Gender in Advertising

Gender in Advertising 

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

Prior to the 1970s women were represented as being very traditional housewife’s doing tasks such as cooking and cleaning. “Women were more than twice as likely to be seen inside the home”. This highlights that the males were in control and women were subordinated emphasised in the adverts at that time as men were given the more authoritative roles were as the women were given the minor roles were they didn’t have much to do, and adverts often had male voice over to outline that the males dominated, however when women were the protagonist of an advert it would be for an advert promoting a cleaning product or a house product so women were used so that the audience can personally indentify themselves with the female character.  

                     
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?

women were continued to be depicted as housewife’s even though time were changing, however it took the role of women within media to change the representation of women as well as women freedom and equal rights. The dominant had seen this as a treat and continued to bombard the media with stereotypical representation of women instead of alternative representation of women

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?

Gaye Tuchman's quote regarding the 'symbolic annihilation of women' could still be applied in 21st Century as women in adverts are still under represented, this is due to the fact that the main media institution are owned and run by males so their ideologies are influenced into the production of adverts. However there are big named females in the media industry working for large institution but I debt they are very influential at persuading the male dominated producers to produce an advert of an alternative representation of women. In addition most 21st Century advertising is aimed at appealing to the male gaze as they say “sex sells” hence the reason women are subordinated, underrepresented and shown to be sexual objects.

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.

The Boots No 7 advert ' It's not make up. It's ammunition', is a post feminist advert as the women represented in the advert are shown to be single and independent as well as that the women are shown to revealing there beauty however they are shown to be in control as they don’t show a lot and are in control as to how much they show presenting them as being dominate and superior as they ant playing into the male gaze.

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’?

I believe that the representation of women by media institutions doesn’t really affect a woman’s body image. However The representation of women affects the women depending on what type of advert it is and weather the advert has a hypodermic needle were it aims to inject the ideologies of the institution into the passive viewer or weather the individuals consuming the media product challenges the issues raised in the advert and takes an oppositional reading

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

The contemporary representation of men in advertising is mainly negative, as they are shown to be strong physical build outlined with the lack of clothing of some of the male actors which is a dominant representations of men which also suggest that man are being represented as sex objects and being subordinated to meet the needs of the female gaze instead of the traditional male gaze, in addition this type of representation is highlighted in perfume and fragrance adverts such as D&G, Armani ect.