Gender Sterotypes

Gender stereotyping has been a prominent fixture in advertising since its inception. Even today these old tropes are dragged out to sell products, despite the way the public understanding of gender fluidity is changing. According to Warren Blumenfeld “gender roles include the set of socially defined roles and behaviors assigned to the sex assigned to us at birth” these roles are usually broken down into masculine and feminine. Being feminine can mean a lot of things, however today when considering ads, being feminine usually means being sexy. Which leads me to one of the most prevalent types of gender stereotyping for women today: being used as a sex symbol. Let’s face it, Sex sells. Men also are used as sex symbols (remember that Diet Coke ad we watched) but most of the time, women are expected to fit into the role of a sexual object.

Overtly sexualized woman have been used to sell almost every type of product imaginable. But since it seem like we’re already beating a dead horse with this subject, I might as well break out an ad from a company that exclusively uses women as sexual objects, Axe. Axe is an easy target when it comes to finding ads that objectify women, that’s their go to move per se. The key demographic for all Axe products is 18-24, and most people do consider Axe commercials to be “comical”

“Keep your cool”

This ad does take a jab at the guys. It basically says that because woman are so attractive now, guys are rendered stupid in their presence and are unable to do their jobs, drive, or function whenever a hot girl is near. Really though it’s saying that woman are nothing more then things to be leered at.

 In regards to this ad, Escobar writes "By this logic, men are no longer capable of being respectful friends, students, colleagues or strangers -- that they need an actual product to manage their own behavioral problems -- and that is simply not true."

 

The issue with portraying women as sexual objects is that, in theory this idea gets perpetuated into our subconscious. When young man sees this commercial, he may start to unconsciously believe that women should constantly be objects fit enough to be deemed attractive. Girls subconsciously get engrained that her number one priority is to stay attractive to please men.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-j-blumenfeld/examining-medias-socializ_b_3721982.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/axe-commercial-suggests-that-women-ruin-everything_n_3689409.html