Gender in Advertising by David Gauntlett

Friedan’s (1963) critique of women’s magazines runs alongside a similar assessment of advertising; the stereotypes reproduced by the housewife’s journals were the same as those exploited by advertisers.

· Tuchman’s (1978) argument about ‘the symbolic annihilation’ of women is based on an analysis of advertising as well as other media.

· Gunter’s (1995) studies show that women in magazine adverts prior to the 1970’s were rarely shown to be in paid work, when they were the depicted a stereotypical role e.g. a smiling secretary.

· The number of ‘housewife’ images began to decline slowly after the 1950’s but were still common in the 60’s and 70’s.

· Advertisement’s in the 1970’s found evidence of stereotyping of all ads featuring women; three quarters were for kitchen and bathroom products.

· Gunter (1995) studies found strong similarities in gender representation from country to country, and particular sexism in adverts aimed at children.

· Mcdonald (1995) advertisers generally lagged behind women’s magazines in the cultivation of new modes of address, even when the evidence suggested that commercial advantages could be gained from modernising their approach.

· Mcdonald (1995) – believing both that feminism’s battles had been won, and that its ideology was now harmless by virtue of being out of date, advertisers invented ‘postfeminism’ as a utopia where women could do whatever they pleased, provided they had sufficient will and enthusiasm.

· Greer - Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful; now a woman has to have a tight, toned body. (ibid).

· Baudrillard states that only women are seducers, but empirical evidence suggests otherwise. Men too are seducers – a male version of the perfect provocateur. The ideal man in ads is young, handsome, clean-cut, perfect and sexually alluring.


Representations of gender today

· During the 1990’s and into the new century, gender roles on television became increasingly equal and non-stereotyped, although the majority of lead characters were still made.

· In 1992- 1993, men took 61 percent of the total number f speaking roles, women have the other 39 percent.· Studies show that small number of the major characters were female – just 18 percent.

· A significant decrease from the 1970’s; only 3 percent of women were represented as housewives as their main occupation.

· Women were free from family and work place pressures (Elasmar, Hasegawa and Brain, 1999:33).

· Some shows put successful professional women at the forefront, and are focused on their quests for sex, pleasures and romantic love, e.g. sex and the city.

· Buffy the vampire slayer; the character is more powerful and heroic, Buffy is more confident and assertive, depicting women in society.

· Representations of gender on TV have changed considerably within the past decades, today female and male characters are likely to be as intelligent, talented and resourceful, and there is equality.

· Nevertheless, many conventions of masculinity and femininity remain; men continue to dominate certain areas e.g. BBC’s coverage of the 2001 general election was led by authoritative, middle aged white male.

· Maggie Humm – Film... often anxiously envisions women stereotypically as ‘good’ mother or ‘bad’, hysterical careerists, (1997).

· There are many films that depict ‘girl power’ and female heroes, X-Men, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Tomb Raider.



Gender and IdentityRepresentation Of Gender In The Past – Key pointsMen and Women on TV

· In the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, there were only 35 percent of female character roles on TV

· Mid 1980’s there was a substantial increase of women in leading roles; however there were twice as many men on screen.

· In 1975, Miles found out that comedy situations had equal proportions of men and women, although the gender roles and the humour could still be traditional and sexist.

· Furthermore, in 1987 a study found female characters to be most common in comedy programmes (43 percent).

· Despite these statistical parity – whereas in action adventure shows, only 15 percent of the leading character where women.

· A study by McNeil (1975) concluded that women’s movement had been largely ignored by television. With married housewives being the main female role portrayed.

· Further more studies in the 1970’s found that men to be the dominant characters and the decision makers on TV.

· Women were more likely to be passive; men were more likely to be adventurous, active and victorious, whereas women were more frequently portrayed as weak, ineffectual, victimised, supportive and laughable.






Women and Men in Movies

· In the 1950’s films “Angry Men” almost always focused on male heroes, men typically made the decisions which led the story and narrative, they were also assertive and dominant.

· However women had roles that were likely to depict them as frightened, in need of protection and direction.

· In the 70’s there was a backlash at the representation of women as Leia from Star Wars is depicted as a princess, top of the social hierarchy.

· 1990’s – Kathi Maio noted ‘strong, victorious women exist in film, just not often enough, and generally not in movies that get much play’. Susan Faludi went a step further by saying women were being ‘reduced to mute and incidental characters or banished altogether’, with particular reference to Predator (1987) and Lethal Weapon (1987).

by Jaspreet Hayer 13B YEAHHHH!