Gender Ideologies and Advertisement

Gender Assigned Advertisement

The first thing the average American television viewer sees when they sit down on their couch after a long day is commercials. These commercials all have an agenda and that is to sell their product. This is all fine and dandy until these strategies are pushed in ways that are incredibly problematic.

The year 1858 marks the beginning of the Women’s Rights Movement led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and four other women. This was 151 years ago and the revolution for women is still in progress. One of the major issue that women suffer from today is the Second Shift. The Second Shift is when a woman holds a forty hour a week job and then comes home to cook dinner, do the dishes, laundry, house cleaning, and take care of the children. Some women do all of this while going to school as well. What we have seen over the past hundred and fifty years is that women have quickly gained access to resources to better her quality of life and that many men have accepted women as an equal partner, but have not adapted to women as an equal partner.

Why is this so? One of the major reasons for this dilemma is that America is relentless with their gender ruling ideologies. At birth, infants are immediately instructed by their parents on how they should behave as either a male or female. Colors are imposed upon our children before they have the ability to make their own choices. Gender appropriate toys are amply supplied for toddlers, and masculinity and femininity are instructed so that children will behave appropriately in public.

Perhaps many can argue that this issue has been somewhat addressed with the neutral colors made available for infants and toddlers. However it is in great numbers that babies are camouflaged in the idealistic pinks and blues and dresses and pants. This may be to prevent misidentification by strangers or it could just be for plain fun, but at what cost? This vicious cycle of gender identification brings great damage to individuals, relationships, and society.

What is to be done? The greatest thing that we can do is to attack the problem at the root of the source. Unarguably, one of the largest influences on the public is advertisement. This is done in many forms: television, radio, bulletins, emails, posters, photographs, etc…

If we look at these advertisements we see flagrant sexism. Women are objectified and commonly portrayed as passive, weak, and docile while the men are portrayed as strong, aggressive, and unyielding. The problem with this is that the average American sees over 3000 advertising messages a day! That is over a million advertisements a year! Globally corporations spend 620 billion each year in advertisement. We are being brainwashed! It is no wonder that our gender ideologies are still so rigid. We encounter them on an hourly basis.