Women in Advertising

To what extent does the representation of women in advertising reflect or challenge the identity of women?

  • What values/stereotypes/attitudes are being conveyed?
  • How are the adverts similar/different in conveying this?
  • How do they provoke thinking about global issues?
  • How does the craftsmanship (refer to the guide document) of the text explore the ideas of representation and identity?

In the advertisements above, they both convey a message of the domestic role of women in households, and that kitchen is the their main domain, since they are both selling the products related to kitchen, which are the ketchup and the Easter chocolate egg. The first one illustrates how women don’t have the strength to open a ketchup bottle, showing that men need to be involved even in ‘the women’s domain’, which is a stereotype towards the distinctive power and physical strength between men and women. The second ad talks about how women should ‘wash up’ and even emphasises on ‘daughter’, which implies the domestic role of women to the young girls. These ads provoke our thinking on the stereotypes of women as the ‘domestic servant’, which is very common even in nowadays. Back then, the main job of most of the women is housewife, as people reckoned that women has less strength and less ability at work compared to men. Even though this situation has improved in the modern society, in some areas, especially LEDCs, people still think that women should not go to work, but just staying at home and doing all the housework. This also reflects the distinctive social status between men and women.

Although they are trying to convey the similar values and stereotypes, they use different ways to show to the audience: The first one uses the photograph of a woman with beautiful make-up and nail-polishes, emphasising the delicate beautiful appearance of women to show their lack of strength. From her facial expressions and gesture, we can see that she’s not trying to open the bottle at all, which makes her look like a beautiful ‘doll’, implying how women are highly relying on the men. Comparatively, the colors of the first ad are much brighter as it mainly uses yellow and red, which makes it more eye-catching and attractive to the audience.

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