Gender & Advertising

1. What sort of images of women and men dominated advertising pre-1970s? Why was this the case?

Women were rarely shown in paid work. When they were it would usually be a stereotypical role e.g. the smiling secretary of hairdresser. Housewife images were still very common even after the 1950s. In the 1970s, of all ads featuring women, three-quarters were for kitchen and bathroom products. Women's ads were mainly concerned about beauty, cleanliness, family and pleasing others. Whereas men were only more concerned about achievement and having fun.

The reason for this may be that the third wave of Feminism didn't take its toll until mid 1980s/1990s. This meant that women's power was still restricted pre-1970s, allowing the men to remain socially superior. It is clear that the pre-1970s era was a much bigger patriarchal society than today. Therefore, the media industry was never targetted for sexist/misogynistic attacks on women, because of this male-dominant social norm that had been around for many years.

2. How did the advertising of the 1970’s continue to perpetuate the stereotype of women, despite depicting women in a greater range of roles?

Even though women's roles had increased in advertising, there was this element of, almost mockery, in doing so. The roles women were given were mainly family-orientated and concerned about "non-important" aspects of life. Therefore, although the range of roles were increased, they were not necessarily less stereotypical.

3. Can Gaye Tuchman’s quote regarding under-representation and the ‘symbolic annihilation of women’ still be applied in 21st Century advertising? If so, how?

Tuchman refers to American television in his quote, therefore it is important to consider this question in relation to solely American television. It could be argued that the 21st Century is continuing to follow in the footsteps of the 20th's patriarchal society. Sexist comedy has increasingly become more and more popular, and tends to be the humour of most men who grew up in the society where misogyny was at its peak. However, as with racism, sexist comedy could be described as being acceptible, purely for satirical use.

Because the 21st Century is an era of post-Feminism, it has become popular for advertisers to use ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) to invisibly naturalise these crticisms. Therefore, audiences are able to receive these messages covertly through media texts by means of brainwashing (hypodermic needle).

4. Do you agree that adverts, such as those for the 1990’s Boots No. 7, ‘It’s not make-up. It’s ammunition.’ campaign, are post-feminist (thereby representing women as better than men?). Explain your answer.

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5. Is the representation of women by the media accountable for the results of a survey in which ‘women were up to ten times more likely than men to be unhappy with their body image’?

Yes, I believe the media is accountable. This is because the only reason women are uncomfortable and unhappy with their body image is because certain guidelines have been set by the media industry on how a woman should look/dress/walk/talk etc. Therefore, women have become increasingly self-conscious and worried that their body image will be less appealing to men than those advertised on television.

6. Is the contemporary representation of men in advertising perhaps also a negative one where they too are treated as sex objects?

It could be argued that, contemporarily, sexism is no longer an issue. The issue that would have risen from this sort of advertising would have been whether, with women having fought for many years for equality and the right to be treated as anything but sex objects, whether men should now have to do the same... the answer is no, as there is no longer a sexism issue because of the fact that they both almost cancel each other out negatively. Even though two wrong issues wouldn't make a right one, there is a sense of relaxation from both sexes on whether men are shown as being overly sexual in today's media landscape.