The document discusses how advertising reinforces gender stereotypes by portraying women as sex objects and men as success objects. It notes that while some aspects of beauty are consistent across cultures, such as symmetry and waist-to-hip ratio, standards of beauty vary widely between societies and are influenced by factors like available resources, technology, and racism. The document concludes that gender systems are shaped by multiple cultural, social, and biological factors rather than having a single cause.

1. Eric C. Thompson
Semester 2, 2011/2012

2. Projects
 By this week, all groups should settle on a set of
representations to analyze.
 By next tutorial session, please have your “field” of
representations defined and a clear approach to analyzing
them (your methodology).
 I have posted a reading on “techniques to identify themes”
on the IVLE site. This article discusses text more than
visual material; but some general ideas should apply and be
helpful.
 Further guidelines will be discussed in the next tutorial.

3. Projects 2
 Projects from the 2010/2011 year course are posted at:
 Your projects should be developed on the MAIN Wiki
under the folder for your Group. Make sure you know your
tutorial session and group number (for example: D3 Group
2 2012)
 Please browse the 2010/2011 project wiki to guide the
development of your own projects. (You should be able to
judge which you think are the better projects and use them
as a model. But try to improve on them too!)

4. Wiki Contributions
 Please make your wiki contributions for the first half of the
course by NEXT THURSDAY (Feb 16, 5pm).
 We will be sending you feedback on these over the next two
weeks… we hope by the end of week 7.
 Everything you contribute (pages, discussion threads,
comments) will be considered in evaluating your
contributions.
 Most weight will be given to page contributions.
 Multiple summaries or commentaries on the main readings
are fine… you can add extra pages under the main page for
any reading, film or lecture.

5. Where We Have Been…
 History of Gender Studies
 Sex/Gender Distinction
 Becoming Male or Female
 Gender socialization;
paths to learning gender.
 Gender Systems
 Masculinity/Femininity
 Gender as systems of
beliefs and behaviors

6. Where We Are Going…
 Gender in Popular Culture
 Gender in Advertising
 Popular Culture
 Gender in Social Relations
 Gender and Power
 Gender and Work
 Gender, Here and Now
 Gender in Singapore

7. Today’s Lecture…
 “Killing Us Softly” – Images
of Women in Advertising
 Content Analysis and
Influences of Advertising
 Cultural Differences in
Beauty
 Why do advertising and
popular culture seem to
objectify women and not
men?

8. Killing Us Softly: 1979
Still Killing Us Softly: 1987
Killing Us Softly 3: 2000

9. Men and Women in Advertising
 Content Analysis of Advertising general shows the
following:
 Men as “expert” voiceover announcer on all types of
products
 Men overrepresented numerically
 Women younger, shorter, more likely secondary role
 Women more often a smaller % of the image

10. Content Analysis of Advertising
(Continued…)
 Men less often in family role
 When men are portrayed as fathers, it is less often with
daughters or infants than son
 Women more likely appear unemployed or in “pink
collar” job; men are shown in all jobs (especially
occupations with authority).
 Men more often give advice, women receive advice
 Ads selling to women more often focus on appearance;
those selling to men focus on status.

11. “Real Beauty”
 Dove “Real Beauty”
Campaign
 Revolutionary?
 Shock/Difference =
Attention = Interest = Sales
= $$$$
 And still . . . “Advertising
involves selling us things
we did not know we
needed to solve problems
we did not know we had.”

12. Shaping Possibilities
 Brittney Spears Pepsi Ad Campaign
 Influence on Clothing Styles
 In mass market, clothing choices are
determined by producers as much as
by consumers.
 Low-cut jeans become the norm (and
the only thing available in stores).
 How many people choose to wear
clothes other than those available in
shops?

13. Masculinity and Advertising
 “Instruction Manual” & “Structure of
appropriate behavior”
 Advertising exaggerates male status-
seeking (as ‘what women want’) and
female beauty & sexuality (as ‘what
men want’)
 Findings from Psychology:
 Men who view beautiful models are less
satisfied and less committed to current
partner.*
 Women who listen to stories about
successful men are less satisfied with
current partner.
 See: David Buss, Evolutionary Psychology

14. Version 4: 2010

15. Cultural Differences in Images of Beauty
 Some aspects of beauty are
consistent across cultures:
 Symmetry
 Waist-to-Hip Ratio (.70)
 Indicate Health, Fertility
 Many others are not.
 Why do standards of
beauty vary widely in
different societies and
cultures?
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640): Set the
standard of “Rubenesque” beauty.

16. Mauritania Fat-Farms: Force Fed Beauty

17. Radically Different Images of Beauty:
But Equally Extreme
Obesity = Beauty
 Correlation between Body Image
and Status
 If little food is available, fatness
is a display of wealth and high
social status.
 If food is abundant, thinness is a
display of discipline and leisure
time to exercise and high social
Anorexia = Beauty status.

18. Skin Deep Beauty
 Agricultural societies:
 Dark skin = Working Outdoors = Low Social Status
 Light skin = Staying Indoors = High Social Status
 Industrial societies:
 Dark skin = Leisure Outdoors = High Social Status
 Light skin = Working Indoors (factory/office) = Low Social Status
 Racism: White = European = Wealth = High Social Status
Skin Whitening Products Skin Tanning Products

19. Influence of Mass Popular Culture
 Mass popular culture =
greater body image pressure.
 Introduction of television
correlated with increased
emphasis on body image
cross-culturally.
 Societies without mass
media are much less
obsessed with body image.
(e.g. Shostak 1981, Nisa)

20. Men Don’t Seem to Need a
“Real Beauty” Campaign

21. Objectification of Women
 Why are women’s bodies objectified and not
men’s? (or women’s bodies more so than men’s)
 Thesis 1: Men control advertising firms; they
choose to display women as sex objects (for their
gratification and to perpetuate male power over
women).
 Thesis 2: Heterosexual dynamics are such that
women are a sexual commodity in ways that men
are not (there is a “market” for women’s sexuality;
but not much of one for men’s).
 The two theses are not mutually exclusion;
evidence exists to support both.

22. Cultural, Social, Biological
 Popular Culture: Images teach us how to be men,
women, gendered beings
 Social Organization: Different social-economic
organization (agricultural, industrial; scarcity,
abundance) influences cultural representations of
high and low status
 Heterosexual Chemistry/Dynamics: Inclines
women to be Sex Objects more so than men.
 There is no single explanation for gender. Gender
systems are “overdetermined.” (see Ridgeway and
Correll, p. 512)

23. Summary Points
 Advertising plays a powerful role in gender beliefs.
 Advertising reinforces stereotypes and gender
polarization; playing on evolved psychology:
 Women appear as “sex objects”
 Men appear as “success objects”
 Beauty has both culturally consistent and culturally
consistent elements
 Gender systems are “overdetermined” – by culture,
social relations and biology; they cannot be reduced to
single causes.