Soc172a Advertising and Society

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Soc172aAdvertising and Society

• Lecture 10
• Advertising and Gender Erving Goffman

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Gender Stereotypes

• Gender stereotypes have not changed much over
  past decades
• Sandra Bem (1974) had people rate, on a 7-point
  scale, 20 masculine, feminine and gender neutral
  adjectives
• Constructed a sex-role inventory
• Could be used to describe people as sex-typed
  or androgynous

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Stereotypes (cont.)

• Individuals who are gender schematic will be
  more aware of people who deviate from socially
  constructed gender role
• Are also more likely to treat people according to
  their sex
• Research (i.e. Griffin and Babbit, 1988) shows
  that women tend to be more flexible about gender
  roles than men
• Not much change otherwise

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Gender Traits (BSRI, Bem, 1974)
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Advertising and Gender Stereotypes

• Advertisers use stereotypes as shorthand
• Gets message across more quickly
• We are socialized by constant exposure to
  stereotypical gender messages
• Food advertising
• There are stereotypical mens and womens foods
• Childrens ads
• Advertisers use stereotypes because parents
  prefer it

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Erving Goffmans Gender Advertisements (1979)

• Classic semiological study of gender and gender
  relations in advertising.
• Goffman asked the question How is gender
  represented in advertising?
• His underlying premise is that ads are
  taken-for-granted pictures or displays of
  codified (culturally accepted) gender behaviour
  the ads display ritualized behaviours.

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Goffman (cont.)

• If we explore these codes, we can learn what it
  is to be male or female in our culture.
• Goffman believed that these codes originated in
  how families are structured in our society based
  on the dominant subordinate relationship
  between parent and child.
• Essentially, men treat women as they would treat
  subordinate males in turn both are treated as
  children, which repeats the dominant parent
  subordinate child relationship within the family.

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Goffman (cont.)

• Most theorists (ie. Leiss Kline Jhally, Waters
  and Ellis) believe that Goffmans findings and
  the categories that he uses for his study are
  equally relevant today.

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Relative Size
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Function Ranking
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The Family
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Feminine Touch
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Licensed Withdrawal
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Ritualization of Subordination
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Sexuality