For my research project, I decided to examine gender in magazines, which led me to question, “How gender is depicted in magazine ads?” I feel that this topic is important as it gives us an insight into how advertisers use factors like gender and sexuality in order to target a certain audience. This is sociologically important as the ads could reveal more information about gender roles and the way in which the audience of the ads perceive gender.
Literature Review
In order to help substantiate my research, I turned to various academic sources by researching online databases. Liezille Jacobs and Tia Tyree (2013) researched alcohol advertisements and reviewed the ways in which they constructed sex, gender, and race (Jacobs and Tyree 2013, p.5793). They found that alcohol related content was far more prevalent in the South African magazines, with Cosmopolitan (SA) containing 139 alcohol advertisements and 66 editorials related to alcohol competitions or promotions, True Love had 83 alcohol advertisements and 45 editorials related to alcohol competitions or promotions (2013:5795). Comparatively, there were 56 editorials on alcohol in the U.S. version of Cosmopolitan (2013:5795). In addition, Jacobs and Tyree found that Essence magazine depicted Black men and Black women who were of the sporty and causal type while both versions of Cosmopolitan and True Love depicted White men and White women in a more sexual manner (2013:5796). Plus, they found that women more often than not had the role of a passive sex symbol in sexual advertisements (Jacobs and Tyree 2013, p. 5800). Jang-Sun Hwang, Juran Kim, Guihok Lee, Carolyn McMahan, and Roxanne Hovland used a similar approach to Jacobs and Tyree and found that U.S. advertisements were more lik...
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...In American and Korean Advertisements.” Sex Roles 53 (11/12): 887-899
Jacobs, Liezille and Tia Tyree. .“The Construction of Femininity Race, and Sexuality in Alcohol Advertisements in South African and American Women’s Magazines.” Gender & Behavior 11.2: 5788-5803.
Ki-Young, Lee and Sung-Hee Joo. “The Portrayal of Asian Americans In Magazine Ads: An Update.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 82 (3): 654-671
O’Connor, P.J. and Gary Sullivan. “Women’s Role Portrayals in Magazine Advertising: 1958-1963.” Sex Roles 18 (3/4): 181-188
Shaw, Ping and Yue Tan. “Race and Masculinity: A Comparison of Asian and Western Models in Men's Lifestyle Magazine Advertisements.” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 91 (1): 118-138
Teftt, Bruce, Chris Tysiaczny, and Megan Vokey. “An Analysis of Hyper-Masculinity in Magazine Advertisements.” Sex Roles 68 (9/10): 562-576
Katharina Linder. 2004. “Images of Women in General Interest and Fashion Magazine Advertisements from 1955 to 2002.” Sex Roles 51:409-421.
Schroeder, Jonathan & Zwick, Detlev, Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images: Consumption, Markets and Culture, (Volume 7: March 2004)
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and Images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously throughout the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between 1900’s and 1920’s, the roles of women changed dramatically here in United States.
Frith, Katherine T., and Barbara Mueller. "Advertisements Stereotype Women and Girls." Opposing Viewpoints. N.p., 2006. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. .
Stephenson, T., Stover, W. J., & Villamor, M. (1997). Sell Me Some Prestige! The Portrayol of Women in Business-Related Ads. Journal of Popular Culture, 255-271.
Englis B, Solomon M, Ashmore R. Beauty Before the Eyes of Beholders: The Cultural Encoding of Beauty Types in Magazine Advertising and Music Television. Journal Of Advertising [serial online]. June 1994;23(2):49-64. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 7, 2014.
Vanessa Hazell and Juanne Clarke. “Race and Gender in the Media: A Content Analysis of Advertisements in Two Mainstream Black Magazines.” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Sep., 2008), pp. 5-21
Merskin, D (2004) Reviving Lolita? : A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual Portrayals of Girls in Fashion Advertising. In American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 48: pp.119-129. London: Sage Publications.
The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most desirable thing in the ‘Far East’ and that beer is much more important than women. It also openly laughs at the South East Asian sex trade by putting a prostitute in the middle of the ad. The ad also implies that women in the ‘Far East’ are only good for sex (dressing in revealing, sexual clothes designed to make the woman in the ad seem more desirable).
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
4) Kilbourne, Jean. Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women. Dir. Sut Jhally. DVD. Media Education Foundation, 2000.
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
Lundstrom, William J., and Donald Sciglimpaglia. "Sex Role Portrayals in Advertising."Journal of Marketing 41.3 (1977): 72