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Women And Women 's Advertising

Decent Essays

Introduction On a daily basis, the average person in the United States is exposed to roughly 3,000 different advertisements that contribute to shaping our society’s ‘ideal’ image of each gender (Baker 13). These images and texts typically represent and reinforce a fabrication of gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes. Examining and understanding the different portrayals of men and women in the advertisement industry is vital because we becoming so highly influenced by these unrealistic, fantasy-type images. In advertising, women are typically portrayed as feminine and submissive, sexual objects that exist to satisfy men’s sexual desires (Baker 13). These images make women look powerless and out of control. Whereas men are typically portrayed as masculine, dominant, and sexually appealing (Hazell and Clarke 6). These images cause men to look powerful and completely in control. This gender ideology that we see in advertising supports the gender binary because we assume that all men and women are the same. Throughout this paper, I will be presenting my findings on the similarities and differences between men’s undergarments and women’s undergarments by analyzing advertisements and how each product is marketed. I chose three of the top-selling undergarment companies. For women’s undergarments, I studied Victoria’s Secret and their marketing strategies. For men’s undergarments, I studied Calvin Klein’s use of advertisement and their marketing. After I looked at how

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