The Role of Advertising in Perpetuating Gender Inequalities
The social structures have always been producing social inequalities. In modern society, this trend still exists. Despite the fact that stereotyped thinking is the basis of human thinking, they (stereotypes) should be constantly revised, as they are constantly losing their relevance. However, most people use stereotypes and think accordingly without taking into account that some things are no longer relevant. Such thinking, in fact, leads to a perception of social inequality as a normal thing. Most of the social inequality is noticed in gender issues. Given that the government and the country`s culture usually dictates many of the social and moral standards for people, it also plays a dominant role in creating, producing and perpetuating of gender inequalities. In most cases, gender inequality exists in a latent form. However, advertising campaigns are a good example of how gender inequality exists in public form. This paper analyzes what role does power and advertising campaigns play in producing and perpetuating gender inequalities.
Today gender inequality is mostly a social phenomenon, which means that the economic, political and social resources and the access to them are distributed unevenly between men and women. The reason for this is gender discrimination. Another negative effect of gender stereotypes is the inhibition of the development of those qualities, which do not comply with this sex / gender role stereotypes. N. Porter confirms the existing gender stereotypes in society with a help of an experiment in which the subjects were to analyze pictures of the group of university graduates working on a research project (N. Porter et al., 1983). They had to give their opinion about who of the people on the photo made the biggest intellectual contribution to the project. When the group in the photo included only men, the subjects chose primarily those of them who sat at the head of the table. When the group was formed of different sexes, the subjects also most preferably chose a man who held this position. However, if a woman was sitting at the head table, the subjects mostly ignored her. It is important to understand that gender inequality is a vestige of the human past, when the physically strongest people had more rights, influence and power. Nowadays, the main factor of human life is intelligence, so gender equality should be taken as the norm. Nevertheless, many people still appreciate each other on the basis of their sex, which leads to gender inequality.
The modern world is full of advertising. And this sphere of mass communication is an excellent source of perpetuating gender inequalities. Advertisement conveys information not only about goods, products, services, markets, but also about the social, political and other types of relations in the society, its cultural structure, including interpersonal relationships between men and women. According to Foucault (1980), advertising has a "primary discourse" and "secondary discourse." The primary discourse involves, for example, how clean some powder washes or how great the new kitchen appliances are. The secondary discourse informs about who washes (or should wash) and who cooks (has to cook). In addition, the advertisement non-verbally dictates who should be sexually attractive in order to succeed in life.
Obviously, the key to the success of advertising on its impact on the consumer is its sophisticated character. Advertising not only promises to have fun in addition to the acquisition of the product, but also creates the desire itself. Usually, advertising uses those things and images that may encourage consumer`s interest and which can attract the consumer`s attention. One of the most seductive and desirable and, accordingly, one of the main characters in the mythology of consumption is a woman, her image, including her body. The biggest share of the advertised product is shown on a background of beautiful women`s image, female body parts or the whole of women's bodies. A woman's body is historically identified with sexuality and nature, not only in the various promotional products, but also in the sphere of politics, economy, social relationships (Gill et al., 2008). The is based on the visual analyzer, which is also the most sensual erotic channel. Showing shoulder, neck, or upper thigh of woman stimulates the imagination of men. As a result, the female body in advertising is like an appeal for men about what they should do: to buy and then enjoy.
This paper focuses on the image of women in advertising as an element of gender inequality because it is a woman's body which is most often exploited in advertising campaigns. The female body image is exploited in advertising as a "doorknob", a "corkscrew", or as a "rack lamp." The female body sells cars, beer, shaving lotion, cigarettes, and alcohol. It throws out thousands of products on the market. At the same time the female body not only sells, but is also very often sold. In the products` promotional campaigns women are often portrayed in the supine position, which is a universal classic image pattern of male superiority, which is established in the real society. Moreover, women are portrayed not just lying on the floor, on the sofa or in bed, but also their legs are bent at the knees, so it looks like the traditional expression of the sexual availability, and once again it confirms the subordinate and dependent position of women. Therefore, such an advertising shows that the main "political" property of the female body is its weakness as compared with the body of a man, and the main "public" property is its appeal, which is operated everywhere, and by everyone.
References
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge, ed. C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 90.
Gill, Rosalind. "Empowerment/sexism: Figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising." Feminism & psychology 18.1 (2008): 35-60.
Porter, N., Geis, F. L., & Jennings, J. (1983). Are women invisible as leaders?. Sex Roles, 9(10), 1035-1049.
