coverwork for friday 12th Dec 2008

Gender in Advertising.

Gunter-

• After the 1950's images of women as 'housewives' declined but it was again common in the 1960's and 70's
• women in magazines in the 1970's were not likely to be shown in paid work roles and if ever they were it would be in streotypical working roles for women, such as hairderessers and secretaires.
• all advertisments featuring women in them, in early 1970s were streotypical; 3/4 of them were of kitchen and bathroom products. sexism was present in adverts aimed at children. so the men dominant society was introduced in society a a young age.

Scheibe-

• women were shown to be more concerned and inulged with beauty, cleanliness, family and pleasing others.
• where as men were shown related to achievements and having fun.

Cumberbatch-

• Advertisers started to be a little realactant on shwing women being related to housework or even doing housework. (7% of adverts showed women in such roles.)

Macdonald-

• Advertisers seemed to follow women's magazines in cultivation of new model, even when there was strong evdience suggesting that if they modernised their ways of advertising it would be an advantage for advertisers. .
• feminists would leave messages on advertisments such as the Fiat car advert with quotes such as “When I’m not lying on car I’m a brain surgeon”.

Gender in Contemporary Advertising.

Both genders were shown to be equal in a study taken place in 1998, it studied over 750 prime tv ads and they all found that women were twice likely as men to be in commercials for domestic products; Bartsch et al.

Cortese -

• “Ad deconstruction reveals a pattern of symbolic and institutionalised sexism”; Female prototype showed youth, good looks, sexual seductiveness, perfection.
• Analysis of men in advertising showed that men were often showen as “perfect provocateur”
• i n today's society men are shown with pumped pecs and shoulders and has perfects abs. many years ago, a slick refined look was defined as fashion ideal for men.
• Now days the muscular guy dominates the runways and magazine pages.

Macdonald-

• Macdonald looked at the changes fom late 1980's- 90's; at this time in history feminists had won both their fights, and their ideologies were harmless by far, accept for the fact o being out of date
• Advertisers invented “post feminism” as a utopia where women were independent and could do whatever they wanted, just making sure they had the will power and enthusiasm.

Greer-

• Selling Beauty; shows females are a failure if they are not beautiful
• the UK beauty industry takes £8.9 billion a year out of women’s pockets.
• They teach little girls that streotype that they need make-up and train them to use it.
• Reminds us that situation is unchanged till today.
• Since she wrote “The Female Eunch” (1960’s); “Women who were unselfconscious and unmade up thirty years ago” are now “infected” with the need to conform to certain images of beauty.
• 30 years ago it was enough to look beautiful; now a woman has to have a tight toned body, including her buttocks and thighs, so that she is good to touch, all over

Walter-

• 1998; today’s women more or less happy with how they look, where as men felt unsatisfied with their own appearance “If only 4% of men think they are attractive, we should not be too quick to argue that only women feel cast down by pressures of beautiful ideals”
• A feminist but refuses to see fashion and beauty advertising as a conspiracy to keep women down.

The representation of women in commercials

• “Hi we’d like a large thin crust pizza”
• “That’s Ok I’ll clean up”
• Cleaners,Housewife,Repair shop Women can’t take on men’s roles.
• Exploitation of women in ads Jean Kilbourne; “We are exposed to over 2,000 ads a day, constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society”
• “Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step in justifying violence against that person” Bodies onlyBugle Boy
• “In an extremely competitive environment, you kind of go back to T&A Sex objects Dehumanization Lazier
• Smith, Furham & Bitar;“We often find no representational connections in contemporary advertising.
• One of the common registers of print advertising is of the naked or sexually
• posed woman selling a product”
• Stereotypical to stop explotation of women in advertisments.

10 Quotes and Book Reference

1. Feminism, Femininity and popular culture - joanne hallow (2002) "women must no longer be 'enslaved by ludicrous "beauty" standards' (Morgan 1970,586) "

2. The movement for gender equality the world over has been one of the defining movements of our times”. Boutros-Ghali, B. (1996)

3.Bennett,Peter ,Slater,Jerry ,Wall, Peter (2006): A2 Media Studies: The Essential Introduction, Routledge- uiseful becuase talks about explotation of the working class and 'Ugly Betty' is representing the working class within the sit-com.

4.Price,John,Nicholas,Joe (2003):AS Media Studies,Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes Ltd- useful to my text because talks about fashion as well as giving some narrative theorists and over the top talks about gender representation.

5.Moore,Stephen,Aiken,Dave,Chapman,Steve (2005): SociologyAS , collins- womens role in society and around, also just general information on their roles and theorists that may be relevant.

6.Ross, Mandy (2002): The Changing Role of Women. Great Britain: Heinemann Library- book useful because all about women and how in history till today they've got better and better, and how fashion made women more liberal.

7.Kate Winslet said: "I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real." in The Independent on Sunday size-zero debate: fashion industry is told to 'grow up' By Jeremy Laurance, Health EditorPublished: 22 May 2007

8.Lady Kingsmill ( part of the British Fashion Council, which runs London Fashion Week) "It is time, in a way, for the fashion industry to grow up," she said. "It is a real and a very important industry and the people working within it have to be taken seriously and have to be treated well." again 22 may 2007, independent on sunday newspaper.

9."[It's] not about being ugly at all. More than anything it's just about looking past what you see. Achieving that image is not all that we're on this planet to do." america Ferrera. http://www.pluggedinonline.com/thisweekonly/a0002958.cfm

10.“The American feminist Naomi Wolf ‘the era of the “genderquake”, in which the meaning of being a woman is changed for ever” tlaking about hte 1990's

11.No Turning Back: Gender and Genderquake By Helen Wilkinson (1994)- this book cover's Naomi Wolfe's talk about 'Genderquake', giving a more closer insight into it.

12. Culture and Power: A Media, Culture & Society Reader By Paddy Scannell, Philip Schlesinger, Colin Sparks (1992) - gives an intkae on how media, covers issues that are important in the socirty. it related culture and society issues.

Representation of Gender in the Past

• In the mid-1970s, Miles (1975) found out that there was nearly equal amount of men and women in the comedy field of media.
• Gunter study in 1970s, that frequently marraige, parenthood, and demestic lifestyle was shown to be more important for women then men according to the television. Example of this being the 'minute maid orange juice' advertisment, where a happy traditonal family is shown and the mother is known to be making minute maid in the club house. domestic advertisments as such were made only for women.
• In 1970's there was only 155 of leading roles given to women, where as in 1987 a study found out that female charcters were the most common in commedy programmes rising the percentages to 43%.
• As for comedy women were starting to have equal roles as men and most of the time were running them, yet in drama's this was not the case, there were two to one. But again women kept up their apperance in action-adventure shows to 29%, even though it was low it had been doubled (Davis,1990).
• In 1970s men ruled and dominated what to present to us on televison, they were also the most dominanat people shown to us. Telling us that even though women had been making it big for themselves in the media industry yet there was still a big gap for them to get the big leading roles. Showing it ot be a patriachal society.
• Tuchman suggests and argues, that women who were shown in the 1970's they were known as 'incompetents and inferiors' and maybe even treated as victims or having emotional and practical problems also that women in the tv industry had little value.
• in the past women were known to be inferio to men, making it an patriachal society, and in my opinion i think in that time women who were on tv were known not to have a lot of respect.

Representation of Gender Today

• There is a lot of evidence to back up the point that gender over time has become more advanced. Also equality amongst men and women is a very important in society.
• Along with the changes there are some things that have not changed, there is also suggestions and evidence saying that roles of genders have not changed at all.
• An example backing the suggestion that gender roles have changed and patriachal society has almost been demolished is the texts referred to within the booklet such as the american hit sitcom Friends. Male characters have been known to be in touch with their feminine side where as the women are shown to be the dominant characters. Not only that but the roles and jobs they have within the sitcom shows equality in society.
• On the other hand, to back the suggestion that the roles of men and women in society has not changed at all is the media 100 (08), majority of them are men, in the top 10 there is only one woman; Jane Tranter. This tels there is a bit of a change in the society but even till today it is mainly a patriachal society.
• With these two examples, the second one stands out more, and judging by that i make my opinion that there is a change in society you are seeing more women poppin up in the world, yet there is still a long way to go, example being only one woman being in the top 10 of the media 100.