Make Yourself: The Progression of Women in Advertising

“keep her where she belongs” or “So, the harder the wife works the cuter she looks!” the truth is that ads like these were very common in the mid-20th century. Many companies used the existing gender roles to appeal to consumers, sex sells and so does gender. The 20th century was the rise of gender advertisement. Since the 20th century was the era of consumerism, it’s natural to think advertisement played a huge role in the popular culture and had a huge influence on how people viewed the world. The belief that women are domestic creatures who always must be obedient to the male figures of their lives was never a new concept in the 20th century. What was new in this era of mass consumption was utilizing gender roles as a marketing technique to make a certain product more desirable for the American Society. During the 20th century, American popular culture, specifically advertising, reinforced the existing gender roles for women as the homemaker, furthermore, creating a constraint on the socially acceptable roles for women which stayed prevalent for many years.

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.

Hook- Susan B. Anthony once said “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”

Jean Kilbourne (2010) in the video Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s image of women pointed out that people always assume the women in advertisements have the perfect look and a good figure. Many women even feel ashamed when they failed to achieve ideal beauty and retain slim figure after they saw the advertisements. I agree with her idea that the advertisement depict women in a very dangerous way. Many people started to judge women by perfect look and slim figure. These kinds of advertisements may do harm to women’s health mentally and physically, especially to teenagers, when they are trying to achieve perfect appearance as perfect women depicted in advertisements.

Women are suppressed and degraded in society. They are merely seen as pets for males or care-takers of the house and children. The advertisement on women’s equality is rhetorically effective due to its connection to the audience, emotional appeal, and how things are positioned in the ad, as well as the misogynistic comments and how society depicts women.

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.

The article “The Most Powerful Women in Advertising” highlights the introduction of women in advertising. Women make up a small percentage of advertising managers; however, they don’t match their male peers in the managerial ranks. Based on table one, the number of women as advertising and promotions managers has increased steadily. From 1983-2015, women in this occupation rose from 21.8%-56.5%. The most obvious answer for the increase is that with technology rapidly expanding, women as a target market have increased. Another assumption for this increase is the fact that women account for a high percentage of shoppers in households and women are better at speaking to each other. Even in race and ethnicity, the percentages have increased. The conclusion that I have drawn from table one is there is a demand for women, African Americans, Asians and Hispanics as Advertising and promotions managers.

After the analysis and comparison of the six selected advertisements, it is time to think about the question what the differences reveal about the image of women in advertisements. Did the role of women really change here, too? This question cannot be answered with a simple Yes or No. On the first look the modern advertisements seem to focus on positive feelings, while the advertisements of the 1950s, in contrast, evoke rather negative emotions. This is demonstrated especially on the example of the shampoo and the anti-aging cream advertisement. However, their actual statements are quite similar: the anti-aging ads suggest that a woman should look younger than her age if she wants

The role of gender in advertising has been an issue in society since modern media emerged as well as the different advertising methods. Modern media uses methods that concentrate on sex and the stereotypical images and ideas of the parts men and women play as consumers. These methods construct a female social problem that began in the 1960s with the portrayal of stereotypical housewives and of women in a general passive role. Today, this image has evolved into a new social problem for women; as they are shown in an entirely different light by the advertising world, and with more repercussions on the image of a woman if she is a minority. Men are portrayed as being aggressive, and are constantly in a pursuit of power, wealth and physical domination

Always is a feminine-hygiene product brand produced by Proctor & Gamble. Not only does Always sell feminine hygiene products, but they are also advocates of empowering women. Most brand advertisements have a sole purpose of promoting and selling their product or service. However, Always had a different agenda in mind when they released the Like a Girl commercial and #Likeagirl campaign. The commercial has attracted women all over the country for its promotion of the empowerment of women, as well as their line of feminine care products. I chose this topic because it targets women in a way no other company has before. The advertisement does not blatantly state what product the company is trying to sell, but rather appeals to the viewer’s emotions.

Gender portrayal in advertising has been a widely discussed and researched topic for years by social scientists, consumers, and advertisers alike. However, many people have looked at the topic solely from the perspective of male and female consumers and the effect that gendered advertisements have on them. In an article from The Journal of Advertising, Linda Tuncay Zayer and Catherine A. Coleman researched this topic from a different angle. The article, Advertising Professionals’ Perceptions of the Impact of Gender Portrayals on Men and Women: A Question of Ethics, analyzes the issue from the advertiser’s perceptions of what they are putting out in the media. Zayer and Coleman had two central research questions: “What are advertising professionals’ perceptions of how gender portrayals impact male and female audiences? In what ways do ethics inform their creative and strategic choices regarding gender portrayals in advertising?” (Zayer and Coleman 2015). Research was completed with two rounds of data collection on a wide variety of informants with different levels of experience in the industry (Zayer and Coleman 2015). Research methods included semi-structured and unstructured interviews, a focus group, and field operations (Zayer and Coleman 2015). After research was completed, the informants were placed in four different categories based off three interrelated dimensions of their research. The three dimensions are; (1) the extent to which

Many commercials represent the female figure as an unemployed character doing the traditional tasks in the household rather than being in the office, or as a sexual object that through seduction would be likely to obtain what it wants. In contrast,

Gender roles in the workplace are a common topic as equal pay is a right still being fought for today. Through these advertisements looking for workers, it demonstrates the differences expected by the genders in the 30s, 60s, and within the past 30 years.

Throughout the past five years of advertising, women have been seen as nothing more than underdressed and oversexualized objects for men to look at. Women have been shown in advertisement as carefree and problem free people who belong in the kitchen. According to most advertisements, a woman is supposed to be getting guys drinks and taking care of their every need, and doing whatever a man says because he is in charge. Advertisements that oversexualize and overdramatize a woman’s looks and behaviors make it hard for a man to take them seriously, and sometimes men believe that it is okay to treat a woman as a sexual object, because “hey, everyone else is doing it.” Also, because of advertisements that oversexualize a woman, it makes younger

Stereotypes in America have existed for hundreds of years. They were present before the Internet, television, radio, and even magazines. This is not to say that these newer media devices do not contribute to the overwhelming prevalence of racism, sexism, and stereotyping. Typecasting occurs regularly in society, for men, and especially women. Advertisers are the single largest contributor to the continuation of female degradation and sexual bias in our society.