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In the context section I looked at Erving Goffman's study of Gender and Advertising and his coding categories, in order to prove that his research is still evident today I carried out my own research by finding advertisements which fit into his categories. ? I was a selection of magazines from Sunday supplement magazines. I chose this because these magazines do not have such a specific target audience as specialised women? s magazines, so I am not limiting my findings. Relative Size (Appendix ) This Advertisement for? Dannimac?
shows men leading the way, sheltering and protecting women from the weather. This advert is not explicitly sexist but it does have connotations of sexism and agrees with Goffman's theory of relative size. The Feminine Touch (Appendix) This advertisement for Orange E-Mail services supports Goffman? s theory that women? s hands are often pictured in advertisements. The Orange logo is in the centre of the woman?
s hand, showing that she is nurturing it and protecting it, exactly as Goffman suggested. Function Ranking (Appendix ) Goffman discussed advertisements that belittle women by showing them being instructed by men. In my Context I made the observation that since Goffman's study this has actually turned full circle and an advert will generate a lot more interest if the roles are reversed. Obviously the reason for there being more interest is because the roles within society are still not totally reversed.
However the advert pictured here certainly does reverse the roles. These men are pictured in a skip, typically a mans job with a washing machine in front of them, this suggests that the woman has instructed them to do the washing, explaining the blank and confused look on their faces. The Family (Appendix ) This advertisement shows the mother and baby, a very stereotypical image displayed throughout the media. The woman is looking perfect and the baby looking happy. This is the kind of advert that I believe generates negative social effects because of the image that when you have a baby you should be able to still look your best and keep baby content. Goffman?
s study 100 % supports that this advertisement exists and that the effects of it are only negative to society. ? It is a stereotypical image which does not exist, yet the media portray it as the norm putting women under tremendous pressure. The Ritual of Subordination (Appendix ) This advertisement, reinforces Goffman's claim that adverts exploit women? s sexuality to sell a product. The amount of skin and the lingerie shown in this advertisement certainly show hat sex sells.
The product is a muscle toning product, so it could be argued that it is necessary to show the midriff of the woman. Licensed Withdrawal (Appendix ) Goffman talked about how women are often pictured as being disconnected from a situation and become excited about menial things, in turn making them and their lives seem very insignificant on a larger scale. This advertisement shows the woman with a dreamy expression on her face, there is nothing real or powerful about this image, it simply reinforces the insignificance of a woman in the medias eyes. These categories outlined by Goffman are still relevant today and these recent advertisements only go towards proving this. These advertisements were found amongst only three magazines showing that there is a significant amount of derogatory messages in advertising. Advertising is a large part of the media and often considered the mist powerful because of the messages it conveys.
There was one area of improvement which I found in? Function Ranking? however the message is only so strong because it is so controversial which takes away from the whole point of presenting women in a different light. Comments From Questionnaire Question 10 in my questionnaire asked if their were any further comments about the portrayal of women in the media these were the results of that question. I found that many thought that the pressure on men is not as much as that on women but that it definitely exists however it is not based on such a physical sense and is not portrayed highly through the media. There pressure on men lies more on their personality, it is important to be funny, to have a good car, to be good at sport etc.
Another strong comment that came out was that too much attention is paid to celebrities bodies and not enough to their personalities and this is what causes negative social effects. They are successful and they have good bodies that is all we see of them, therefore in order for us to be successful we must have nice bodies. There was a definite vibe through the comments that the media? s portrayal of women needs to change, they need to start representing? real women? .
Women? s true achievements are not focused on enough either. Apparently women? s sport is not highly covered and when it is it concentrates on people such as Anna Kornakova, who is glamorous but a far less talented tennis player than say Venus Williams. Some believe that almost as if the pressure begins to ease off women it is focusing on men.
These comments are very valid because they give me a deeper understanding of the way people actually feel, reinforcing that the problems with images of women is not just another media hype, which in itself would be very controversial. 333
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