Do Commercials Promote Gender Stereotypes?
Do Commercials Promote Gender Stereotypes?
By Yanish Ramrecha
Hello classmates,
Men are expected to be masculine, strong and confident whereas women are expected to be beautiful, graceful and nurturing. These are some examples of gender stereotypes which are often shown in commercials.
Media has an influence over our views on males and females, whether it is through movies, advertisements or music videos. As the world has become more technologically based, we are constantly surrounded by media, namely in the form of advertisements. The messages that media outlets relay can have an impact on our perception as they can integrate stereotypical opinions into our judgement without our slightest remark. In this blog, I will be talking about how commercials can influence our views on the image of men and women through their usage of gender stereotypes.
Altering The Image
Advertising companies have used and still use sexually provocative imagery to promote their products. They advertise their products using actors who act as a sexual objectification of women and/or man. By sexualizing men/women, advertisements impact the perception that the viewer may have. In poster advertisements, many companies edit the image of the model's body to attain their desired look for the model. They might make a female model’s cheekbones higher, remove her facial flaws, enlarge her breasts, and reduce the size of her waist amongst other changes. For a male, the advertisement might make the model appear more muscular. This promotes gender stereotypical appearance as it is the advertisement’s attempt at saying that women/men should look a certain way.
The image above shows Campari’s advertisement featuring Jessica Alba, who has been digitally retouched to attain a slimmer body. On the left is an original and unedited photo.
Portrayal of Men
I would recommend that you watch the video linked below (Old Spice Advertisement) so that you can understand my standpoint.
Old Spice uses Isaiah Mustafa to sell their product in various advertisements. The advertisers use Isaiah’s body to show their perception of a “man”. In doing so, they are basically saying that a “man” is a man if he has a fit body, a deep voice and an Old Spice scent. By using the sexual appeal of Isaiah, they are showing the viewers what a “man” should be like. Their portrayal of a “man” is very biased because they follow the stereotype that suggests that men are expected to be physically imposing and assertive. By showing this image of how a “man” should behave, the commercial is influencing the male viewers to adapt the characteristics of the character shown in the advertisement.
Portrayal of Woman
Gender stereotype towards women has been shown in various commercials. The most prominent advertisements that show gender stereotype are the ones which feature a woman promoting a cleaning product. These advertisements subtly send out a message that women are supposed to be in charge of chores such as cleaning. These advertisements may influence males to believe that they shouldn’t do chores because females are shown to in the majority of cleaning product commercials.
The video linked below (Swiffer Sweeper & Swiffer Dusters Advertisement) shows how advertisers subtly incorporate gender stereotypes into their commercials.
In Closing
Media has the power to influence a lot of people, which is why advertisers use media outlets as their platform for the promotion of their brand/product. Although the prime objective for commercials is to promote their product, their portrayal of the actors (how they behave/act throughout commercial) may show a stereotypical image which might influence the way that viewers think of men and women. I am not saying that all advertisements contain gender stereotypes. However the ones that do contain gender stereotypes have an impact on our perception of women and men.
Questions
- Do you think that commercials contribute to stereotypes about men and women?
- Should advertisers be allowed to use sexual appeal to promote their product?
- Do you believe that media has an influence on your perception about gender roles?
Leave your thoughts and comments down in the comment section
below.
I feel that commercials have a huge contribution to stereotypes about men and women becuase everybody is influenced by it they take it seriously and if males or females don't meet their stereotypical requirements then they are judged which makes others feel insecure which is another problem. I feel there is nothing wrong with advertisers using sexual appeal but the people who watch it shouldn't take it as the realistic view they will have of other people. I feel It does have a massive influence on my perception and people who are the same age as me or close enough about gender roles becuase our generation has been exposed to media massively from a young age and still up to now.
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DeleteHi Yanish, nice article, I want to answer your second question. I think that since we live in a free and capitalistic society, we should allow advertisers to use sexual appeal to sell their products. Its just business, we cant stop a company from using sexual appeal to sell their products. I strongly believe governments should stay out of the business world and let the people decide, if people think its bad to use sexual appeal, they should just stop buying the product, its as simple as that. If a lot of people just boycott a product, the advertiser will stop using sexual appeal in its advertising, that's the only way people can stop sexual appeal in advertisement. The government can't interfere with the decisions of a private business.
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DeleteHi Yanish, I believe that the media has definitely contributed to gender stereotypes. These advertisements put a criterion on various male and females. By looking at these ads, they feel as if they need to meet these requirements. It puts pressure on them and makes them feel as if they won’t be accepted if they don’t meet these standards, but what they do not know is that, it’s all fake. They use photoshop to obtain the desired image and people try to obtain the same image without knowing its impossible. To answer your last question, I don’t think we can stop the media from doing this because they will do anything to sell their product. We just have to become smarter and more aware to stop these fake illusions that is taking us over.
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DeleteIn this society that we live in today commercials stereotype men and women and we can’t change that. What we could change is when commercials come on, we people have the choice to be influenced or ignore it because at the end of the day it is someone job to advertise.
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DeleteHey Yanish, first of all thats a really well written and well researched blog, I loved reading it. now to answer your questions I believe that commercials have highly played into the gender stereotypes, as they are available to everyone and are inescapable. I personally think that no-one should be allowed to use sexual appeal of advertise anything because it creates a false sense of expectations in the society which later can affect many lives negatively. Finally, I strongly believe that media has influenced our perception of gender roles, as I mentioned earlier that commercials in this day and age are inescapable, and when this much power is given to commercials they tend to please everyone and end up using stereotypes because thats the easiest way out of that specific situation.
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DeleteHey Yanish, great topic overall. I can strongly agree that commercials contribute to gender stereotypes. Your listed examples are commercials which are aired to millions of viewers, surely getting a lot of impressions. With commercials like these, they definitely manipulate the minds of viewers, setting the foundation for these stereotypes. I guess advertisers should be allowed to keep their rights to using sex appeal to promote products, but I believe the top companies should change the way they promote products in order to step away from creating gender stereotypes. To answer your final question, yes, I believe media has influenced me in terms of gender roles.
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DeleteHey Yanish, I totally believe that commercials contribute to gender stereotypes. I believe that there is contribution from all sources of media be it conscious or unconscious. As for your second second question I believe that they should not be able to exploit sexual appeal to sell their products because it greatly affects people who see them. Not on the surface level but subconsciously, seeing genders over sexualized over and over again can make you believe that is the ideal appearance, but this is a thing that has been going on for generations now and would take a miracle of sorts to stop.
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DeleteGreat blog Yanish! Very thorough! In regards to your question "Should advertisers be allowed to use sexual appeal to promote their product" I think that advertisers should be allowed to use sexual appeal in their advertisements to promote products. Companies want to bring as much attention to their product as possibly and a great way to do so (regardless of the gender) is to portray a celebrity figure or a very "attractive" individual who people will look up and follow. This in return will generate a massive revenue for the company since people will purchase that product thinking that they might become just like the individual they saw on TV.
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