For an assignment in my Sociology class, I had to write an essay on an analysis of advertisements and the stereotype they typically portray regarding race, gender, and class. Race is a rather touchy subject, and so I would like to discuss about gender instead since it seems interesting and I'm interested to see how others think of this.

The main point is this: have you ever looked at an advertisement closely before? If it is an advertisement of a woman or women, do they often have beautiful bodies and wear sexy clothing? Furthermore, are they typically depicted in a passive stance, never the one in control? Are they typically featured doing some sort of domestic work (like house cleaning)? Now link this back to ad, what exactly is it advertising and why are such stereotypes there in first place? What is its purpose? Why is a woman used for this advertisement instead of a man?

If it is an advertisement of a man or men, are they often depicted with having muscular and well-defined bodies? Furthermore, are they featured in a hero-type of stance (successful in sports, career, politics), man-at-work (doing a blue-collared job), breadwinner (the one that provides for the family), and so forth? Link this back to ad once again and why are such stereotypes used, and its purpose. Why is a man used for this advertisement instead of a woman?

What about advertisements that feature both a man and a woman?

How do you feel about these stereotypes? What messages do you think readers receive when coming across these ads? Positive or negative? Are stereotypes necessary in ads in order to appeal to people?

Feel free to state your opinions and discuss.

I studied this subject about 6 years ago in one of my advertising courses. It is absolutely true that gender plays a huge roll in advertising.

If it is an ad for women by women, the women look confident and are upright in posture. If for men by women, they are passive with scantily clothing. If you make your consumer feel good about themselves by looking at the ad, they are more likely to buy into it. Same for men- usually all the men are good looking and muscle bound because female consumers want to bed them, male consumers want to be them.

It is always all about sex. Even the ads with both genders. Directed at men, it will feature the woman in a passive state; at women the man will be drooling over some hot woman or she will have a dominating role.

These pertain mostly to print media, but could be true in video ads as well. The effect they have is overwhelming. Girls feel they have to weigh close to nothing, men believe women only want muscle bound sex machines. It teaches consumers that physical attributes and material gains are all that matters.

I do believe we have made some strides over the years. At least we see more women in ads that don't involve the kitchen.

Alot of the times the people in advertisements are always flawless and perfect. They make men think that they have to have amazing bodies and all the women, and as for women they tell them that if you don't wear these clothes and look like this then you're not beautiful. It makes people doubt themselves and forget how beautiful they are. It's all in image and most of time sexual appeal sells.

I'm a male model but I have never felt that someone was less then what they are because they way they look or the clothes they wear.

Advertising is an interesting subject, you see, the advertisers have money to be made from the most ideal/effective advertising. It is ussually difficult to criticise it greatly because these people are professional advertisers, if you were better, you would be raking in huge amounts of $$$

LOL, I'm doing a homework assignment about gender discrimination on advertisements and we have to look for different ads using only certain type of gender or age

I wouldn't wanna use the same colonge(sp?) as some nasty lookin' fat dude.

If I use the one as some dude with a six pack, it's quite obvious that I'd be getting all the chicks. right?

Haha, I recently had to find "bad" and "good" commercials for my Business Ethics class and think critically about them. The easiest (zomg, am I spelling that wrong??) "bad" commercials to find are the sexist ones (I mean, what the bleep is with that Gillette commercial about men and technology and the woman walking in at the end and screaming like a girl (lol) at the technology??).

Now that I look at everything from a moral perspective, lol, I hate these stereotypical advertisements even more. I definately think that people would be affected by what they see. Even though I'm old enough to know that looks aren't everything, there are still times when I see a gorgeous girl on TV and feel pretty depressed. But in the end, these types of advertisements do appeal to people, otherwise it wouldn't be done. If everyone were moral though, lol, commercials would serve to let the consumer to make an informed decision on what he/she is buying with no exaggeration or anything of that sort.

There was a really interesting documentary on making women look passive in advertisements called.. Killing Us Softly 3. Although some of the analyses in there were kind of overboard (because I believe there are artistic reasons for some photos of women)...

On a side note, I'd like to see animes with cool, strong women without the big balloon boobs. It always seems that if a female anime character is cool, boobs come with it.

DreamingShadow

I'm a male model but I have never felt that someone was less then what they are because they way they look or the clothes they wear.

Lol, I just thought that this was so ironic.

Hi, i'm work in advertising, I think that the stereotype are necessary, we need see in advertising other world that fill the expectation that whe have. We need believe that exist a superior better world and we need believe that we can reach that world. Not only in advertising, In old times people search the perfection (Greeks Gods, Davinci, Michelangelo's David, even Manga).

We need a part of fantasy, probably if i see a perfect woman in an ad I will never say: That's real, I can be like her. But subconsciounly I think that I can see me like her, she is my utopic model.

If you're interested in that topic you can read Mithologies of Roland Barthes o Sacred and profane of Mircea Eliade, the problem is not the advertising or the models, the problem is the human mind who always be looking for perfection.

That's basic psychology, all people always need a model. fake or not.

If the models don't working, the advertising don't be like we see.

Again, sorry for my english...

Sex sells.

LenasLover already pointed out everything I had to say, but I'd just like to add that probably a larger percentage of the population subjected to these types of advertisement don't even realize they're being brainwashed/supporting the gender roles. I've noticed for the past 2 years or so, there have been more commercials showing the Father with his children, boy or girl, but then suddenly there was this wave of "I AM MAN" commercials that flooded less than a year ago. (Beef & Pork over Vegetables Commercials Included.) Maybe it was a coincidence, but they came shortly after the gay marriage topic hit the air and reached its peak.

We do see more commercials where women are playing more dominant roles or at least equal roles, but products such as Mr. Clean are still advertised by a house wife or soccer mom with the need to smile while she cleans grime off the toilets.

It ticks me off at times to see these types of commercials, and I wish more people would stop and say to themselves "Hey, that's not right" a little but more after seeing one. But at the same time I understand why the commercial was made the way it was- because it actually works on the feeble-minded society... *grinds teeth*

(Goes back to playing with the amazing doodle bear.)

Hmmm, Sexism is widly used even now-a-days, take the Don Imus case which is currently going on. He used the "N" Word and ho to depict a racist remark on african american women, and becasue of that, finally the stareotype on african americans saying thoes word such as in rap music, are not being taken closely into consideration. IMO Imus didn't really do anything bad, he just open the eyes of the american public on how bad using words to stareotype people is wrong.

In my "Violence Against Women" course we discussed something similar, and looked through some women's magazines to see how women are depicted in ads, and one of the most interesting things that we saw was just how women were objectified, and not necessarily in an overtly sexual way. Often besides being in an ad with the handbag, shoe, or perfume, the woman, in some way, with her body, was often used to show that she WAS a handbag, shoe or perfume. Sounds silly, but we saw a huge amount of examples of women either wearing clothing that was of the same pattern of the thing they were selling, with watches or jewelry looking like it was part of their skin or being dressed up to look like a cosmetic item.

It speaks volumes of how even in our advanced society there is still a subtext of the thought that women can be bought and sold. Men, by contrast, were never displayed in such a way, and often, they weren't even HOLDING the product that they were advertising. In addition, with advertising featuring men it was almost always clear what exactly was being sold on the page. With advertising featuring women, we would sit there, look at each other and go "What the HELL does this have to do with razorblades/scarves/vodka?" It was almost like, buy our product, get a sexy girl free.

Oh, and though we are trying to steer away from racial differences, there was one interesting thing that we DID notice, which was the ads predominately featured white women, and whenever women of other races were seen [in our class we each had a magazine, and we found ONE Asian woman and ONE black woman] women of other races were portrayed as exotic, otherworldly and animalistic, often wearing colors and patterns reminiscent of tropical birds or jungle animals. Just an interesting observation on our part, again speaking volumes of the subconscious of our society even today.

Ugh, I can't stand television advertisements. They bugger the hell out of me. Especially cleaning commercials. They always make the woman clean and seem perfectly happy doing so. If a man is cleaning, he always seems to be a bumbling idiot about it until the woman comes in and does things right.

I especially hate the febreeze commercials. There was one where this woman is spraying the product in her son's room. Then, a voiceless man goes, "Hey, why not clean up the rest of his things, too?"

I recall that this is called the sexualisation of media. As the saying goes, "sex sells."

I've read in BBC that those who "suffer" the most are female children. They're influenced into becoming "sexy" women for men (as far as I can recall).

Well, i have been through such kind of assignments. Well, there is a great differences between the use of a man or woman in an advertisment. It is very important. If you use the wrong choice of gender, the result will be BAD.

Take this for example, if you are having a comercial for lingerines, which gender of people will you use?? Of course that will be a female. However, if you are advertising on soccer equipments, you will definitely choose a male. However, if you are advitising on a medicine for soothing throat, it can be a male or female to advitise it.

For a female and male advertisement, it can be a comercial on tennis racket. There is no right or wrong for both ender to advitise a tennis racket.

So, we must use a wise choice in such situation. If you use the right choice, viewers will sure be satisfied, but if it is the wrong choice, the result will be negetive.

Another thing I just remembered is that most females are basically depicted as little girls in womens bodies, being demure, shy and innocent, but willing to give themselves up for a man should he desire it, rather than should she desire it. Women are depicted as beings who satisfy desires but are devoid of having desires themselves, and the reason their similarity to little girls is so appealing is because they appear powerless and willing to bend to the will of the male.