Stereotypes Of Gender In Advertising

The advertising industry has become a notable staple of marketing in the modern era. From oversized billboards to television commercial sessions, advertising has taken up a strongly dominant role in contemporary life, through which information is repeatedly broadcast and eventually embedded into the minds of potential consumers. Under the influence of such advertisements, consumers become more susceptible to emotional appeal and more receptive to the views expressed by these commercials, thus leading to a possible shift in their personal values and opinions. Therefore, although the main focus of these advertisements primarily falls upon the products themselves, it is the warped portrayals of the sexes and the concept of gendered marketing that

These “forms of audience fragmentation, particularly along race and sexuality lines … and their intersection with gender identities, have been found to contribute to the identity project of individuals in this era of late modernity” (Lemish 360). For the sake of ease, advertising companies choose to portray men and women “in stereotypical ways that reflect and sustain socially endorsed views of gender” (Wood 31), so as to appeal to as much of their target demographic as possible without having to overtly pay attention to their markets’ numerous distinctive niches. These stereotypes “distort how we see ourselves and what we perceive as normal and desirable for men and women” (Wood 32), thus turning into unspoken rules that dictate our personal identity and behavior, becoming much more than a simple marketing strategy. However, this act of convenience over innovation only leads to children being “polarized … into traditional gender role behaviors” (Nelson and Vilela 114), rather than encouraging them to embrace the unique, individual differences that will become composites of who they are in the future, as “children marketers contribute to the transmission of unhealthy gender stereotypes by appealing to the common sense wisdom stating that boys want success, action and power while girls want glamour, beauty and stability” (Cernat 902), boxing

The spread of globalization and modern technology has made the world become hugely diverse, to the point at which just making use of stereotypes is incapable of acknowledging the broad, manifold branches within communities across the globe. This phenomenon then becomes a catalyst for increased, or better, portrayals of such minorities, which is vital for a child’s development as the advertised products, much like their race or ethnicity, “are part of children’s identity, they tell the world who the child is, so what he has is what he is” (Cernat 900). Without proper representation to educate today’s youth on significant aspects of their personal identity, not only will the erasure in mass media diminish their exposure to other people who share the same circumstances, but it will also give adolescents the incentive to seek information from other resources, which may misinform them and twist their views of themselves in addition to those around them. An example of this would be how African-Americans, models in particular, have long been “portrayed in demeaning and stereotypical roles that appealed to the white majority” (Barker and Joiner 2) through photo manipulation, which often depicts them with lightened skin, and cosmetic choices, such as hair extensions,