However, today’s advertisements are intent on purporting specific roles and social groupings that are gender specific and rigid. This paper aims to provide a theoretical outline of Representation. The way women and femininity are represented in advertising and mass media will be investigated. The effect of gender representation in advertising on different races and social groups
I also looked into how advertising supports hegemonic masculinity, which is the idea of masculinity being dominant. (Ravelli and Webber 2016: 203). Throughout this paper I will be talking about how advertising makes gender codes and if they affect how I view individuals, and if they affect the way people view me. I will also be addressing if there are different codes, like class codes that may affect the way others and/or I view individuals. Lastly, I will be explaining how using a sociological perspective can help to think outside of gender codes and realize that it is not something that should be seen as normal.
In today’s business world, women are used as an object to attract consumers’ attention to the products that firms sell. They are exploited as a marketing instrument in a wide range of firms’ activities. Womenappear as a sexual object in any kind of advertisement or as an attractive material standing nearby a product. Sometimes firms use sexual sales women to facilitate the sale or to attract consumers’ attention to the firm or product. Particularly, it is very common to use sexually attractive women in advertisementsregardless of the product is related to sexuality.
The majority of modern society’s advertising conveys an oppressive message to American women. In advertisement campaigns, women are typically only considered and marketed as beautiful if they fit a very specific mold that society has created. Women who don’t fit this mold of being feminine, thin, and pretty are shamed and encouraged to change. However, it isn’t just the “ugly” women who are shamed in the media. There is a consistent message that runs throughout advertisements that suggests that women are lesser than men, and that they exist solely for the benefit of men.
Gender stereotyping continues to boom in society today. The advertising and media world play a chief part in perpetuating the nature behind gender roles and it is society as a whole who choose to receive it as a norm. A wide scope of portrayals of men and women exists in advertising, however masculine imagery traditionally depicts athleticism, strength, activity and competitiveness whereas feminine images suggest submissiveness, beauty, dependency and sensitivity. The Britax Decathlon’s car seat advertisement and the Californian beach-estate property advertisement both exemplify the stereotyped representation of gender roles in society: the female toddler dresses up in pink, is only concerned with her accessories and plays inside, where as
I am disgraced by the number of sexist ads that are displayed by the advertising industry in this society. Advertisement is multi-billion-dollar industry which is ever growing and over evolving. However, the way in which advertisers display their products and message still hasn’t changed. In this society, we strive for gender equality, but we are still bombarded with advertisements that are fixated on the objectification and sexualisation of woman. These ads violate the code ethics that state that ads can not discrimination or sexualize a group of people.
“Advertising contributes to people’s attitudes about gender, sex, and violence,” states Jean Kilbourne in her article, Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt With advertising agencies standing by the notion that “Sex Sells” it isn’t uncommon to find sex tied into a number of advertisements seen everywhere on a daily basis. “Sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women …” (Kilbourne, 271). The objectification of women in our society is more prevalent than many would like to believe. Women being portrayed as passive, easy, innocent, needy, submissive and dependent beings create an understanding that women are less human than men. “Turning a human being into a thing, an object, is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person” (Kilbourne,278).
They relied on Hall 's (2003) model which considers each commercial as an image and focused on social level and lifestyle as they are presented in the commercials. According to Hall 's model each image, such as a piece of music or a painting, is like oral or written language; that is, it can be considered language. Language produces meaning through representation; however, the key point is where the meaning is produced. He believes that media is a peculiar context in which meaning is produced and expanded both inside and among communities. Moreover, the meaning is so powerful that can reinforce, weaken or change the dominant cultural dialogue.
It’s a matter of fact that commercials play an extremely prevalent part of all economies around the world. The invention of television – a powerful visual medium marks the era of TV advertising which has been widely acknowledge as the most pervasive, effective format of advertisement. Not only primarily serve the purpose of stimulating consumption, TV commercials also convey the view of producers, societies or cultures about many aspects of life through underlying ideologies. As a result, audience’s awareness is affected indirectly, which might lead to incorrect assumptions of a part of society. Sexist advertising is a notable example of how TV commercials disseminate gender ideologies.
It is alleged that gender ideology appears here when the woman’s role turns to beauty purpose, which only supports to draw customers’ attraction and enhance the effectiveness for the advertising. Conversely, as mentioned above, the male sex is always presented with all the greatest things from appearance, occupation to social