free clothing brand located all over the world. They are best known for their 80’s skimpy styled clothing and their controversial advertisements. In all of their advertisements the model is a young, skinny, fair-skinned girl. Actually, if you look at their advertisements and their online website you can gather than only about …show more content…

They are selling socks, for example, but are wearing nothing besides the socks. Is this selling the product itself or using sex to sell the product? By having these half naked girls, if not fully naked, American Apparel advertisements have been banned in the UK. In one of their latest ads, featured in the campaign ‘School Days’, a young model is wearing a pleaded schoolgirl skirt bending over, revealing her underwear. Although the models were over 18, this advertisement sexualizes under aged teens. ‘’We consider the images were gratuitous and objectified women, and were therefore sexist and likely to cause serious and widespread offence,’’ said The United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Association. The ASA banned this ad for having the ‘’potential to normalize predatory sexual …show more content…

Does it tell them it’s okay to have curves? It’s okay to have a darker complexion? It’s okay to have short hair? It’s okay to have no boobs? It’s okay to have stretch marks? It’s okay to have pimples and red marks on your face? It’s okay to not be sexy? No. It tells them that they have to be skinny. They have to have long beautiful hair. They have to have a light complexion. They have to be sexy. Studies found that 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies (dosomething.org). There is a completely accepted thought that if you cannot get to be model size skinny, you are doing something wrong and are not working hard enough. This idea is what leads teenage boys and girls to depression and eating

Get Access