Advertising Bias Essay

Marketing and advertising companies are constantly playing on gender roles and stereotypes. Both men and women are portrayed in certain ways to help make products seem more attractive to the same or opposite sex. Men are pictured as lazy, dumb slobs while women are pictured as gentle, beautiful, sexual, and submissive. In children’s ads, boys are shown as rough and interested in action games while girls are more quiet and interested in dolls. Though these stereotypes are not always true, they are what Americans have come to accept about gender and society. Advertisements depend upon painting evocative pictures about these stereotypes in order to entice the consumer to buy the product. Many ads use a sloppy, idiotic, couch potato to appeal to women in products that are commonly used by women such as cooking items and cleaning products. By using the male stereotype, women tend to feel empowered or that they have the upper hand when the usually â€Å"dominant† male is depicted as inferior. While downplaying the male role has become more accepted as a show of politically correct sexism, it is still politically incorrect to do such to women. See more: My Writing Process Essay Some view this as an unfair double standard. Role reversal is often utilized in advertising with women as the focus of the ad. The most common use of stereotyping with women is ads is using them to promote or sell a product through sexual appeal. Whether to a male or female audience, women are portrayed as extremely beautiful and sexy and often in suggestive poses. It attracts men for the obvious reasons, and attracts other women because they aspire to be a certain way or have a certain beautiful quality or feature. Women are also advertised as gentle and submissive in contrast to males. Feminists are against these types of stereotyping because they believe it itemizes women. In society males and females are picked on for their underlying qualities. These qualities have become so widespread and commonplace, today they are considered stereotypes. Companies use these to attract buyers with the idea that they are somewhat better than the opposite sex in some way. The underlying nature in ads points out flaws of men and women and uses them to exploit certain behaviours or mannerisms that will help sell a product with its image.