Submissive Stereotypes In Advertising

Who can wear the pants? According to ad agencies, only men can.

Women are predominantly seen as submissive in advertising while men are seen as dominant, and this stereotype can be more harmful than you’d think.

Ad campaigns, like the American Apparel ones exhibit these stereotypes consistently. In the one pictured on the left the girl is beneath the camera, instantly removing power from her, and putting it with the viewer. Her legs are legs are open towards the camera with lower legs out of the picture. She is exposed and has a distressed expression. The caption “Now Open” seems fine on its own but with the image and her legs splayed out it makes it seem like it’s not about a store opening.

What’s worse is that this ad is aimed at young

people. And they are bombarded with these sorts of ads all the time. On average, young people are exposed to 3,000 ads per day. (Dolan, 2016)

Even high end brands such as Dolce and Gabbana and Tom Ford use these sort of tactics. Women in both of these ads are depicted in highly stereotypical submissive ways, and men as dominant in stereotypical ways.

In the Dolce and Gabbana as the woman in the centre, wearing a swimsuit and stilettos, has a man climbing on top of her in a very sexual way. The other men are circling her like sharks, reaffirming their dominance in the situation. She is quite passive in the ad, and seems to be being controlled by the men.

Tom Ford on the other had depicts their woman ironing a mans clothes for him (a very typical things for a submissive domestic woman to do), while naked. The man is ignoring her to read the paper even though she is staring at him intently. This portrays the ideal that women are there to serve men, and men don’t need to care about them at allor treat them as equals.
These ads all have women stripped down or exposed, and mostly beneath the camera. The men are presented as strong and in control. Tactics like this establish gender roles that women are submissive and men are dominant.

When these ideals transfer over into real life it is detrimental. Pushing the idea that men control women can influence violence against women, and sexual assault. A journal by Polity Press states that “The passive role of women in advertisements may suggest that women are dependent on others and unable to actively make decisions on their own.” (Polity Press) This is damaging because it installs the idea that women are second to men; that they need men to make their decisions for them. It forces men to view themselves in dominant roles and women in submissive ones.

This portrayal also establishes that is is okay for men to be violent towards women in real life - because women should be passive and submissive.

And with 1 in 3 women experiencing sexual assault (WHO, 2016) this is a problem we need to address.

Dominant and submissive stereotypes in advertising aren't only harmful to women, but men as well, as Sam Femiano and Mark Nickerson (Physiotherapists from the Centre for Media Literacy) explain “They are damaging because they narrow our notions of what men can be and do. They affect women's expectations of men in relationships and men's expectations of other men in work settings or in friendships. Media stereotypes have extra impact because they create images based on these assumptions, helping to shape men's own views about how they should act and how successful they are as men.” (CML, 2012)

In a society where we are constantly bombarded of images that encourage men to dominate women, the website Destructive Advertising says “violent behaviours have a lot to do with the environment and if you are constantly emerged, how can you separate yourself from it?
We are all constantly engulfed in the trillion dollar world of advertising. This advertising manipulates us to believe that men are meant to be dominant, and women submissive. This message is detrimental to

society.