Gender Portrayals Of Women 's Advertising

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.

Objectification of women is on the rise in society today. The underlying message is that women are living in a sexually gratified atmosphere. From advertisements to television and magazines etc. Woman are exploited as sexual objects while men believe depicting images of women in a sexual manner is funny or sexy but why not offensive or degrading? Therefore, advertisements influence the core of the sexualization of culture.

According to the United States Department of Labor, 69.7% of men compared to 57.2% of women were participating in the U.S. paid labor force in the year 2013 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2013). But despite this near equality in the rates of participation in the work force, men and women continue to be depicted in very distinct gender roles throughout the mainstream media (Eisend, 2010; Lull, Hanson, & Marx, 1977; Collins, 2011). This gender stereotyping effect is especially prevalent within advertising. Because advertisements in the media frequently rely on gender roles to promote products and services (Eisend, 2010), research examining the effects of gender portrayals in advertising has become increasingly important in the social and behavioral sciences.

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.

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.

In this study Eisend, Plagemann, and Sollwedel (2014) look at both humorous and nonhumorous advertisements and the impacts they have on the different genders including

Advertisements are made to grasp a consumer’s attention to the item the creators are selling, and sometimes the decide to objectify an entire audience in hopes of receiving attention from the male population. Studies have shown that as time passes, women become less affected and offended by the oversexualization of women in advertisements. Therefore, women have become desensitized to their objectification, to the point they now view it as normal. During the initial period of the hypersexualization of women, advertisements about women in traditional roles such as housewife or being in the kitchen, receded. In 1991 a new wave of feminism appeared, where women are trying to reclaim their bodies by embracing sexuality, while it is a good concept,

Before diving into the current state of male roles in advertising, it is necessary to review past gender stereotypes and how they have developed in the past. Looking at advertising through the media from a social determinist standpoint, the existing cultural and social values and progresses are what determine how gender roles are portrayed in media. This would go against the cultivation theory notion that the media used to portray men and women are what shape our cultural and social ideologies. Grau and Zotos (2016) establish this “the mirror versus the mold” debate and note that this debate “is a continuum” (p. 763). Existing social values may impact the strategies of advertisers, but at the same time, the advertisements we are

The objectification of the female body is constant through every form of media within our culture. Societal and cultural ideals place pressure on women of all age groups on what their ideal body should be and much of this is done through the advertising industry which is dictated by males. Advertisements, are a announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event. Through advertising we have depicted an ideal culture, with values, moral, and beliefs. Our western culture has evolved along with use of advertisement, the use of new advertising mediums, mass consumption of advertisements and the depiction of gender, in particular representation of women. On average Americans encounter 3,000 advertisements a day, and at the center

How does advertising use of gender effect our views of males as consumers in the auto industry? Auto advertisements, specifically truck advertisements, use an all-male platform from the voice describing the truck, the physique of the male looking at or driving the truck, to the male purchasing the truck from another male, thus leading us to the great assumptions that males are the consumers of the vehicle being advertised. This assumption that men are the consumers of trucks begins at a very young age. As David Buckingham stated in Childhood in the Age of Global Media “…this is a very pink and blue market” (46) With this type of advertising beginning at such a young age, it is easy to see how advertisements in the auto industry, specifically

One of the biggest media industries to blame for the thin ideal representation of women is the advertising industry. Unlike journalism, advertising has the ability to solely portray images that don’t have to be factual. According to author Patrick Lee Plaisance (2009), some of the advertising code of ethics are: “1. A

Ceulemans & Fauconnier (2015, p.7) argue that the basic reason for a critical focus on gender and sex-role representation in
the field of advertising is because of the close connection between ‘the advertising, the consumer goods industry, and the crucial economic role of women as consumers. While there is definitely a relationship between the product type and female representation, does the female representation vary between advertisements for different brands?

Advertisements are the powerful means of communications that not only promotes the products, services, goods; but alongside promoting cultural and gender symbols. Advertising has long been criticized for the insensitivity to minorities, women, immigrants, the elderly and a myriad of other groups. This insensitivity in advertising has being adversely affected the societal perception towards these groups particularly women. Too often women are portrayed as either subservient house wives who are only for looking after their husbands, children and in-laws. Their role has further derided by merely portraying them as the objects to satisfy male desires and pleasures. If we believe that advertising has the ability to shape our values and our views of the world, then it is essential that advertisers should become aware of how they portray different groups.

Sut Jhally, a professor of communications with a focus on advertising and consumer culture, believes that advertising is the ‘most “major ideological tool” of the marketplace’. Jhally’s statement is true in that advertising is a pervasive medium that is inescapable. Every day, people are exposed to advertising everywhere they look – the internet, television, billboards, and magazines. The messages relayed in these advertisements have a strong influence on people’s perceptions and shape their beliefs often on a subconscious level. Advertising is so prevalent that it reaches across all socio-economic classes and thus is the most influential tool available in the marketplace when it comes to shaping people’s ideologies Advertising influences every individual’s concept of identity with respect to ability, gender, race, and class.

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