Oshin Sarin
2/20/18
Good advertisements lead to great sales. But the question is do these sales need to necessarily be dependent on the alluring display of women and extreme sexualisation in advertisements or could these advertisers use a different, rather a more relevant and real approach to sell their product. Representation of sex in advertisements is the use of provocative imagery that is specifically designed to arouse interest in a particular product, service or brand. Typically, sex refers to beautiful women and increasingly, handsome men that are used to lure in a viewer, despite a tenuous, almost non-existent link to the brand being advertised.
When an advertisement requires someone to sit or lay on a bed or a floor that someone is almost always a child or a woman, hardly ever a man. Just like when the head or the eye of a man is averted it is only in relation to a social, political or intellectual superior, but when the eye or a head of a woman is averted it is always in relation to the man with her in the photograph. As can be seen in the Spring/Summer 2014 ad campaign of SuitSupply, the Dutch menswear clothing line. The campaign features impeccably dressed men in suits surrounded by romping, wet and nude women at a pool party. Not only is this ad completely demeaning and objectifies women but it should have offended men too as it reflects on to the narrow mindedness of an entire gender while shopping for clothes.
A man’s presence is dependent on the promise of power he embodies. The greater the display of power by a man, the more he is taken seriously. On the other hand, if a women tries to take an initiative and be assertive she is not shown enough respect because of crossing the norms set for a woman by the society. A woman’s presence is associated with gestures, voice, beauty, clothes and taste.
The established nature of stereotypes of men and women in our society has lead to the scrutiny of women’s influence in the society. Because men and women typically fit different roles, women are expected to look after the domestic work along with being communal while men are expected to do occupational work along with being assertive and aggressive. As sociologist and writer, Erving Goffman emphasizes, “what they are actually photographing is a depiction of masculinity and femininity that is fitted or matched in such a way as to make it function socially.”[1] We as a society have witnessed advertisements where women have been portrayed either as creatures of sexual usage or as thoroughly mindless domestics cleaning the kitchen counter. These advertisements reinforce the notion of men being naturally dominant and women as naturally subordinate.
[1] Erving Goffman, “Gender Displays”, Gender Advertisements, (Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, 1979), 3.
