Gender Stereotypes In Advertisement Analysis

Every day we are exposed to hundreds of advertisements that impact us in different ways through the television, radio, billboards or the internet. We are surrounded by advertisements that illustrate women and men representing their typical stereotypes roles such as the woman cooking and cleaning and men as the financial providers and the one in charge. To be able to confirm this gender stereotype theory our group watched three hours of prime time television on the CBS network and paid special attention to the advertisements shown. We coded the advertisements to reflect the characteristics of gender roles and then analyzed our results based on how well does the men’s portrayal fit traditional male gender roles, how are women portrayed in ads …show more content…
Men are portrayed as dynamic, aggressive, strong, and brave. Men have always been given certain standards and roles that they should live by. What is expected and not expected of them has been implemented into them during childhood and growing up, either by a parent, family member or even coaches. There are just certain things and expectations that a male should traditionally have and do. Some examples of this would be: they should always be prepared to fight their way, they should never retreat from a physical fight, others should fear them, they should physically defend their family and work hard to earn to support it. Also, that they should watch sports and drink beer. In addition, they should be the leader of the family and be in control. Some people even go as far as stating that men should follow certain gender roles in order to be considered a man. Moreover, some traditional roles that males should not attain are; they should not cry, they should not feel pain and they should not be …show more content…
For example in the advertisements we analyzed we can see clear examples of marketers taking advantage of gender roles. Almost all the advertisements of cars; BMW, Lexus, Chrysler and Dodge, use males as actors and the characteristics of the gender role are clearly; assertive, decisive and power in charge. On the other hand products like milk or home furniture are represented by females. And their gender role characteristics are; being caring and affectionate and in charge of the housework. This examples definitely support that marketers shape the images of men and women for their purposes and exploits the gender roles and uses them as they want to sell their products. Given our observations we believe that the traditional gender roles go hand in hand with the gender roles we have now. Under the ‘housework” section on our coding sheet most ads fall under women and traditionally women are the ones that do the housework and cooking. While we do believe that it is slowly but surely changing and there are more males that are taking these roles, the evidence shows us that they are still targeting the women for these products. The reason why marketers have not yet fully chosen to outbreak from these gender stereotypes is because they actually work. Unless we take steps to limit the amount of gender stereotypes ads we see on television people will continue to look towards advertising as