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Interesting article "Reversed Gender Stereotypes in Advertisement"
Advertisement is an influential tool that can secretly construct the culture in different ways. Imagine how many people spending how many amounts of time on getting information from advertising, that’s how affected it can be. Jean Kilbourne mentioned in her essay “Advertising is an over $130 billion a year industry and affects all of us throughout our lives. We are each exposed to over 1500 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society…They tell us who we are and who we should be. Sometimes they sell addictions” clearly shows that advertising shapes our culture and show how society look like currently (Jean Kilbourne 121). For example, during the WWI women filled up the job positions for men in order to keep the economy to work. All the advertising and campaign were directing women to be strong and praising them to come help out the country. But after the soldiers had come home from war, all the advertising suddenly changed their objective. In Wolf's essay, she mentioned,“ In the United States, the government needed ‘to counter fears that American soldiers would return to an employment market saturated by women’... In fact, 61 to 85 percent of women, a 1944 survey found, ‘certainly did not want to go back to housework after the war…The year after the war ended, the magazines swung again… and three million American and one million British women were fired or quit their jobs” (Wolf 63-64). These facts have proven that Wolf's theory of advertising through magazines advertising. “Women’s magazines for over a century have been one of the most potent agents for changing women’s roles, and throughout the time--- today more than ever--- they have consistently glamorized whatever the economy, their advertisers, and, during wartime, the government, needed at that moment from women” (Wolf 64).
Just like every other, I don’t really pay much attention to what I see every day on TV or on Internet. I usually just take in whatever it’s given without questioning or wondering, but sometimes I do criticize myself while seeing the images that shows on TV, magazines, or any other social media platform through advertisement. First, when I see a female model with perfect body shape, I tended to feel bad about myself and wanted to look like her. When guys see the same image, they tend to praise the model and to think that’s what women should look like. The advertising strategy is smart enough to makes consumers feel certain ways while watching the same image, it creates the picture of the culture and society. However, not everyone can relate themselves or have proper reactions to what they see on media. Bell hooks claim the oppositional gaze base on her own experiences in her book. Black women have a hard time to relate themselves because they don’t often see themselves through the media. In the end, people feel left out or thinking if they don’t look like what society is presenting now, they are wrong in many ways. In order to get them purchase the products, companies of the products tries to make people feel bad about themselves or create a non-realistic model to set the high level for people to pursue. People need to realize that advertising on TV, magazines, or movies are not realistic, and stop judging each other so harshly.
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| Kate Moss Picture by Calvin Klein Obsession for Men Perfume Ad |
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A lot of people are still struggling with the gender role that advertisement has create. As Judith Butler discussed in her essay “ If gender is the cultural meaning that the sexed body assumes, then a gender cannot be said to follow from sex in any one way…Assuming for the moment the stability of binary sex, it does not follow that the construction of ‘men’ will accrue exclusively to the bodies of male or that ‘women’ will interpret only female bodies” When people see the advertising on TV or movies about how girls always play with Barbie and boys play with cars, parents and kids automatically accept the fact without thinking if this is what their hearts really wants (Butler 9). So, when we see a boy playing with dolls, we tend to question his sexuality. However, it’s not all about the sexuality because interests have no gender. Female can play basketball, just like male can be a cloth designer, without being categorizing to lesbian or gay. Also, being in LGBT community is difficult because the advertisement seldom present content for them, but again there is nothing wrong about having an interest or being yourself.
When we realized how advertisement could change the society and culture, we wanted to create a better environment for everyone. A world without judging or criticizing people based on whatever images that the media have given, and develop more contents for different gender, races, and classes to relate to. Therefore, people become more aware and relevant to the society we are in and have an open-minded brain to consider the issues we have nowadays. We can change the world by sending out more information through advertising, create a more equal place. It’s possible because we have proven that throughout the history.
WorkCited:
Butler, Judith. "1." Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. 1-46. Print.
Wolf, Naomi. "Culture." The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women. New York: W. Morrow, 1991. 58-85. Print.
Kilbourne, Jean. Beauty and the Beast of Advertising. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
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