Example research essay topic: Sex In Advertising Number Of Women - 1,698 words

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Sex In Advertising There is no dispute over the power of advertising to inform consumers of the various available products, and in todays economy, effective advertising is essential to a companys survival. The purpose of advertising is to convince people that a particular companys product is better than their competitors product. Advertisers must carefully aim the product to the appropriate audience, and this is often obtained by using sex in the advertisement. Unfortunately, this can be a double-edged sword.

While sexual advertising is extremely powerful and effective when aimed at one gender, it is often done at the social expense of the other. Normally, the men and women we see in sexual advertisements do not actually depict the average person. Instead, advertisers create a stereotype that will appeal to the opposite genders needs and desires. Attributes that appeal to male stereotypes include power, prestige, good health and longevity, sex, and new experiences. Attributes that appeal to female stereotypes include comfort, family affection, tenderness, fear, romance, generosity, and sensory pleasure. Advertisers, therefore, use actors or actresses who can trigger an emotional response from one of the above-mentioned attributes, encouraging the consumer to buy the product.

Since effectiveness is gender linked, demographics play an essential role in determining which sex will buy the product. In the average home, women are the purchasers of household products, such as food and drinks, or soaps and shampoos, therefore advertisements for these products target women. Although sexually oriented advertisements aimed to women do not occur as often as they do for men, they are increasing in numbers and popularity. For example, there is a commercial for Diet Coke that shows two businesswomen scurrying to a window. The women have it perfectly timed to enable them to watch an extremely handsome and muscular construction worker as he strips off his shirt, then proceeds to take an unmistakable thirst-quenching swig of his Diet Coke.

The women practically drool when the shirt comes off. This is an obvious turn-the-table technique that uses a man as the sex object, instead of the familiar opposite. Is there any fundamental link between the Diet Coke and the stripping construction worker? Yet, even with the increase in popularity, the amount of sex advertisements geared towards women does not even come close to the amount that are geared towards men. It seems advertising sex to men has become an industry standard. Again, demographics come into play.

Since men generally consume more beer than women do, the targeted audience for beer commercials is the male population. Beer manufacturers are one of the biggest offenders of using sex to sell their products. Quite a few beer commercials will display the man as an average-Joe that has average looks and wears average clothes. Ironically, extremely beautiful, sexually attractive women that sport thin waists and large breasts normally surround average-Joe. We know they have large breasts and tiny waists because they are scantily dressed, usually in bikinis or tank tops. These women normally cater to average-Joe, by bringing him beer and showering him with attention.

Again, there is no fundamental link between scantily dressed women and beer. The underlying message is that women are no more than objects, or even prizes, and that the women should be subjugated to the will and ownership of average-Joe. Companies use sex in advertising because it works. Sex is instinctual for all of us, and because of this, it seems to capture our attention, but advertisers convey sexual stereotypes that reinforce repression and subordination.

This type of advertising has become so common that people are becoming callous to the message it is sending. Sex is part of life, but when advertisers sell sex, and use sex to sell a product, they degrade both sexes. Television still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes because it reflects dominant social values. In reflecting them TV also reinforces them, presenting them as natural. As one might expect in a society still dominated by men, men dominate TV production and, influenced by these stereotypes, unconsciously reproduce a traditional masculine perspective, perpetuating dominant gender stereotypes. Many narratives on TV are still implicitly designed to be interpreted from a masculine perspective.

Viewers are frequently invited to identify with male characters and to objectify females. This has been called the male gaze. This mode of viewing is called unmarked': it is an invisible and largely unquestioned bias the masculine perspective is the norm. There is a difference in the representation of women in ads amongst publications. In the more male-oriented magazines, women show up in ads for products such as cigarettes, alcohol and cologne. In female-oriented publications, the ads tend to be for beauty products and cleaning products.

The women in both are used to create an image of beauty, attractiveness and elegance and then equate it with the product. In television advertising, women are portrayed, very simply, as sex objects. Again, depending onthe target audience, they are either promoting cologne or other mens products, or they are promoting cleaning supplies for women. Either way they are portrayed as objects, often sexual and, depending on the context of the commercial, subservient to men. They are always the ones cooking, cleaning, doing household tasks, or taking care of the children.

They are actresses hiding behind aprons, and they show that if you use this wonderful product, your hair will below youve always dreamed it would be, or your house will sparkle and shine. Television advertising presents these women very shallowly and their goals and aspirations rarely reach beyond having a spic n span clean house or having the hair of their dreams. Girls learn from most TV that it is a mans world, and learn to displace their own perspective. In recent years there has at least been a notable increase in the number of women news presenters. Formerly, TV directors (largely male, of course) had argued that women were less likely to be taken seriously by viewers. However, one could perhaps argue that physical attractiveness may play more part in their selection than for their male counterparts.

There is in fact some evidence that girls (aged 8 - 12) may tend to find a male newsreader more believable than a woman newsreader, whereas the newsreaders sex does not seem to influence boys ideas of their believability. Girls may grow used to being presented with the male on TV in general as more powerful and knowledgeable (see Durkin: 94). Numbers of males and females on TV Whatever its limitations as a TV research method, content analysis does at least provide us with basic data about the prevalence of gender images on TV. The number of women shown on TV is far smaller than the number of men shown.

Men outnumber women in general TV drama by 3 or 4 to 1. 70 - 85 % of those on childrens TV are male, and in childrens cartoons, males outnumber females by 10 to 1. Even in soap operas women can be outnumbered 7: 3. There are also more men than women in starring roles; the exceptions are notable only as exceptions. In contrast to this dominance of the screen by men, we all know that in the everyday world, women in fact slightly outnumber men.

In this sense, TV does not reflect observable demographic realities, although it may well reflect the current distribution of power, and the values of those who hold it. Gender vs Sex Most social scientists distinguish gender from sex. Gender roles are not biologically determined, but vary according to culture and epoch, and even for individuals during the course of their lives. Gender roles are consequently described by social scientists as socially constructed. Most of the behaviour associated with gender is learned rather than innate.

People learn what sorts of behaviour and personality are regarded in their cultural context as appropriate for males or females. Even within a culture masculinity and femininity may be defined differently by various groups, in particular according to ethnicity, age, social class and sexuality. In this sense there is no single masculinity or femininity, but rather multiple masculinities and femininities. Not all men are leader like, aggressive, assertive, independent, risk-taking and so on; and not all women are affectionate, gentle, sympathetic, dependent, emotional, nurturing etc. Such qualities are found in varying degrees in most people. But all men and all women are aware of the cultural prevalence of traditional gender stereotypes, and television contributes to this awareness.

Sex roles involve cultural expectations, such as that men will seek achievement and dominance, and that women will be compliant and supportive. The relationship of individuals to these expectations often involves tensions. General advertisements In television advertisements, gender stereotyping tends to be at its strongest because the target audiences are frequently either male or female. There has been some lessening of this in recent years but the general pattern remains. In adverts, men tend to be portrayed as more autonomous. They are shown in more occupations than women; women are shown mainly as housewives and mothers.

Men are more likely to be shown advertising cars or business products; women are mostly advertising domestic products. Men are more likely to be shown outdoors or in business settings; women in domestic settings. Men are more often portrayed as authorities. As far as ads go, with age men seem to gain authority, whilst women seem to disappear. Voice-overs represent the programme-makers interpretations of what is seen: these are the voices of authority. They are overwhelmingly male (figures of up to 94 % have been reported).

There have been more female voice-overs in recent years but mainly for food, household products and feminine care products. Male voice-overspend to be associated with a far wider range of products. Adverts for children Most modern TV ads feature both girls and boys, but boys tend to be the dominant ones. Ads aimed at boys portray far more activity and aggressive behaviour than those for girls, and tend to be far louder. Boys are typically shown as active, aggressive, rational and discontented. Boys ads contain active toys, varied scenes, rapid camera cuts and loud, dramatic music and sounds.

Girls ads tend to have frequent fades, dissolves, and gentle background music (Welch et al. )

Research essay sample on Sex In Advertising Number Of Women