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Campbell Soup Gender Analysis

Decent Essays

In American history, food has almost always been advertised with a pair of breasts and a dress. No matter if it’s television, magazine, newspaper, or website marketing, it is easy to assume that food advertisements will most likely to feature a female figure cooking: a stay at home mom cooking for her family, teenage girls baking, a busy working woman being able to cook dinner in less than an hour, whatever it is, it always features a woman. Campbell’s Soup Company is no stranger to this picture of the female cook and has utilized this fantasy as a reoccurring theme within their advertisements. Unsurprisingly, Campbell’s condensed soups further stigmatized gender roles in the American household from 1905 to 1950.
Campbell’s Soup Company played into traditional gender roles through its advertising in the early twentieth century. A 1914 article championed tomato soup saying, “Then, as now, we felt it would be valuable to the housewife; that it would save her much time and trouble in the preparation of a Tomato Soup and give her a product, which she could call to aid at a moment’s notice, to make a more elaborate meal for the unexpected guest.” This passage serves as evidence as the distinct way Campbell’s soup was marketed to housewives and reiterated the fact that cooking was meant predominantly for the female figure of the household. Nowhere in this extract does it mention a man cooking soup, but only women. However, many of these ads praised strong women figures who cooked

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