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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.

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 ^[1]. These images are crafted to mimic real life, leading to confusion when separating the concepts of fantasy and reality in regards to advertising. In his book Gender Advertising ^[2], author Erving Goffman uses the term "commercial realism" for advertisers' attempts to present the advertising world in ways which it could be real. While often exaggerated, the gender stereotypes presented in the media are very much real. Men have historically been portrayed as dominant, financial providers, career-focused, assertive and independent, whereas women have been shown as subordinate, low-position workers, or loving wives and mothers whose responsibilities focus on raising children and doing housework. Goffman compares the dominant and subordinate positions of men and women as similar to that of a parent and child.

Presentation of Gender Roles

Displays in Youth Advertising

Advertisements can be found in wide range aspects of life, such as on TV, billboards, and on social media. Children are now viewing this material at a younger age, in turn creating these perceptions whilst they are still very impressionable. Young children learn by observing and imitating what is presented to them. ^[3]

Advertisements that market to young girls include a variety of stimuli that inform and shape children's inner constructs of gender. In advertisements marketed towards young girls, the color pink is frequently used, and the subjects are typically shown in clean and calm environments playing with toys that mimic real life expectations of women, such as toys that mimic household actions such as cooking and cleaning, ^[4] as well as dress-up dolls. The most famous example of the dress-up doll is Barbie, which has played a role in the internalized body ideals of women across generations, resulting in a high level of body dissatisfaction. ^[5]

High beauty standards are also placed on young girls through means such as teen magazines and social media, resulting in an increasing pressure on young girls to appear sexualized and conventionally attractive. ^[6] Recent studies have shown that young girls that spend more time on social media show increased pressure and efforts in emulating the images that they see. ^[7]

Young boys are commonly seen in advertisements displaying aggressive, and occasionally violent behavior when playing with their toys. ^[4] Boys can be seen playing with a variety of toys with themes of violence, such as action figures wielding weapons, or toy weapons, with research suggesting that this type of play can desensitize young boys to violence. ^[8]

Boys have historically been subject to a wider variety of toys or games to play with. Some examples of these traditionally include hardware tools, cars, and action figures. Boys are also shown playing with toys that mimic a wider variety of skills and abilities that could be used in workplaces, influencing them to desire a wider variety of jobs from a young age. ^[9]

Displays of Feminine Gender Roles

Goffman states that women are weakened by advertising portrayals in five categories: relative size, feminine touch, function ranking ritualization of subordination, and licensed withdrawal. Advertisements that are targeted at women, or that use female actors, often draw from themes of family-life, the natural environment, and fashion. ^[10]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, products, such as; moisturizers, soaps, deodorants, and shampoos were marketed to women through newly developed tactics of fear, sex, and emulation, ^[11] three key strategies that continues to influence advertising into the modern era. Fear tactics in advertisements from this time period often depict women that fail to meet the social expectation that they always appear presentable facing social rejection, painting them as outcasts and undesirable to men, with many examples from advertisements of this period shaming women that fail to maintain an assumed level of personal hygiene. Advertisements held the promise that through buying their product, women would become more desirable. ^[11]

Expectations that women were to maintain clean environments, care for their children, and serve their husbands were enforced through advertisements of this period as well. Many advertisers held the promise that a potential buyer will be able to perform these tasks more simply and more efficiently. ^[11] Female subjects are commonly portrayed as helpless in any areas besides what is expected of them, relying on men to perform more mentally or physically laborious tasks for them. ^[2]

Displays of Masculine Gender Roles

Men have historically been portrayed in advertisements as independent, breadwinners, tough, invulnerable, athletic, and generally more capable than their female counterparts. Men in advertisements are usually pictured as leaders in and out of the household, being able to accomplish extreme tasks with little effort or assistance. When shown in advertisements with women, men are typically seen in a dominant position both socially and physically. ^[2] This can be seen in advertisements that show a man finding entertainment in watching a woman perform daily tasks, or critiquing a woman's lack of ability to perform these tasks to his standard. ^[11]

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. ^[12] 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. ^[13] In 200 commercials during programming directed towards women, only 2 of the advertisements depicted fathers in a supportive role with children. Men that fail to meet these standards, or that show feminine traits such as compassion, emotionality can be seen in advertisements as weak, and often as a source of comedy. According to the concept of hegemonic masculinity, that suggests a social value is placed on the masculine performance of gender roles, displaying feminine traits such as these results in less favorable treatment than those who display traditional characteristics of masculinity. ^[14]

Presentation of Bodies

Many advertisements depict people with idealized bodies, many of which are photo-shopped or edited in some way. ^[15] Studies have shown that consuming advertisements that contain ideal body image leads to an increase in body dissatisfaction, especially in young girls. ^[16] 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 may contribute to certain eating disorders or disordered eating. ^[16]

Displays of Female Bodies

Advertisements use female bodies as a key form of marketing to consumers, with women often appearing as an object of desire, something to be controlled, something to be won by men, as well as delicate and fragile in nature. Many aspects of how female bodies are portrayed in advertising stem from the male gaze.

Female bodies in advertisements can be portrayed in a hyper-feminine, pornographic way in order to market to a heterosexual male audience. ^[17]Women are usually placed in positions of submission, and are urged to pursue beauty and sex appeal through acts and behaviors of submission. ^[18] In many advertisements, phallic objects are shown aiming at the female subjects face, breasts genitalia, or anal region in order to induce images of sexual intercourse. Sexual objectification of women may lead to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. ^[19] Women often compare their bodies to idols like models and celebrities, which lead to dissatisfaction with their body. ^[20]

Women are displayed as fragile, with this being commonly pictured through the feminine touch. The feminine touch ^[21] refers to the idea that women are gentle by nature, and often use the image of women's hands to frame the focus of the ad in a delicate way. The feminine touch can also refer to a woman lightly grazing her own body with her hands in a similarly delicate manner. and often seen with vacant expressions, and in dynamic poses that convey them as something to be beheld. ^[17]

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. ^[22]

Aging women are told through media that the way in which to maintain their femininity is to preserve their bodies. Advertisements profit off of sexually exploiting young women, but steer away from acknowledging the sexuality of aging women. ^[23]

Displays of Male Bodies

Male bodies are displayed in advertising with dominance, aligning with the belief that men are physically stronger and overall more dominant than women. When pictured with women, this is often illustrated through a man holding physical control over a woman, with images of a man's hands with a firm hold on a part of a woman's body, or through men gazing at the female subject of the photo while her expression is placed elsewhere. ^[17]

Men in advertisements are depicted with an ideal body type, resulting in them usually being objectified and depersonalized. ^[24] Muscular body types have become the desired norm for men, regardless of their sexuality. ^[25] Aging men also face the social pressure to defy aging in an attempt to maintain their masculinity, and thus, their power.

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. Endomorphs (soft and round) are depicted less frequently, occasionally appearing as a target of ridicule when portrayed. Representations of male bodies are often used irrespective of their relevance to the product being promoted. ^[26]

Gender in Advocacy Advertising

^[27]

Purity

Throughout the 1990's and 2000’s, many activist groups campaigned in advocacy of purity. Young people of the time, particularly young girls and women, were asked to pledge to not have sex until marriage, often pledging their virginity to their fathers. In her book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women ^[28], author Jessica Valenti documents the cultural impact of this campaign. Purity was promoted in advertisements through print and television, as well as sermons, conferences, magazines, and political campaigns to promote abstinence in young people. ^[28]

Images of purity in advertising were often portrayed through young, thin white women wearing pure white dresses in order to conform to a traditional, evangelical Christian form of purity. ^[29] The evangelical origins of this campaign imply that there is an inherit complementary function to the bodies and traditional roles of men and women that is to be upheld. ^[29]

People who pledged to save their virginity often wore forms of clothing, such as graphic t-shirts containing imagery of cherries, a traditional symbol of purity, and phrases often including the word ‘chaste’ to inform viewers of their sexual status as well as purity rings. ^[28]

Fear tactics were used to promote these ideals. These fear tactics included telling young people that they are far more likely to receive sexually transmitted infections, with an emphasis on the fear of HIV/AIDS, if they had sex before marriage. American school systems taught students that abstinence was a morally correct option without teaching proper sex education. Additionally, young women were warned that if they were to take birth control, they were increasing their chances of contracting STI's, and that the performance of abortions may kill them. Additionally, pressure was put on young female celebrities to maintain a pure image, with a failure to do so resulting in public ridicule and shunning. ^[28]

Depictions across Cultures

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. ^[30]

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.

Britain

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 men take 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. ^[31]

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 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.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, which has one of the fastest growing markets for advertising, operates strictly according to Islamic law. Men and women enjoy different rights; women may appear on TV only in limited roles. 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. ^[31]

The environments and occasions in which men and women appear differ as well. 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. Of advertisements containing professional roles, 78% were filled by males, compared to 22% by females. ^[31]

See also

• Criticism of advertising
• Effects of advertising on teen body image
• Exploitation of women in mass media
• Gender Advertisements
• Killing Us Softly
• Media and gender
• Sex in advertising

References