Gender in advertising refers to the images and concepts in advertising that depict and reinforce stereotypical gender roles. Advertisements containing subliminal or direct messages about physical attractiveness and beauty have been of particular interest regarding their impact on men, women, and youth. Gendered advertisements have and continue to shape what is expected of a distinct gender, regarding physique and attitude. Not only are these types of stereotypes present in various forms of media, but they also hold significant weight in everyday life.[1]

Creation and maintenance of gender normality

Advertising is a significant agent of socialization in modern industrialized societies, and is used as a tool to maintain certain social constructions, such as gender. Men and women are depicted as differing in attitudes, behavior, and social statuses.[2] These images are crafted to mimic real life and many mistake the concepts of fantasy and reality in regards to advertising.[3] Erving Goffman uses the term "commercial realism" for advertisers' attempts to present the advertising world in ways which it could be real.[4] While often exaggerated, the gender stereotypes presented in the media are very much real. A division of gender roles is deeply rooted in today's society. Through the ages men have been considered to be financial providers, career-focused, assertive and independent, whereas women have been shown as low-position workers, loving wives and mothers, responsible for raising children and doing housework. Nowadays a family model is based rather on a partnership than on patriarchy and women have more rights and possibilities on the labor market. The widespread image of the 'healthy' and 'fit' bodies used by the media, exemplified by the muscular man and the slim woman promote the idea of an ideal and 'singular' body-type that should be strived after by both genders, but which may not fit with the reality of the disparity of body types.[5] It is through the constant display of stereotypical gendered behaviour that these norms and expectations are maintained. Heterosexual gender norms are presented in advertising as 'normal' and the most desirable way to live.[1]

Presentation of traditional masculinity

Since the 1980s, men's bodies have been used more frequently in advertising, depicting a similarly idealized body image to that portrayed of women.[6] Research suggests that while feminine men prefer feminine male models in private; they feel a social pressure to endorse the traditional masculine norms so as not to be publicly identified as feminine themselves.[7]

A growing number of advertisements are showing men as sex objects.[8] Everything from cars to underwear depicted bodybuilder type physiques that are incredibly muscular and often assumed to only be attainable for the average person through performance-enhancing substances.[9] Furthermore, it has been suggested that a muscular body type has become the desired norm for men, regardless of their sexuality.[10] Aging men also face the social pressure to defy aging in an attempt to maintain their masculinity, and thus, their power.[11] Advertisements directed towards men, that contain male actors, often include themes of sports, work, or technology.[1]

The representation of ectomorphs (thin and lightly muscled) in advertising is limited predominantly to the advertisement of clothing that may look more appealing on slimmer, taller men. Whereas, endomorphs (soft and round) are rarely depicted at all and tend to be the object of humour when used. It is important to note that representations of male bodies are often used irrespective of their relevance to the product being promoted.[12] Men in advertisements are depicted with an ideal body type, resulting in them usually being objectified and depersonalized.[13]

Femininity in advertising

A Victoria Secret model walking down the runway in lingerie

Women are usually placed in positions of submission—for instance, women are shown lying on the floor as men are standing over them, literally depicting women as being beneath men. Women are urged to pursue beauty and sex appeal, and part of the sex appeal is submission.[14] Beauty can be defined largely as a perception. It is a group of social norms that interpret a particular form of appearance that is valued. For decades, women have been expected to conform to a particular body image and to behave in a certain manner of which would ultimately decipher and enforce their femininity (Bordo, 1997, p. 94).[15] Goffman mentioned that women are weakened by advertising portrayals in five categories: relative size, feminine touch, function ranking ritualization of subordination, and licensed withdrawal.[16] Advertisements that are targeted at women, or that use female actors, often draw from themes of family-life, the natural environment, and fashion.[1] Aging women are told through media that the way in which to maintain their femininity is to preserve their bodies.[11] Advertisements profit off of sexually exploiting young women, but stear away from acknowledging the sexuality of aging women.[11]

SlutWalk is one phenomenon that emerges through incontemporary "third-wave feminism". The SlutWalk movement helps increase victim visibility and reintroduce sexual violence issues to the public.[17] Gender roles within media and advertising have also been impacted by sex and relationship commitments. Difficulties in differentiating gender roles in the modern societies can be a perfect example of the negative social effects of using stereotypes. Gender roles have also been impacted by the media and advertising. Feminism had a significant impact on the changed view regarding gendered and family stereotypes. Women's liberation movement fought for the rights of women and for redefining traditional gender roles. Although females and males are still not equal, the differences between gender are not so vast anymore. Nevertheless, many social institutions, such as mass media, still use gender stereotypes, based on the assumption that they are well known to everyone and help the receivers to understand the content of the message.[18] Advertisements rarely portray people that look like "us", or the norm. Women are frail, thin, and often are edited or "touched up" to look thinner and flawless. Women are often displaying in advertisements in a way that appeases the male gaze.[1] For this reason men who are exposed to advertisements of women being sexually objectified are more likely to believe stereotypes about sex roles as well as rape myth beliefs.[19] The portrayal of women in mainly submissive and sexual contexts leads to the danger that these ideals will continue to leak into reality and result in more cases of 'justified' sexual harassment towards women.[20]

Body image in advertising

The impact of media on body image has been closely studied in the past years and with the rise of social media, online advertisements have also become increasingly abundant. Many advertisements depict people with idealized bodies, many of which are photoshopped. The average female model in the U.S. is a size 0 or 00 and is between the age of 14 and 19 years of age while the average woman living in the U.S. wears sizes 12–14.[21] The models shown in many advertisements have bodies that are genetically unattainable. Studies have shown that consuming advertisements that contain ideal body image leads to an increase in body dissatisfaction, especially in young girls.[22] Regardless of gender, self-objectification when viewing ideal body images in media may lead to negative feelings towards one's body. Thinking of one's body from an outside viewer's perspective may also lead to body shame, appearance anxiety, and in some cases contributes to certain eating disorders.[22] It must be noted that body-image meaning-transfer can be a lifelong process underlying the perpetual changes in the sociocultural environment, its cultural meaning, body-image trends, and pervasive media beauty ideologies (Yu et al. 2011).

It is very common for young men and women to compare themselves to models in ads, in terms of their physical attractiveness.[23] The appearance and body size of the models within the advertisements in the final image seen by consumers are, more often than not, altered through editing programs such as Photoshop. The use of these images creates a false beauty ideal for both men and women to aspire to, as well as creating the use of extreme dieting and surgical procedures in order to resemble a similar image that is displayed in advertising. This emphasis on an ideal body appearance has been regarded as being psychologically detrimental to the well-being of many young men and women, and on their self-image. Studies show that these ideals have influences on the expectancies of what a healthy body constitutes in young people and can contribute to mental health issues in regards to body image.[5]

Advertising strategy

Media and advertising has also taken a strategic role in today's society. The people at whom advertisements are aimed rarely look the same as those portrayed in the advertisements themselves.[24] Stereotyping becomes problematic when stereotypes lead to expectations and judgements that restrict life opportunities for subject of a social category. This is the reason why public policy is concerned about marketing activities that promote stereotypes. Each gender stereotype component can lead to negative consequences that restrict life opportunities, particularly for women. Physical characteristics can lead to reduced self-dignity, role behaviors may lead to restricted opportunities of self-development, and stereotyping of occupational roles may lead to disadvantages in women's careers.[25]

Both men and women strive to achieve this beauty which influences them to shape themselves and alter their appearance in order to conform to those norms.[26] These norms are largely derived from the media's presentation of models and well known stars through advertisements for products and magazine covers. As our society is now filled with these advertisements in all aspects of life, such as on TV, billboards, in supermarkets displayed with the products (particularly beauty products) and on social media, children are now viewing this material at a younger age and in turn creating the perception that this is the ideal appearance whilst they are still very impressionable. Young children learn by observing and imitating what is presented to them.[27]

There are various stereotypes in regards to humorous advertising with both males and females. Stereotypes can product oversimplified conceptions and misapplied knowledge evaluations. Humor is generated on two steps. First, some kind of incongruity that violates a predominating view has to be recognized and, second, if people cognitively resolve this incongruity, they experience humor. Humor occurs when it seems that things are normal, while at the same time something goes wrong that breaks our expectations. Men could be depicted in domestic roles doing chores, whereas women would be presented in independent roles. This would break our expectation and society norms that revolve around the gender roles. Exaggerating these gender norms would have a potential to be humorous.[28] Sometimes the traditional gender roles are reversed in advertising. When this happens, one can see men behaving in ways that are generally associated with femininity, and women behaving in typically masculine ways. This is often the case in gay[29] and lesbian[30] advertising. Witnessing these ads can be a shock to most, as they are not accustomed to this reversal of roles. This is an indicator that there is in fact a distinction between the genders in advertising.[31]

Types of media advertisements

Advertising involves thoughts, attitudes, and values, thus providing it a "cultural form" through the symbolic practice. Advertisements also play a role in the economic organization of modern society.[16] By studying gender roles in advertising, definitions and expectations of gender in media can be elucidated and understood better. Despite global attitudes toward them changing, gender stereotypes continue to be presented in advertisements.[32] Since gender is social constructed and differs between cultures, we require constant representation of what gender should mean.[1]

Toys

Parallels can be seen in historical changes of gender roles in North American society and to the amount of gender-typing in toys. Weisgram & Dinella[33] provide a concise history of gender typing in the toy industry starting with archaeological evidence through artifacts that simulated gender roles that these ancient children would have as adults. Children used these toys to practice skills they would need to survive as adults, in the society and time they lived in. Further along, with advances in automation and plastic production, children had more time outside of household chores to play recreationally and the toy industry boomed.[33] While there was no longer a need to simulate the gender roles for survival, the society the children lived in at the time was still heavily divided by gender.

Shifting gender roles in North American society during the second half of the 20th century saw slight decreased emphasis on domesticity in feminine toys. As more women entered the workforce, gender-targeted marketing of toys decreased dramatically, with less the 2% of toys marketed towards boys or girls.[33] However, in the 1980s and continuing into the 21st century, an increase in gender-typed marketing with both explicit and implicit labels are being used to exaggerate the segmented toy markets creating deep stereotypes around gender typed toys. Even among previously gender-neutral toys there is a shift into making different versions of the same toy. Recently though, there has been many movements to remove these explicit and implicit labels from toys and bedding sections of stores.[34]

This ad suggests that using this hormone cream will in fact make you look younger.[35]

Advertising involves ideas and values and gives them a cultural form through symbolic practice. Since things rarely have one single and fixed meaning, it needs cultural participants give them meaning. Advertising needs "shared meaning" as part of its construction and production. Modern print advertising depends on images. Images are kinds of symbols, which can convey meaning as effectively as language symbols.[16] Magazine advertisements highlighting a thin, attractive female model yield greater self-objectification and the process of inspecting this type of advertisement can encourage women to think about their physical appearance as if looking on as a critical observer.[36]

Television advertisements

The gender role in advertising is developing into a research field closely related to current society and culture. Different cultures, countries, and communities convey different gender images. Overall in North America, it seems that men are more likely to be described as successful and powerful and women are more likely to be described as sexy or good at doing housework. However, there are many differences in the images of men and women in different cultures.

Studies found that in all sampled advertisements with a "primary character", 50.7% of the roles were held by women, with only 2 of the countries studied, Brazil and South Korea, having percentage pairs of one gender higher than 60% and the other lower than 40%.[37] The study also found that in all sampled advertisements with a "voiceover", 61.8% of them were roles played by exclusively males, with only 2 of the countries studied, France and the United Kingdom, having women with more exclusive voiceovers in the sampled advertisements than men.[38] Men dominate the narrator, and the product category is closely related to gender.[39] Women generally speak less and are less likely to be selected to play the roles of experts.[20] Rather women are more likely to be dressed in suggestive clothing and posed in submissive or sexually exploitative way.[20]

Research found more than 100 advertisements during sports coverage targeted towards men portrayed men as a part of a family, but only 7 of those portrayed said men with emotional aspects and connections with the children in their family.[40] In 225 advertisements directed towards children, 7 of them portrayed the role of a father, with 20 of them portraying the role of a mother.[40] In 200 commercials during programming directed towards women, only 2 of the advertisements depicted fathers in a supportive role with children.[40] As of 2005, the average teenager in the U.S. consumes 3–4 hours of television a day, 30% of that being advertisements, and many adolescents are consuming 100 or more advertisements a day.[41]

The following shows the impact of television advertising on gender images in four countries：

The United States

A study analyzed the gender representation differences of 394 Spanish and English TV advertisements in the United States in 2013. The results show that gender stereotypes are common in both samples. For example, more women are depicted as young people, usually at home. Males usually dress formally, while females often wear suggestive clothes. Men obviously dominate the narrator role, and product category is closely related to gender. From the perspective of social cognitive theory, advertisements rarely depict women in the workplace, which may decrease interest in jobs traditionally related to the opposite sex.[39]

In Spanish and English advertising samples, women wear more suggestive and sexy clothing than men, and men are more fully dressed. In addition, narrators were more often male in English (male: 65.1%; female: 34.9%) and Spanish TV advertisements (male: 73.7%; female: 26.3%). The age of the protagonist has obvious gender division. More women are younger than men. Society is more tolerant of men's aging. Sexual objectification of women may lead to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Women often compare their bodies to idols like models and celebrities, which lead to dissatisfaction with their body.[39]

Britain

Historically, Britain has set much higher standards for regulating the advertising industry.[42] Advertisers and the government are pursuing gender role equality. Among British advertisements, there were no significant differences in the roles occupied by male and female lead characters. Females appear in business or professional settings and mentake on family responsibilities. In British advertisements from 2000 to 2001, the distribution of advertising clues of men (52%) and women (48%) was similar. There were 61% of male leads playing professional roles, compared to 39% of women.[43]

It is now illegal to use gender stereotypes to sell goods in Britain. Britain's Advertising Standards Authority announced the ban in December 2019. The new regulation stipulates that “advertisements must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offense”, and also cannot show people “failing to achieve a task specifically because of their gender”. For example, the advertisers cannot show women having poor driving skills or men struggling with housework in advertisements.[42]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, which has one of the fastest growing markets for advertising, operates strictly according to Islamic law, and men and women enjoy different rights; women may appear on TV only in limited roles. In practice, women are depicted in a more dependent and submissive position, while men are more authoritative and controlling. This phenomenon has led to a reduction in the types of products advertised by women. Women are emphasized in decorative features in traditional family roles. Most narrators tend to be male, and women are less likely to appear in professional situations or the workplace than men.[43]

The environments and occasions in which men and women appear are also very different. Women are more often shown around their families and indoors, whereas men are depicted outdoors, in the workplace or as leaders. The age range is very important in Saudi Arabia's advertisements because Islamic dress codes for women are more strict from adolescence. In Saudi advertisements analyzed between 2000 and 2001, 53% of the advertisements showed men in leading roles. 88% of family roles where played by females. Of advertisements containing professional roles, 78% were filled by males, compared to 22% by females.[43]

See also

References

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