'Keep her where she belongs':
Gendered codes and sexist
representations of the female
figure in advertisements
Maria Troullou
Researcher in Cultural Studies
CulturalStudies.nured@gmail.com
University of Western Macedonia
Greece
www.uowm.gr
http://semiotics.nured.uowm.gr
Gender is a human invention, like language,
kinship,religion, and technology; like them,
gender organizes human social life in
culturally patterned ways.
Gender organizes social relations in everyday
life as well as in the major social structures
[…] is embedded in the images, ideas, and
language of a society and is used as a means
to divide up work, allocate resources, and
distribute power.
Judith Lorber (1994: 6)
>>>Gender refers to the culturally and
socially constructed differences
between females and males found in
the meanings, beliefs, and practices
associated with "femininity" and
"masculinity.“
Judith Lorber (1994: 6)
 Gender identity is a person's perception of the self as
female or male.
 Although this identity is an individual perception, it is
developed through interaction with others. As a result,
most people form a gender identity that matches their
biological sex.
 Body consciousness is a part of gender identity. Body
consciousness is how a person perceives and feels
about his or her body; it also includes an awareness of
social conditions in society that contribute to this selfknowledge (Thompson, 1994).
 Virtually everything social in our lives is gendered.
Gender is an integral part of the daily experiences of
both women and men (Kimmel and Messner, 2004).
A microlevel analysis of gender focuses on
how individuals learn gender roles and
acquire a gender identity.
Gender role
refers to the attitudes, behavior, and activities
that are socially defined as appropriate for
each sex and are learned through the
socialization process
(Lips, 2001).
A macrolevel analysis of gender
examines structural features, external
to the individual, that perpetuate
gender inequality.
These structures have been referred to
as gendered institutions, meaning that
gender is one of the major ways by
which social life is organized in all
sectors of society.
These institutions are reinforced by a
gender belief system, which includes
all the ideas regarding masculine and
feminine attributes that are held to be
valid in a society. This belief system is
legitimated by religion, science, law,
and other societal values
(Lorber,2005).
Sexism is the subordination of one sex, usually
female, based on the assumed superiority of
the other sex.
Sexism directed at women has three components:
(1) negative attitudes toward women;
(2) Stereotypical beliefs that reinforce,
complement,
or justify the prejudice;
(3) discrimination-acts that exclude, distance,
or keep women separate
(Lott, 1994).
The media, including newspapers,
magazines, television, and movies, are
powerful sources of gender
stereotyping. Although some critics
argue that the media simply reflect
existing gender roles in society, others
point out that the media have a unique
ability to shape ideas.
advertising has been called:
the most influential institution of
socialization
in modern society
advertising as a cultural form:
displays a preoccupation with gender
that is hardly matched in any other
genre
(Sut Jhally, 1987).
A study by the sociologist Anthony J.
Cortese (2004) found that womenregardless of what they were doing in a
particular ad were frequently shown in
advertising as being young, beautiful,
and seductive.
Although such depictions may sell
products, they may also have the effect
of influencing how we perceive
ourselves and others with regard to
issues of power and subordination.
Advertising
has the power to change a set of values
held by the collective majority.
It can influence people to switch their
attitude regarding things which they
might ordinarily think of as morally
wrong – to an attitude that it’s morally
right or acceptable.
Previous research on images of women has suggested that:
Fail to portray a
representative range of
women's real skills and
occupations, particularly in
positions of authority;
Fail to reflect the increasing diversity and
richness of women's lives, or the range of
women's contributions and achievements;
Fail to represent the real variety
of women's ages, shapes, sizes
and colours.
The sexist representation
of women is problematic
because it can generate adverse
perceptions of women:
validation of masculine behaviours,
language and values as though they
represent the universal norm
reinforcing perceptions that may
legitimize violence against women
limit the range of behaviour considered
acceptable for women
Sexism in the portrayal of women in
advertising has been studied in a variety
of different cultures including the
United States, Australia, Britain, Italy, India,
Japan and Kenya.
A number of broad patterns in the portrayal of
women can be discerned from this body of
evidence.
Ford, Vooli, Honneycutt, & Casey 1998, Gilly 1988, Lysonski 1985, Mazzella, Durkin, Cerini, &
Buralli 1992, Bretl & Cantor 1988, Furnham & Voli 1989, Gilly 1988, Livingstone & Green
1986, Mazzella, Durkin, Cerini, & Buralli 1992, Mwangi 1996, Ferguson, Kreshel, &
Tinkham 1990, Griffin, Viswanath & Schwartz 1994, Kilbourne 1987, Lysonski 1985,
Sengupta 1995, Wyckham 1987, Wyckham 1993.
SEXISM- PATTERN No1
Women are more often portrayed as young and
concerned with physical attractiveness than
their male counterparts
SEXISM- PATTERN No2
Women are less likely than men are
to be portrayed as authority figures
and more likely to be shown as
product users
SEXISM- PATTERN No3
There is a tendency for women to
be shown: as subordinate to
men, as decorative objects,
or as alluring sex objects
Shaming
has proven to be a quite successful
advertising technique. By sending
the message that women are
flawed, advertisers seek to
convince us that we somehow
“need” their product in order to be
liked by men and at the
same time be socially acceptable.

Ads never let us forget that
a woman's worth is determined by her appeal to men.
 She is an object to be judged,
evaluated and deemed desirable
enough by the observer.
 Her only
power lies
in controlling
and
manipulating
her appearance
and even in that
she is set up to
fall short of the
perfect ideal.
Women are held to this
standard and are bombarded
with shaming messages that
remind them that they will
not succeed, be loved,
secure or happy unless they
conform to the icon’s
identity, which is flawless
appearance.
The response evoked
is guilt, fear and shame.
As a consequence ads
have the power to create
a limited standard of beauty
– young, thin, white –
that is impossible for most
women to attain.
Naomi Wolf (1992) says that the beauty myth isn't
good for men or women.
It prevents (men) from actually seeing women...in
suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a
numbing effect, reducing all sense but the visual...
As John Berger (1973:47) has put it:
men act and women appear.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves
being looked at. This determines not only most
relations between men and women but also the
relation of women to themselves.
The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the
surveyed female.
 Thus she turns herself into an object – and most
particularly an object of vision: a sight.
Feminity is signified by the female figure, an icon
connoting attractiveness through several modes.
Basically, every characteristic that could detract
from the beauty myth has been erased.
content
Acceptance, success,
security, love
sign
Sign vehicle
Attractiveness- beauty
referent
Female figure
Ads that revolve around women’s
appearance usually make use of one of
the following conventions (Berger, 1973):
woman with mirror
woman displayed for viewing
woman appearing and man doing
Infantalize women- while turning them
into sexual objects:
Baby pink accessories and a matching teddy bear.
The real message here seems to be "innocence" rendered
as helplessness. Such ads hold out the possibility of being
both sexy and childlike. Adult women pretending to be
children pretending to be adult women. (Retzinger, 2004.)
Again the stereotypical image is that of a powerless female
figure that has nothing to offer but looks and sex. Portrayed like
a sex object – a product to be consumed, innocence play is
connoted by the baby-face appearance and childish gestures
gaze and pose.
Ads offering young women with the face of a small child
posed in a sexually suggestive manner are appealing
both to men and women.
SIZE
As Goffman (1976:28)
explains one way in
which social weightpower, authority, rank,
office, renownis echoed expressively
in social situations is
through relative size,
especially height.
ATTENTION
Rarely do we see women looking straight at us and meeting our
gaze, unless they are crouched, nearly naked, or otherwise
restricted or vulnerable (Dittrich, 1999).
•
POSITIONING
Concerning positioning women are often
portrayed lying, bending, slumping and reclining
or posing in awkward ways.
People in charge of their own lives typically stand
up straight, alert and ready to meet the world. In
contrast, the bending of the body conveys
unpreparedness and submissiveness.
A classic stereotype of deference is that of lowering
oneself physically in some form or other prostration.
Correspondingly, holding the body erect and the head
high is stereotypically a mark of unashamedness,
superiority and disdain’ (Goffman, 40).
When women are shown in positions of powerlessness,
submission, and subjugation the message to men is
clear. Women are always available as the targets of
aggression and violence, they are inferior to men and
thus deserve to be dominated, and women exist to
fulfil the needs of men. (Kilbourne, 1999).
Dismemberment or body-chopping
Women's appraisal of self-worth
is determined by appearance,
particularly as revealed by the
female body or body parts.
Women's bodies without heads, faces or feet
lead us to believe that all that truly matters about
woman lies between her neck and her knees
(Cortese, 1999)
Hiding or severing a person's features, particularly
facial features (which often reveal cues about a
person's identity/uniqueness), enables the
observer's attitude to shift towards objectification:
treating and thinking about the subject as an object
without needs, feelings or humanity (Dittrich, 1999).
The objectification of women (Schur, 1983)
Objectification based on cultural
preoccupation with “looks”
 Women are often seen as the
objects of sexual attraction, not
full human beings- when they
are stared at
 Women are seen by some as
depersonalized body parts
 Women are seen as being
“decorative”
 Women are evaluated
according to prevailing, narrow
beauty standards and often feel
pressure to conform to
appearance norms.
Jean Kilbourne, a nationally known expert in
raising awareness about how women's bodies
are depicted in the media says that:
turning a human being into a thing is almost
always the first step in justifying violence against
that person.
The ads from the past were blindly
chauvinistic.
What is noticeable in more recent ads is the
level of sexual violence.
Girl to girl action
TECNIQUE
Women putting on a show for an outsider, not
having a passionate lesbian love affair for
themselves
Degrading bondage positions
Women being bound, twitched
and literally controlled by men.
Women appearing in passive
roles accepting violence.
Being raped
Being killed
>>>>With the transfer of those conventions
seems comes sexism
comments
Sex stereotyping is not a matter of
intuition or self-evidence
detection of sex stereotypes
requires knowledge of gender codes
or of how gender messages are
encoded in ads or other media
The codes or signs are not genderbound, and so role reversals are
possible
A woman portrayed in a MCU shot looking
up right. Blonde hair, lip-stick on, neck and
shoulders naked.
She is positioned on the left part of the
picture diagonally placed. Her gaze is
directed upwards to the right corner.
The object of her attention is not seen but
is somewhere above her, in a position
higher than hers.
Behind her, in the background, faces of
women imitate the same posture. All
females are concentrated to the same
object of attention.
As Richard Dyer (1982) has observed when
a model is looking upwards it always
connotes a spirituality. Maybe she is there
to show her face or her body, but her mind
is somewhere else.
On the upper level of the image several
signs inform us about the object that
attracts the female attention. Photos of
three men in military outfits portrayed like
heroes honored with medals serve as
connotations to the women’s thoughts.
Admiration, worship and devotion to men is
the second meaning of the picture
transferred to the reader through the
interrelations of iconic signs and written
text.