Class Project Work Sexism and Sexuality in Advertising
Class: TM Year: 11th School Year: 2018/2019
Comunicar em Inglês Teacher: Célia Rodrigues
Introduction Women’s bodies have been used, in whole or in parts, to advertise everything, even the strangest things, giving women an unreal notion of what they should look like. This fake image of women creates anxiety and insecurity in women. Then women buy products to correct any imperfection (real or imagined). Images of ideal women in advertising exploits sexuality, reinforces the stereotypes of women as a sexual object and some contribute to/ violence against women. Throughout this project work, we are going to study the evolution of marketing and the way sexism and sexuality had an impact on advertising.
School Year 2018/19- Comunicar em Inglês Project Work by Daniela Miguel, Marco Rodeira, Bruna Bernardo - 11ºTM
Introduction In advertising, women are always beautiful, flawless, with their slender hips, perfect skin, silky hair, pearly white teeth, beautiful eyes, with the right clothes and right make-up and a perfect skin (no wrinkles, no pores and no blemishes).
School Year 2018/19- Comunicar em InglĂŞs Project Work by Daniela Miguel, Marco Rodeira, Bruna Bernardo - 11ÂşTM
Introduction Flawlessness is an illusion created by make-up artists, photographers and photo “retouchers”. Nowadays everything is photoshopped or airbrushed: teeth and eyeballs are whitened; blemishes and wrinkles are airbrushed. In some cases, a picture of a woman is actually a mixture of body parts of several different women (a mouth from one, arms from another, legs from a third and so on). But has it always been like that? In the 20’s women were all too thin and needed to gain weight. Now we are all too fat compared to the women in the ads. Let’s check the evolution of advertising, from the early days of the previous century until nowadays.
School Year 2018/19- Comunicar em Inglês Project Work by Daniela Miguel, Marco Rodeira, Bruna Bernardo - 11ºTM
In the early days women were portrayed as housewives or homemakers, sometimes as perfect housewives (submissive and beautiful), sometimes as the source of unpleasant odours … Advertising was a mirror of the “housewife” stereotype: a woman`s role was to cook clean, do the washing up and look as pretty as possible at all times.
Curso Profissional Técnico de Marketing Disciplina: Comunicar em Língua Inglesa Name: Marco Rodeira
Teacher: Célia Rodrigues
The early 1940: War Propaganda
In the early 40s, Men had to go to war and women needed to step into men´s roles (due to necessity and only to necessity).
So, many advertisers portrayed women in their newly expanded roles, sometimes going housework in military uniforms or working in factories but always keeping the home running smoothly and remaining glamorous, since their girls were “ a wow”. Project Work: th Tatiana Nascimento; Nº7; 11 TN
The LATE 40s (1) After the “wow” period, by late 1944, advertising told women to give up their jobs, when the soldiers returned home, suggesting a working mother was not a good mother.
Project Work: Tatiana Nascimento; Nº7; 11thTM
The LATE 40S (2)
Several ads where a young child asked “Mother, when will you stay home again?� were created to give exactly that idea: working mothers are not good moms!
Project Work: Tatiana Nascimento; th No.7; 11 TM
The 1950s: even a woman can use it (1) By the 1950s and 60s a subtle approach to sex in advertising could be seen everywhere.
The most famous sexist adverts of the all-time goes to the “you mean a woman can open it?”
Project Work by: Bruna Bernardo nº1 11th TM
The 1950s: even a woman can use it (2)
In the 50s, the common belief that ruled most advertising campaigns was the idea that women were both physically and intellectually inferior to men. Project Work by: Bruna Bernardo nยบ1 11th TM
The 1950s: even a woman can use it (3) Advertising manipulates women into going back to home to their ‘real jobs’ now that the war is over (being wives and mothers). The 50s present a horrendous amount of sexism advertising pushing women back to their traditional roles as housewives. Women are portrayed as dumb people that should be submissive and obedient to their husband, no matter what. There is also a rise in advertising that encourages wife beating.
Project Work by: Bruna Bernardo nÂş1 11th TM
The 1960s: Feminism(1)
In the 60’s, the woman was portrayed as a child, in constant need of attention, and when she did not have it, "crying" was all she needed to
have what she wanted.
Liliana Boto 11ºMK Nº5 Comunicar em Inglês
The 1960s: Feminism(2) Despite the terrible advertising, the 60s brought some positive change and was supposed to bring an end to sex-based discrimination and to the idea that women were inferior to men.
Liliana Boto 11ºMK Nº5 Comunicar em Inglês
The 1960s: Feminism(3) Same ads portrayed women in nontraditional roles, such as jockeys or airline pilots. Women started to be depicted as more independent and feminism brought in the rise of female “sexual freedom”.
Liliana Boto 11ºMK Nº5 Comunicar em Inglês
The 1960s: Feminism(4)
traditional tasks of women. During the 60s emphasis began to be placed on the
of new car selections).
Liliana Boto 11ºMK Nº5 Comunicar em Inglês
The 1970s: Reasserting a woman’s place in society (1) The 1970s tried to fight the feminism and the 60s. Women were now fighting for equal rights, demanding equal pay for equal work and a chance at jobs traditionally reserved for men.
Project Work by: Name: Daniela Martins Number: 2
The 1970s: Reasserting a woman’s place in society (2) Advertising was kind of a reminder of those times, reflecting men`s internal fear-the loss of their masculinity, their power. So advertising portrayed women as trophies or “doormats”, something you could walk over, trying to reduce women again to their role as submissive wives.
Project Work by: Name: Daniela Martins - Number:2
The 1970s: Reasserting a woman’s place in society (3)
Project Work by: Name: Daniela Martins Number:2
The 1980s: sex sells and so do women´s bodies The 80s dropped the domestic abuse and brought in the sexuality and women power. Women were embracing the liberation that had come from the sexual revolution. Advertising started showing women as powerful individuals (sexy, attractive and, therefore, powerful).
Women are portrayed as objects of sexual desire. Women were embracing sexual revolution and advertising reduced them to sexual objects, introducing nudity.
Project work by: Telma Boto, 11thTM , No. 08
The 1990s: woman vs machine (1) Technology had a great impact on the marketing industry the 90s.
Then constant message portrayed in ads was that all new technology gadgets like gaming devices (game boy pocket, for example) were better than women and better than sex.
Daniela CorrĂŞa 11MK
The 1990s: woman vs machine (2)
New products were emerging and marketers needed to position, a product in the consumer’s mind. How? Women were objectified and compared to, well, another object, another product, usually negatively, showing that all the new product, that were being launched into the market were much better than men’s old toy (women).
Daniela CorrĂŞa 11MK
2000s: food porn and now Food porn uses pictures of tasty delicious food together with sex as an advertising appeal, therefore, using sexual appeals for the promotion of products or services which are for food and/or beverages, seeking to create a desire similar to the sexual desire the sexual image is creating.
School Year 2018/19- Comunicar em InglĂŞs Project Work by Daniela Miguel 11ÂşTM, No: 03
Conclusion Women have been depicted in various role and statuses in advertising ranging from a homemaker to a business executive and from a sex object to a superwoman. Sexist advertisement continues to exist today, although advertising standards have improved vastly.
School Year 2018/19- Comunicar em InglĂŞs Project Work by Daniela Miguel 11ÂşTM, No: 03