Throughout the history of
advertising there have always been two kinds of people: women and men. Men are
strong, dominant, go to work, drink beer, drive cars and fix things. Women are
there to support men: they are submissive, clean the house, take care of the
kids and look sexy. These are the gender stereotypes supported by
advertisements.
The past
The following ads are very strong examples
for the three different roles that a woman could have in the past:
The sexy, submissive woman. She is
there to fulfill her husband’s needs and is lying to his feet. She has no need
for an own opinion because her master is deciding everything for her. Moreover
she is mostly (half-)naked.
The housewife. She is responsible
for cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids. Her husband is earning the
money and her only problem is how to be an even better housewife.
The stupid woman. She doesn’t know anything about technology, cars or other typically masculine things. She usually appears in advertisements to promote that even a woman can handle a certain product.
The present
You would think that nowadays there are not as
many stereotypes in advertisements as in the past. Clearly, the emancipation
movement must have changed something! That is right, not all advertisements show the three types of women described above.
Dove is a great example for helping fight women’s stereotypes. They feature
women and girls from all ages, skin colors and body types in their
advertisements, showing that women are not just objects:
Nevertheless
there are still many gender stereotypes in advertising.
The girl in this Axe ad needs a man
to get rescued from the shark. She is wearing a tiny bikini and has a fit body.
After the lifeguard saved her life, she almost kisses him, which shows that he
has power over her. But then there is an astronaut coming along and the girl
becomes a total victim of her sexual needs and runs towards him with her mouth
half open.
But not only the “sexy woman” is
still around. You can also find the “housewife” quite too often.
There
are usually women cleaning the house and men or the whole family admiring the
results.
The future
Will advertisements ever treat women
and men equally? I want to see girls playing with cars and boys starring in a
Barbie commercial! But it is still a long way to get there. Advertisements mirror
the stereotypes that already exist in our society but they also reinforce them
by confronting us with them every day. It seems to be a vicious circle that can
only be stopped by our own thinking. Advertisers will not stop using stereotypes
because each product has a certain target audience and the easiest way to
approach it is by using the things that it likes. For example a commercial for
a baby doll is most appealing for girls if it features another girl playing
with the doll and putting pink dresses on it. If the child in the commercial
would be a boy, many girls might not be able to identify with him and the boys
watching the commercial would not be interested either because they never
played with a doll before.
So if we start thinking different of
ourselves maybe there will be more advertisements showing us strong,
independent women in the future!
