Submissive Stereotypes In Advertising

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Who can wear the pants? According to ad agencies, only men can. Women are predominantly seen as submissive in advertising while men are seen as dominant, and this stereotype can be more harmful than you’d think. Ad campaigns, like the American Apparel ones exhibit these stereotypes consistently. In the one pictured on the left the girl is beneath the camera, instantly removing power from her, and putting it with the viewer. Her legs are legs are open towards the camera with lower legs out of the picture. She is exposed and has a distressed expression. The caption “Now Open” seems fine on its own but with the image and her legs splayed out it makes it seem like it’s not about a store opening. What’s worse is that this ad is aimed at young …show more content…

And with 1 in 3 women experiencing sexual assault (WHO, 2016) this is a problem we need to address. Dominant and submissive stereotypes in advertising aren't only harmful to women, but men as well, as Sam Femiano and Mark Nickerson (Physiotherapists from the Centre for Media Literacy) explain “They are damaging because they narrow our notions of what men can be and do. They affect women's expectations of men in relationships and men's expectations of other men in work settings or in friendships. Media stereotypes have extra impact because they create images based on these assumptions, helping to shape men's own views about how they should act and how successful they are as men.” (CML, 2012) In a society where we are constantly bombarded of images that encourage men to dominate women, the website Destructive Advertising says “violent behaviours have a lot to do with the environment and if you are constantly emerged, how can you separate yourself from it? We are all constantly engulfed in the trillion dollar world of advertising. This advertising manipulates us to believe that men are meant to be dominant, and women submissive. This message is detrimental to

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