Women In 1950's Advertising

The 1950’s showed a mass of products in this way in order to make sales. Another example of the way women’s role of playing the housewife was so over exaggerated in the 1950’s, is demonstrated in the advertisement for “Vacola Jars” in figure 2. The advert shows a woman dressed as a stereotypical mother/housewife whereas the husband is dressed in a smart suit, suggesting he has a successful job. The man stands proud, suggesting a superiority to the woman, almost as though he is the parent and she is the child. Goffman’s states that “Men are commonly portrayed as active, in control, and in superior positions” (Goffman, 1987, p.3). The advertisement is showing how grateful the woman is for such a ‘gift’; they are proposing that every woman would

The top left hand corner there is an image of a nagging wife who is desperate to convince her husband to buy her the oven. “It’s designed for you, but built for your husband.” These advertisements demonstrate how the advertising world promotes dependence, vulnerability and clear divided roles in the household. Women and men believed at this time that this was how they should be, so this is how they were. “They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights – the independence and the opportunities” (Friedan, 1963, p.16). This is what people believed to be the truth about women, so this is what women did. Women eventually desired this role and dreamed of being the ‘perfect housewife’; Friedan wrote that things escalated to the point that “Millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty pictures of the American suburban housewife” (Friedan, 1963,

Goldman exclaims;
Advertising is a form of social practice insofar as corporate profitability and control over markets relies on the existence of a built environment which presupposes commodified relations, such that the world depicted in advertisements comes to be thought of as the only possible world (Goldman, 1992, p. 34 )
Goldman argues that advertisements are the centre to all the social arrangements, that our behaviour is “defined and choreographed” (Goldman, 1992, p. 34) to create a false lifestyle. Giving people a place in society, the man wouldn’t be expected to stay at home cook, clean and look after the children. People are so influenced by the ideology of advertisements that they structure their lifestyle to fit in with