Gender in Advertising by David Gauntlett

· Friedan’s (1963) critique of women’s magazines runs alongside a similar assessment of advertising; the stereotypes reproduced by the housewife’s journals were the same as those exploited by advertisers.

· Tuchman’s (1978) argument about ‘the symbolic annihilation’ of women is based on an analysis of advertising as well as other media.

· Gunter’s (1995) studies show that women in magazine adverts prior to the 1970’s were rarely shown to be in paid work, when they were the depicted a stereotypical role e.g. a smiling secretary.

· The number of ‘housewife’ images began to decline slowly after the 1950’s but were still common in the 60’s and 70’s.

· Advertisement’s in the 1970’s found evidence of stereotyping of all ads featuring women; three quarters were for kitchen and bathroom products.

· Gunter (1995) studies found strong similarities in gender representation from country to country, and particular sexism in adverts aimed at children.

· Mcdonald (1995) advertisers generally lagged behind women’s magazines in the cultivation of new modes of address, even when the evidence suggested that commercial advantages could be gained from modernising their approach.

· Mcdonald (1995) – believing both that feminism’s battles had been won, and that its ideology was now harmless by virtue of being out of date, advertisers invented ‘postfeminism’ as a utopia where women could do whatever they pleased, provided they had sufficient will and enthusiasm.

· Greer - Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful; now a woman has to have a tight, toned body. (ibid).

· Baudrillard states that only women are seducers, but empirical evidence suggests otherwise. Men too are seducers – a male version of the perfect provocateur. The ideal man in ads is young, handsome, clean-cut, perfect and sexually alluring.