Introduction:
Advertisements are one of the ways that companies attract potential customers. These advertisements can include posters, commercials, products placements on TV shows or movies, etc. Unfortunately, many of these advertisements illustrate many different gender biases in order to reach their intended target. The most common ones have been drawn from stereotypes and gender roles. Sometimes these biases are explicitly mentioned within the advertisement and sometimes it is an implicit message that is being sent from the company to the public. In order to control this, there are certain guidelines that are in place to limit what companies can use for their advertisements. Unfortunately, many individuals say that gender bias does not
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Whether it is that women are to be violently used as sex objects by the men in their lives, or that a woman is only good to look after the house while the men are at work. Similarly, these stereotypes and biases are also affecting the men in these advertisements. However, men’s gender bias revolves around the fact that they have to have certain things or qualities in order to seem more masculine.
Specific Guidelines
In Canada, companies have to meet the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards that are set by the Advertising Standards Canada (ASC)2. The ASC has a variety of guidelines that measure the acceptability for company’s advertisements and forms based on the complaints that are presented through consumer, trade or special interest group complaints2. These guidelines help companies ensure that their advertisements are still following the company’s ethics through the eyes of their consumers. In reference to gender portray guidelines as described on
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In recent years, there has been a term coined that encases the use of sex and violence in advertisements which is “rape myth”3. “Rape Myth” which is the belief that the sexual assault that is committed to women by men is in part the woman’s fault3. This belief has been causing issues in society as now young people who are seeing these ads are more likely to take part is this sexual violence in order to make themselves more like the advertisement’s in real life . For example, in Burger King’s advertisement, as shown in Exhibit 1, that was used to promote their new seven - inch sandwich they used an image of a young woman’s profile with her mouth open with an image of the sandwich right in front of her. Explicitly, the advertisement is just mentioning that they now offer a seven – inch sandwich deal that includes fries and a drink for $6.25. However, it is the implicit message that had consumers talking3. The image demonstrates a sexual tone as it appears that the woman is being dominated by the sandwich, which represents the woman being forced to perform oral sex to the man who is dominating her. Meanwhile, the woman in the ad is wearing heavy makeup and looks slightly frightened at seeing the sandwich up close, which indicates that the woman is a victim of sexual violence. This advertisement is providing the targeted audience with an
It’s clear that those advertisements try to make an impact on our buying decisions. We can even say they manipulate viewers by targeting specific group of people or categorizing them so they could have a feeling this product is intended for them or what he or she represents. For instance, they use gender stereotypes. Advertises make use of men and woman appearance or behavior for the sake of making the message memorable. Therefore, most effective and common method is to represent a woman as a sexual object. They are linked with home environment where being a housewife or a mother is a perfect job for the. In other hand men are used more as work done representations. They are associated with power, leadership and efficiency. Those stereotypes make the consumer categorize themselves and reveals the mainstream idea of social status each gender needs to be to fit in and what products they are necessary to have to be part of that
Kilbourne includes various advertisements where the woman is the victim and target. The advertisements and media depicted women being overly sexualized, they promoted or glorified date rape, sex is the most important aspect of a relationship, fetishizes various products, and made men believe these were the correct ways to view or treat women. The audience these advertisements are appealing to are men because media depicts women as always being the victims. Men are lead to believe that they should buy certain products as portrayed in media or advertisements because they will get the attention from the ladies. “The violence, the abuse, is partly the chilling but logical result of the objectification” (Kilbourne 498). When women are so used to seeing themselves as objectified they soon start to believe it. Women become more vulnerable because it shows men that anything is possible with just a spritz of perfume or a certain brand of an alcoholic drink. Industries do not think twice before making an advertisement because they are not the victims. Violence is the main problem that arises due to advertisements. “Women are always available as the targets of aggression and violence, women are inferior to men and thus deserve to be dominated, and women exist to fulfill the needs of men” (Kilbourne 509). As long as industries make money, nothing is off limits to put on advertisements even if it is making someone a victim. No remorse of any sort is shown because as long as money is present nothing else matters to the
Individuals since the beginning of time have always judged each other based on gender role preferences. Since we live in a digital era, those gender role messages from society can be strongly biased on both genders. Society has a way of also influencing individuals to accept its ideas on how men and women should live. Analyzing these commercials, we are going to see just how society is judging genders on their roles, behavior, and emotions.
Advertising has become a means of gender socialization because it is a way for people to learn the “gender map” that lays out the expectations for men and women based on their sex.
Men and women both drive cars, it’s a simple necessity to be able go to work for most people, however, from the commercials on television, one would assume that men are the primary purchasers of cars. In Steve Craig’s essay, Men’s Men and Women’s Women, he analyzes four commercials to illustrate how advertisers strategically targets the viewers. Craig argues that advertisers will grasp the attention of the viewer by the gender ideals that both men and women have of each other. Not only do advertisers pick a target audience demographic, but they also will target the audience at specific time to air their commercials. By analyzing an Audi and Bud Light commercial, one can see that Craig arguments are true to an extent but it appears that commercials have gone from an idealized world to a more realistic and relatable stance. for are still [true, however it seems that commercials may have altered to appear more realistic.] [relevant to an extent. This is to say, it appears that advertisers may have altered their commercial tactics. ]
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
Another example of rape culture that is shown in media is in many advertisements that are displayed internationally. One ad in particular is the well-known luxury clothing brand Dolce & Gabbana, where a woman is seen lying down pinned underneath a man, whilst three other men look down at her “depicting what many perceive as the gang rape of a woman.” Other ads include American Apparel and even the fast food restaurant Burger King, as women are seen in provocative poses. The problem with these advertisements is that rape culture is being showcased by simply having women in provocative and submissive poses as well as normalizing male sexual violence against women, particularly in the Dolce & Gabbana ad. One last example of rape culture within media is found on a t-shirt on the website Amazon.
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
Where commercials that are selling a product to women focus on beauty or the ease of use using wording like sleek clean lines, soft, makes life easier. This is because men are portrayed as being masculine and being responsible for outdoor chores like lawn maintenance where as women are portrayed as delicate and weak and tend to be in charge of daily in home chores like cooking, and cleaning. While analyzing the genders used in the commercials and what the roles were we found that the women tended to do the shopping and asking the questions about products and the men seemed to be bored and were there to pay the bill and be the one responsible for the assembly of the product purchased. The colors of the products being sold play important role as well. Men seem to be more attracted to darker or bolder colors like black, red, green, and blue where products for women are usually lighter or softer colors like white, or pastels.
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most desirable thing in the ‘Far East’ and that beer is much more important than women. It also openly laughs at the South East Asian sex trade by putting a prostitute in the middle of the ad. The ad also implies that women in the ‘Far East’ are only good for sex (dressing in revealing, sexual clothes designed to make the woman in the ad seem more desirable).
In many clothing advertisements, particularly jeans and lingerie ads, women are used as the main subjects to entice the viewer to notice the ad and most importantly, be excited about the product. In one photo, Calvin Klein Jeans promotes its clothing through what seems to be unwilling, reluctant sexual activity – rape. The advertisement displays the woman resisting the man with the palm of her right hand, and she is pulling her shirt down to cover her stomach with her left hand; yet he is still pursuing her and attempting to remove her top. Her body language and gaze – devoid of emotion – reveal that she is not interes...
“Towards a New Paradigm in the Ethics of Advertising” is a scholarly essay written by John Alan Cohan. Cohan aims to identify the unethical ways women are portrayed in advertising today. This essay explains common ways that women are exploited in advertising and why is each is hurtful and wrong. Then after outlining the unjust practices in women’s advertising, Cohan call for a “paradigm shift” in advertising, where he claims that ads can still be profitable, without harming women in the process (323). Cohan in writing this essay recognizes that women are being misrepresented and harmed by ads. He feels that this issue needs to be brought to advertisers attention, his main audience, and hopes for women’s representation in ads will be healed.