Sexism Used as a Tactic

Every man fantasizes about beautiful women serving them hand and foot. We live in a society where women are supposed to be the person to cook, clean, take care of the kids, and work. Women have been made into a sex symbol for the public audience in plenty of ads and commercials to grasp the typical male audience. Ads have led men to purchase products to achieve the goal of getting the sex symbol that they fantasize about. Even though society has made it okay for woman to be a sex symbol, it isn’t. This ad can possibly have a negative effect on society because it stereotypes woman as only a housewife and because it objectifies women.

Imagine a beautiful, long haired brunette woman with purple lingerie on staring at you sensually, while she bends over to pull a turkey out of the oven. You then stop looking at the beautiful woman to notice the side of the ad asking you, “Can she make you lose control?” A typical man is going to ponder over the question. You then are going to notice the antiperspirant, LYNX DRY, which is supposed to control your perspiring for 48 hours. The ad starts to make you curious; the woman in the picture intrigues you because of her beauty and the article of clothing she is wearing. In Jib Fowles’ “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals,” Fowles discusses fifteen appeals that are used to attract certain audiences. One of the appeals is the need for sex; the LYNX ad exhibits sex (Fowles 267). The woman has lingerie on to lure the man to look at her assets, but they include the turkey to make the woman look like she is doing a womanly duty by cooking dinner. It is a typical stereotype. Women are supposed to cook dinner for the household, but the vulgar clothing to attract the man to the woman is the problem. It...

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...y asked the question as a challenge to a male. Males don’t want to back down from a challenge because they don’t want to lose masculinity. The advertisers used words like new and control to trigger thoughts in a man’s mind. They wanted to try a new product and gain any control they could over a gorgeous, half naked woman standing in front of them. The ad strongly creates a negative effect on society by using the stereotypical woman cooking in the kitchen and showing women as a sexual toy to men.

Works Cited

Fowles, Jib. “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Selzer and Carpini 261-282.

Lutz, William. “With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything.” Selzer and Carpini 232-245.

O’Neill, Charles. “The Language of Advertising.” Selzer and Carpini 246-257.

Selzer, Jack and Dominic Delli Carpini, eds. Conversations: Readings for Writing. New York: Longman, 2006. Print.