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Advertising Defining Gender

Danielle Jarrett

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“Advertisements guide thinking, action, and behavior as people come to accept mainstream ideas through visuals. The most crucial of these is what it means to be a man or a woman. Ideas about how to feel, dress, look, and behave, and how to interact with other men and women is the bedrock of culture in which we live” - Pamela Morris

+Gender Defining Ads

Commercials, billboards, and print ads, shape the way men and women should be in accordance to society.

Advertisers give us gender specific advertisements to tell us what it is like to be a man or a woman

Society has caught on to concepts of what traditional roles in gender should be

Uses them to advance their products and reach consumers

+Stereotypes

Carved the path for many product advertisements even if the actual demographic itself seems invulnerable

Ads apply gender stereotypes intentionally to persuade consumers

Men and women reach out to products and ideals of what the marketers are selling because of the significance and representation of the gender

Advertisers use stereotypes to draw in the targeted end user

+ Click icon to add picture“Men are physically

active and employed in

productive careers, while a woman’s

job is to look seductive and be

pretty”

+Male Stereotypes Applied

Males have dominated sports related advertisements

Images that society has placed upon this gender and its characteristics.

Powerful working image of men in advertising.

These ideas implemented by the advertisements can affect how males are perceived in our culture.

+Masculine Ads Defining Image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aj55sgudlc&feature=related

Dodge Super Bowl Ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPmYxLUoZVc

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+Female Stereotypes Applied

Have taken a ‘stay at home’ role in advertisements

Shown using products that relate to these functions and tasks defined by our society

Depicted as having very fit bodies

Rates as more attractive

More likely to wear revealing clothing than their male

+Women perceptions of Beauty

in Advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3o_vWwl_8c

+Gender Ad Reality In the ads shown today in regards to products intended

to take on house roles, such as washing the dishes, floors, clothes, etc., are still aimed at women.

Men are rarely used to create the visual of getting the cleaning job done right unless it is in terms of showing their masculinity.

+Women used in Male Ads http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU

Certain ads only directed at one gender, may use the other gender to attract those to buy product.

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+Conclusion

Male character- represented by ads and society, responsible for titles they maintain

Female character – represented by physical beauty projected to possess.

Society has implied roles and associates certain behaviors with certain genders.

Gender characterized in advertising continues to deepen the stereotypes derived by society

+Sources

Grow, Jean M., Wolburg, Joyce M. (2006). “Selling Truth: How Nike’s Advertising to Women Claimed a Contested Reality” Advertising Educational Foundation

Halbersam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1998

Kelly, Lori. NWSA Journal 15.2 (2003) 199-203

Messner, Michael A., Margaret C. Duncan, and Kerry Jensen, “Separating the Men from the Girls: The Gendered Language of Televised Sports,” Gender and Society 7, no. 1 (1993): 121-137, and Wiley, Shaw, and Havits, 19-31.

Morris, Pamela (2005). ‘Overexposed: Issues of Public Gender Imaging.’ Advertising and Society Review.

Palan, Kay M. ‘Gender Identity in Consumer Behavior: A Literature Review and Research Agenda.’ Academy of Marketing Science Review (Online) 1, no. 10 (2001): 1-37.

Pillar, I. (2001). ‘Identity Constructions in Multilingual Advertising.’ Language in Society, 30, 153-186.

+Sources

Shields, Vickie. (2002). “Measuring Up: How Advertising Affects Self-Image.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p 199.

Signorielli, Nancy, Douglas McLeod, and Elaine Healy. “Gender Stereotypes in MTV commercials: The Beat goes On.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 38, no. 1 (1994): 91-101.

Wolf, Naomi, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (New York: Morrow, 1991).

Zayer, Linda. (Vol 11, Issue1, 2010). ‘A Typology of Men’s Conceptualizations of Ideal Masculinity in Advertising.’ Advertising and Society Review.