Abstract
In modern society, advertising through a variety of media is being a common way to convey massive
information. Advertisers are making their advertisement more attractive and more impressive, which makes the
advertisement cater to the market demand. Now, advertising is playing a significant role in not only commerce but
also the transmission of culture. It reflects the public aesthetic and the common trend of value proposition.
Surveys show that women usually play an irreplaceable role in advertising. There is a study of television
advertising, in which the female characters make up 69 percent of the sample, while the men make up only 31
percent. Not only in female products, take cosmetics and tampons for example, but also in male products like cars
and shavers. In these advertisements, women are frequently acting the role of the vulnerable and virtuous ones,
relying on and subordinated to the dominant men. The phenomenon actually reflects modern people’s value
orientation and aesthetic orientation to women, and what the society expect to see on women. Therefore, the study
about sexism in advertisement not only has unique meaning in commodity advertisement culture, but it is also a
study in gender culture. Based on the opinion above, this essay focuses on the phenomenon of gender
discrimination in advertisement and its category, cause and effect.
Key words: sexism, discrimination, advertising, gender issue, gender perspective
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Contents
Abstract........................................................................................................................... i
1.Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 The concept of sexism in modern advertisement .............................................. 1
1.2 How to define the sexism in advertisement ...................................................... 1
2. The Common Female Sexism in Advertisement ....................................................... 1
2.1 Male Gaze.......................................................................................................... 1
2.2 Stereotypes ........................................................................................................ 4
3. the Effect of Sexism in Advertisement ...................................................................... 6
3.1 the effect on women .......................................................................................... 7
3.2 the effect on men ............................................................................................... 7
4.the Cause of Sexism in Advertisement ....................................................................... 8
4.1 the sexism in the history .................................................................................... 8
4.2 the sexism in the modern society ...................................................................... 8
5.the Solution ................................................................................................................. 9
5.1 what can the society do ..................................................................................... 9
5.2 what can the government do.............................................................................. 9
5.3 what can the corporate do ................................................................................ 10
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 11
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 12
1.Introduction
1.1 The concept of sexism in modern advertisement
When it comes to the sexism in modern advertisement, it is necessary to define what is sexism. In 2021,
Shenzhen Women’s federation, together with the Publicity Office of the CPC Shenzhen Committee, Office of the
Cyberspace Affairs Commission of the CPC Shenzhen Committee, Health Commission, SASAC, MSA, UMALE
introduced a pioneering guide named Guidelines on Gender Equality in Advertising in Shenzhen, which ensured
the implementation of gender equality. The guideline, which is based on the constitution , Law on the Protection
of Women's Rights and Interests and Advertisement Law, stipulates that advertisements must not contain sexist
content. The guideline define that gender equality refers to the equality of dignity and value, opportunity, power
and responsibility between men and women on the basis of respecting the biological differences. It also defines
that sexism refers to any discrimination, exclusion or restriction based on gender, whose purpose or consequences
directly or indirectly affect the violation of the equal rights and interests of men and women. As sexism is usually
used for gender discrimination against women, the essay mainly talks about the sexism against women.
1.2 How to define the sexism in advertisement
Guidelines on Gender Equality in Advertising in Shenzhen identifies the following situations as suspected
sexism in advertisements, including but not limited to:
(1)plot, shape, expression, action, picture, text, sounds that contain sexual implication;
(2)the plot that demeans or insult the body of men or women;
(3)objectification of female or male’s bodies, such as highlighting female’s breasts, lips, legs, arms and
other parts which is unrelated to the commodity;
(4)belittling the abilities and roles of women or men, e.g., describing men as the breadwinners and
ignoring women’s contribution;
(5)deliberately highlighting the subordinate role and statues of women, e.g., listing women as the object of
male protection and financial support;
(6)other situations of suspected sexist advertisements.
2. The Common Female Sexism in Advertisement
2.1 Male Gaze
Male gaze, proposed by Michel Foucault, a French scholar, in his works, is an extension of the "gaze"
theory. Before Foucault, the concept of “gaze”, proposed by Sartre and Lacan, is an extension of "visual
centralism”. Their gaze theory mainly focuses on psychoanalysis theory, while Foucault imported the
dimension of power into the gaze. He holds that as a form of viewing, gaze is the projection of sights and a
behavior of the visual subject imposed on the object, either it’s visible or invisible. In modern society, the gaze
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symbolized a kind of power relationship. Traditional thinking and experience are inclined to think the one who
gaze has higher rights and status, meanwhile the object is of the lower position. Male gaze is a social and
cultural phenomenon, in which women are the secondary gender to be looked at, while men enjoy the pleasure
of peering through various media and channels and become the primary gender of watching and staring. In
China's traditional power model and division of labor model, women are in an absolutely disadvantaged
position, while men have fame, wealth and power, and "gaze" at women from a top-down perspective. In
modern society, the male gaze is still increasing, one of the important embodiment is the objectification and
belittlement of women in advertisements.
Objectification of women in advertising is a problem that dates back to the last century. Advertisements
containing women’s body parts that have nothing to do with the commodity were aimed at both men and
women, but the difference between gender is that men are the subjects of the sexy advertising. Women in these
advertisements are the objects of gaze, while women in front of the screen learn how to shape themselves in the
process of watching these women being gazed. Figure 1 is an advertisement by Continental Oil Company in
1952 about fabric. It is easy to tell that the blonde girl’s body is not necessary in this advertisement, but the
company chose to use her as an eye-catching stunt. Figure 2 is an advertisement by Burger King in 2012.
Obviously, women’s opening mouth has nothing to do with their set meal. However, Burger King put these
sexual implicational element on their poster as an eye-catching stunt, which is absolutely an immoral action.
Figure 1. Continental Oil Company, 1952
Figure 2. Burger King
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Belittlement of women is also a badly-hit area in sexist advertisements. In these advertisements, women’s
devotion to the society and their assiduousness is always ignored, meanwhile men are described as the chief
cornerstone. Figure 3 exhibits a study conducted in 2004, among the managers in the TV advertisements, the
rate of the gender is 33:1, which means female characters are not likely to appear as managers in advertising.
Meanwhile, the rate of housewives and house husbands is 5:36.
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40
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35
33
32
30
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20
16
15
10
10
5
5
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1
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housewife/house
husband
staff
manager
Male
professional
other
Female
Draft 1. Comparison of economic identity between male and female characters
Advertisements that demean women undoubtedly reduce women's desire to purchase, especially if the
advertisement is for a commodity aimed at women. Figure 3 is a classic negative example. In February 2021,
ubras, a new-age lingerie brand for women, chose a male stand-up comedian as its brand endorser. He then
posted an advert on social media, bragging that ubra’s underwear can make office lady “lie down and win”.
The advertisement immediately gained gigantic amount of discussion, and gained adverse for the brand.
Undoubtedly, the brand is demeaning women by shaping them as a meretricious and useless role in office work,
as if their way to promotion is through a fitted set of lingerie. Before the case balloons into a full-blown scandal,
the Department of Public relationship of the brand and the stand-up comedian both made an apology, though it
did not save ubras from getting a dreadful impression among female consumers.
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Figure 3. Ubras and Li Dan, 2021
2.2 Stereotypes
The society has various stereotypes about women, which varies from country to country. To state it
simply, a stereotype is a comparatively fixed view of something based on the direct or indirect experience from
a society and its psychological expression. In modern society, male hegemony is still a relatively obvious
existence, which leads to the saying that "male master at office and female master at home". Women are often
regarded as gentle, beautiful and intellectual, filial to their parents, virtuous, and assiduous. Male contestants
argue on dating shows for half an hour about whether they are willing to be a stay-at-home husband after
marriage, but few asked the female contestants if they are willing to give up their jobs and become a devoting
housewife. Media, especially advertising, has a remarkable characteristic that it both caters to and influences
the audience's understanding of gender roles in communication. Advertisements often create gender
stereotypes consciously or unconsciously. As an important branch of stereotypes, gender stereotypes have
been studied for many times and their development is relatively mature.
The character of housewife is frequently used in advertising, and is frequently associated with
belittlement on women. It is understandable for housewives to appear in advertisements of goods like spices
and cookers. Nevertheless, sometimes it is confusing for the audience to see them appearing in other
advertisements, which actually has nothing to do with housework. Figure 4 is an advertisement by Kellogg’s in
1930s on PEP vitamin. Kellogg’s is trying to promote PEP vitamins. The message they’re trying to give is that
these vitamins are good for you. Kellogg’s thesis is that you should consider taking PEP vitamins because they
give you energy. What the husband says to his wife indicates that the writer of the advertisement consider
staying home, doing cleaning and still looking nice is the woman’s job as a wife, which is a classic stereotype
for married woman.
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Figure 4. Kellogg’s, 1930s
The advertisements and marketing strategy of Barbie dolls also worth study, which indicate that
advertisements are influenced by public gender stereotypes in the process of creation and dissemination, and
also affect public gender stereotypes. Invented by Mattel in 1959, Barbie aimed at young children, especially
girls. As a representative of the classic stereotype of women in the eyes of the public, its influence has long
gone beyond the scope of children's toys and become one of the representatives of American popular culture in
the second half of the 20th century. At that time, the American society was full of resistance to this slim young
pretty girl. The public believed that children’s toy should not have clear gender characteristics and should not
raise children’s curiosity about sex. Some even thought that Barbie’s target is not the children, but their fathers.
Therefore, what Mattel do was combining the image of Barbie doll with the image of girls in the future,
realizing the transformation of identity concept from "passive doll" to "active girl”.
Figure 5 is from an TV advertisement by Mattel Company in 1959 about Barbie. In Barbie's first
advertisement, Barbie is wearing a white wedding dress, holding flowers in her hands, looking beautiful and
happy. The advertisement successfully shifted public attention from Barbie's youthful sexy appearance to a
beautiful image of children’s future. In 1960s, Mattel also launched a series of professional women barbie,
such as fashion editors, nurses, flight attendants, executives, astronauts and other. They wear professional
clothes, are fashionable, and have the image of a capable professional woman. When "happy housewife" was
still the classic image of American women at that time, Barbie's image of professional women undoubtedly had
a positive meaning toward young girls. The image is intended to show little girls that girls can achieve their
dreams. Since then, Mattel has continued this concept in Barbie's image publicity: to create a successful image
of Barbie in various professional fields. These are often areas where women have traditionally struggled to
enter or gain recognition. Dressed in professional clothes, these Barbie dolls show girls in a visual way that
they can be more possible and that women can achieve greatness in all walks of life. This kind of behavior was
very positive to guide young girls and adolescent girls to establish the correct concept of gender, recognizing
that there are biological differences between men and women but there exists no gender limit to realizing one’s
goal. Mattel’s action was undoubtedly successful. It correctly assumed its corporate social responsibility, and
set up a role model for the subsequent enterprises.
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Figure 5. Barbie’s first advertisement(positive), 1959
Yet, when the public talk about barbie dolls, they are most likely to refer to a sexy blonde with a slim body
and beautiful face, and it is also caused by Mattel’s advertising strategy. Figure 6 is also from the first
advertisement about Barbie, which is a classical image of Barbie’s commercial. In fact, Mattel's barbie design
strategy from the very beginning is "two lines parallel”, on the one hand shouting the slogan of "We Girls Can
Do Anything", launched a series of professional female Barbie, shaping the independent image of women,
encourage Girls to be whatever they want to be; On the other hand, Barbie's image has always been closely
linked with consumerism and hedonism. The most classical barbie doll is the girl with the height of 167cm and
weight of 48kg. With the BMI of 17.21, Barbie’s type of figure is slim enough yet actually unhealthy in reality.
The classical barbie has blue eyes, red lips, blue eye shadow, fair skin, slim figure, wearing a zebra-print
swimsuit and has a pair of fashionable sunglasses on her head. Barbie promotes the idea that women and
consumption are inextricably linked, and that girls should be slim, made-up and fashionably dressed, no matter
who they turn out to be when they grow up. Barbie doll is a push in consumption during the growth of girls,
symbolizes the consumer culture in the hearts of children.
Figure 6. Barbie’s first advertisement(negative), 1959
3. the Effect of Sexism in Advertisement
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3.1 the effect on women
The mass media and advertising continue to create various images of "modern" women. Modern women
do have acquired the ability to dress up, make up, and present themselves, meanwhile they are more likely to
become men's accessories or playthings than at any other time in history. In an enormous number of media
advertisements, women are usually represented as the traditional gender stereotype image of role
characterization. This is actually a kind of "patriarchal" centered discrimination against women. It advocates
the traditional stereotyping of gender roles which is essentially a kind of implicit cultural violence, which
actually acts in a direction that runs counter to women's liberation since last century. The visual impact of
"advertising to guide women to return to the role of housewives" makes the trend of social popularity become
that men work outside and women stay at home. It is self-evident that in civilized times, women are neither the
subject of their own cultural values nor the subject of cultural aesthetic values in actual social activities.
However, the patriarchal culture just simply chant the magnificent slogan of "equality between genders”,
which is actually telling the world to follow the role of "men are superior to women”. Such behavior increases
the discrimination women face in daily life. For example, women are often rejected for jobs while men have
more opportunities. In HR interviews, women are often asked irrelevant and sometimes rude questions, such as
whether they are married and whether they plan to get pregnant within three years. When a woman answers
"yes" to these questions, they are more likely to be rejected because of the social expectation that women will
focus on family rather than their work after pregnancy. Therefore, hiring such an employee does more harm
than good to the company.
Meanwhile, the numerous descriptions of young and beautiful women in advertisements are actually
implying that women's confidence should only comes from youth and beauty. This is actually a stereotyped
identification of "beauty", emphasizing that women's duty is to be gazed and even "used". Such ads convey the
idea that "women dress up for people who like them," erasing women's self-consciousness and leaving only an
empty shell for men to evaluate and gaze. In such sexist advertisements, women are portrayed as subordinate
and passive roles to men, rather than independent agents with unique creativity, important actors, or promoters
and beneficiaries of social development processes. By inducing women to identify with traditional roles,
advertisers try to motivate women to pay for unnecessary goods or services, such as plastic surgery and breast
augmentation, leading to women's loss of self-awareness. In this way, the image of women is endowed with the
meaning and value that men want to see on them by the patriarchal culture, and women are gazed for a long
time, which results in the hollowing of female self in the patriarchal cultural structure.
3.2 the effect on men
Although sexism mainly does harm to women’s right, it also affects men’s life. From the male’s point of
view, the most persistent and powerful drive after sex is the desire to succeed. Sexism devalues the role of
women while enshrine boys on the altar, which makes men defining themselves as a person who must succeed;
From a social point of view, most of the superior positions are occupied by men, which implicitly equates
success with men, so that in order to truly become a man, you must achieve success. For a man, the most
aggressive and damaging statement to him is: "You're useless, you're a loser!" This sentence is the biggest
belittlement to boys. Under the influence of stereotypes, men want to be recognized by women and have high
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self-esteem. Such words will probably make men become depressed, and men with poor psychological quality
may go to extremes. In recent years, the number of men who commit suicide due to stress has been on the rise.
4. the Cause of Sexism in Advertisement
4.1 the sexism in the history
Although advertisement is a comparatively modern form of conveying information, sexism is not a
modern topic. When human society came into being in its earliest stages, it was more matriarchal. The basis of
its existence is that the common goal of the collective is survival in a world of backward tools and famine. At
this stage, women contributed more, gave birth to new-born babies, played a greater role in productive
activities. They find more food and feed the whole tribe. But production could not remain backward. Therefore,
as agriculture and handicrafts emerged and became mature, men made a greater contribution to production,
matriarchy became patriarchy, and matriarchal society was replaced by patrilineal society. Then the society
developed and came to the capitalist society. In capitalist society, the tension of material materials was eased,
so women got a glimmer of opportunity for development. They began to study, have inheritance rights and
engage in means of production labor. This was the rise of feminism.
Over thousands of years, however, male dominance has become the default stereotype among the society.
Conservative morality has always been very sensitive to women's words and deeds. On the one hand, it highly
praises women's compliance with traditional norms and hopes that individual compliance models can redeem
the whole social ethics. On the other hand, they harshly condemn those who violate the rules, regarding them
as a sign of "bad etiquette" and "moral degradation". Both praise and condemnation are conservative morality
with double standards behind them, while condemnation is a discriminatory subconscious -- typical symptoms
of misogyny: To maintain the traditional values of male center through the harsh examination and vicious siege
of female morality, especially sexual morality. Joan Smith wrote in his work named“misogyny" that
"misogyny" is widely in literature, art and reality and a variety of ideological manifestation of the disease,
characterized by the feminine, all women, and women related things and the sense of disgust, and "the women,
especially women, as death and pain, rather than as a symbol of life and happiness.”
The long-term manifestation of latent misogyny, coupled with the fact that women's feminist activities are
still not very fierce, leads to the existence of potential oppression of women in society.
4.2 the sexism in the modern society
In the 21st century, when feminism is on the rise, why do companies still use sexist ads?
First situation, when companies are unconscious. Their gender perceptions are less sensitive, and
traditional attitudes prevent them from being aware of sexism in their ads, until the offended people points out
that it is offensive. For this type of firms, they may simply assume that men are attracted to sexually suggestive
ads, without thinking deeply about their role in gender issues. Second situation, when companies are likely to
be conscious of their advertisements. They know that the content of the AD is offensive to both sexes.
However, in their perspective, they consider the publicity and attention generated by the AD being very
beneficial to them, so they still release the sexist AD. For this type of firms, the mass media amplifies their
presence, and although their reputation has declined, they still get attention, some even get support from
misogynistic men.
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In either kind of the companies above, it doesn’t shoulder enough corporate social responsibility.
Moreover, before the promulgating of relevant laws and regulations, regulations on publishing sexist
advertisements have not been clearly defined, so the cost of such behavior is extremely low. However, it is
disappointing that modern society still lacks guidelines and regulations in this area. There is no complete legal
provisions stipulating the boundaries of advertising suspected of gender discrimination, as well as the penalties
for violations.
5. the Solution
5.1 what can the society do
Since gender discrimination in advertising is a very serious problem, it needs to be solved by cooperation
of many parties. Among them, society also needs to make efforts to guide the correct concept of gender.
First of all, for the growing teenagers, they need to be properly educated to establish a reasonable concept
of gender. Gender and sexuality issues should not be left out of the discussion. Only by providing sex
education to young people on a large scale from adolescence can the new generation be educated
Secondly, the subject consciousness of female group should be strengthened. First of all, women should
get used to breaking through the restrictions of unequal social norms and actively participate in the political,
economic and cultural construction of the society as masters of the situation. Moreover, women should be good
at understanding and analyzing the social and cultural norms of inequality , and learn to judge which problems
or results are caused by the cultural norms of inequality rather than simply ascribing to their own fate or
identifying with the cultural norms, so as to promote the development of women's organizations and women's
movement in the new era.
Last but not least, for men, gender equality consciousness should also be inspired. In the process of
constructing advanced gender culture masculinity is by no means a bystander, but is a supporter and active
participant in the activities that push gender equality. When men can consciously struggle with the
male-centered inequality of social and cultural norms (such as: "men are superior to women", "husbands sing
and women follow", "carry on the family line", etc.), when men can accumulate extremely active from the
spirit, quality, time to bear the responsibilities of family life, by addressing women's needs, women's dignity,
dignity and development rights will be greatly improved. Its social effect is as Marx said: "the free
development of everyone is the premise of the free development of all people.”
5.2 what can the government do
As mentioned above, China still lacks laws and regulations on sexist advertising. Therefore, the author
believes that the state should formulate relevant laws and policies to regulate the media. "Strengthen cultural
market regulation prohibit pornographic or degrading works in propaganda media, advertisements and
cultural works" . "in the press and publishing areas such as radio, film and television and literary art show
women's achievements and role in economic development and social progress , advanced the model of force to
promote women's characters", vigilant role stereotypes , advocate to reflect the development direction of new
ideas to promote products, pay special attention to women of independent personality.
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5.3 what can the corporate do
As producers of the advertisements, companies should raise their gender awareness. Advertising media
from the industry includes: media management producer and supervisor. If their consciousness about gender
equality is not so strong, in the modern time when media face of the increasingly fierce competition, in order to
gain maximized benefits, they may not regret the loss of fairness and equality of the modern value concept and
tries to meet the feudal and backward gender culture remaining in the society culture, thus misleading the
public. For this reason, it is necessary to carry out a series of gender equality awareness training to improve
the social gender awareness and discrimination ability of media practitioners, to enhance the publicity and
advocacy of advanced gender culture , and resist backward and decadent gender culture. The firms ought to
shoulder corporate social responsibility, guide the public to establish a correct gender concept.
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Conclusion
The change of gender concept in advertisement reflects the progress of society and human thoughts. This
trend is not only a positive factor in promoting social progress of gender equality, but also provides new
dimensions for advertising creativity, as well as improving the economic and aesthetic value of modern
advertising. In fact, creating favorable female advertising is not so difficultly. The difficulty is how should the
society confront the problem. Sexism in advertising is a problem that the whole human society must solve
together. As the audience, the information conveyed by the advertisement should be screened; As a
government agency, it should strictly examine and punish advertising works suspected of gender
discrimination; As an advertisement creator, he/she needs to have a clear concept of gender, and must
deliberately avoid gender discrimination in their creative process. Only with joint efforts of the three
dimensions can there be a proper, healthy and harmonious advertising environment and even social
environment.
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