Gender & Advertising:

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

The commercials in the pre-1970 were mostly shown to represent women in their stereotypical job role relating to the home environment such as the kitchen. The adverts back then portrayed women in commercial for the kitchen products or bathrooms and any other home related equipment. Women did not have a voice as they were shown to be dominated by men at home or in the working environment as women were subordinate by men. This was naturalized and accepted by society in the 1970’s because women did not have much equality to men and were considered as less important unlike the men.

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 after depicting women in a greater range of role, they were still shown to be less important compared to men. They were represented as housewives and counting the jobs of motherhood, as women were seen only in adverts for cleanliness, beauty products and family orientated commercials aimed at other mother and the female audience.

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?

Regardless of Gaye Tuchman’s quote, women can still be applied in the 21st Century advertising, as they are being ‘symbolically annihilated’ and are often sexually objectified in adverts today. Even though women now have a wide range of advertising options and a voice, they are not yet fully dominated the advertising industry as women and men are still imbalanced in their job roles.

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.

This statement can be arguable in the way women are represented and whether women are better than men or not. The Boots No.7 advert may suggest women are becoming more dominant but at the same time need make-up product to feel and look good as they need more than natural beauty to please men, however it can also connote that the power is in the females hands as they can look good if they wanted to attract men or have a greater sex appeal but they can also control them by not looking good and pleasing men all the time. The words “It’s not make-up. Its ammunition” gives as sense of power and control as the word “ammunition” sounds very manly and dominant which indicated that women are fighting back and demand a greater role in the advertising industry. Boots has always back up women and gave them the option of looking and feeling confident. Overall I think that the women are represented more positively and are considered to be better than men.

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’?

In today’s contemporary society, women are always seeking help and working towards achieving the so called ‘Prefect’ Body though the use of the media and magazines. Depression and unhappiness in women are rising as they don’t seem to be happy with their body image, as they are almost brainwashed and overpowered by what they see on TV, which is often misleading and untrue. This can impact on what society consider as real beauty and whether women are naturally beautiful or need to be covered in cosmetics from head to toe in order to be accepted in society. This creates a negative representation and impact on women as they often look down on themselves and feeling embarrassed, whereas men seem to have pride and they never admit that they are unhappy about their bodies as are not exposed or put under pressure to look good by the media. As a result I think the media are held responsible for giving a negative portrayal of women and are accountable for these results.

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

Men are too being depicted as sex objects as there is a rise often in perfume adverts or men’s underwear, in recent years the rise of men in advert that are being sexually objectified as this is become more acceptable and appealing to the audience. This creates a negative representation of men as for hundreds of year men were represented as the dominant, powerful and strong men. However we as the audience have seen a change in the way men are represented as well as women.