Gender Socialization and Advertisement It Term Paper

In the only ad involving men and food, the man is a cartoon delivery man carrying cookies. 13% of the ads dealing with women also involve children in the picture -- 86% of the ads involving adults and children involve women as the adult. The one exception is a tragic ad about heart disease in which the female figure has been cut out of the picture leaving a stricken husband and family behind. An approximately equal number of ads show men and women as having jobs or being involved in business. While an overwhelming number of the beauty and hair product ads are targeted at women, a surprisingly large number of perfume and deodorant ads are targeted at men. Glamorized, idealized bodies being used to sell products are only slightly more likely to be female (13 ads) than male (12 ads) -- this difference may be explained by the tendency to have male perfume ads not count towards the ad ratios because most do not include human subjects. Glamorized images are just as likely to appear in a magazine aimed at the same sex as at the opposite sex, and when men are glamorized they are far more likely to be so in men's magazines.

In only one ad is a group of male friends shown spending time together. About five ads show women with their friends. In fact, in only 50% of the ads where women are shown are they the solitary figure.In contrast, despite the fact that men's magazines are twice as likely to have ads featuring both sexes, in all the magazines combined men are accompanied by companions in only 37% of the ads.

All these disparate facts point to one central, and somewhat disconcerting idea -- it appears that in the world of advertisement, men are portrayed as isolated and alone. Generally this isolation is accompanied by a message that the product in question can somehow fill that void and change his situation. (One ad, for example, shows an isolated man having discovered hair gel, and says that he will go "from restrained to reformed.") Women are shown being surrounded by family and companions, and sensually and tactile satisfied with friends and food. Men are shown being isolated, and the majority of their ads deal with alcohol, perfume (to cover their alienated smell?) and mechanical things such as watches and cars. Men are made sexual and glamorized not to sell items to women, but to sell them to other men -- this does not even appear to be homoerotic, but rather an empathetic sort of wish-fulfillment advertisement. Of course, both sexes suffer from misrepresentation and self-repression. Men are for more likely to be portrayed in traditional roles in their own magazines, and women in their own. In each other's advertisements, both sexes seem displaced. (Ever cleaning product sold in Woman's Day is accompanied by a male….....