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“To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?” OUIL401 Context of Practice 1 [ For references: see Bibliography at end ]
This essay will investigate what gender really means, whether or not advertising reinforces these representations, and if so, to what extent does this affect us? Advertising plays an enormous role within our society, and yet the mass of it is disguised. People tend to see the tip of the iceberg, whereas most is hidden behind intelligent marketing strategies. Some businesses have been seen to benefit from controversial adverts, although sometimes unintentionally. For example, in 2014 Coca-Cola released an advert featuring the song ‘America the Beautiful’ (Huffington Post, 2014) sung in several languages which invoked a lot of negative comments on social media. Criticisms came from people who believed the song should only ever be sung in English, for example one Twitter user remarked ‘How dare Coke put out a commercial where America the Beautiful is sung in other languages? Real Americans only speak English’ (@ForEversYoung12, July 2014). Coca-cola were both praised and slandered by the population for their celebration of diversity. Although they received some criticism, the extra exposure pushed them further into the public eye, thus their campaign gained more exposure.
That is one example of an (successful) advertising strategy. In 2007, the New York Times discovered that the average person living in a city is exposed to over 5,000 ads per day (Story, 2007). It is expected that since 2007 the coverage of advertising will have grown alongside the sizeable technological developments; so it would not be wrong to say that in 2016 the average person living in a city is exposed to way over 5,000 ads per day.
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Adverts surround us, everywhere from the flip-down table on a plane – for example Microsoft advertised Windows Mobile on flip-down tables on US Airways’ shuttle flights (Story, 2007) – to pop-ups on your Facebook page. They impact our thoughts and actions. But what effect does this have on our social beliefs? For example, our ideas of gender…
This essay shall begin with the definitions of sex and gender, in particular their societal resonance. Following this will be examples of research that suggest gender is a construct (born out of society and/or culture), research for and against the theory will be evaluated. Taking the culminated evidence into account, the extent to which advertising constructs our idea of gender shall be estimated.
Beginning with the younger generation of today, it shall be discussed whether or not advertising impacts their ideas of gender. Some reports suggest that sexism is everpresent within society, such as The Gender Wage Gap and Public Policy. It is said that if progress towards closing the gender wage gap continues at the same pace as during recent decades, women and men will not reach equal pay until 2058 (Hess et al. 2015). This implies that there is — and will be for a while yet — discrimination between men and women (Costello, C., Hegewisch, A.). Sexism may come from somewhere besides the conscious thought… Advertising is continuous and constantly seeping into our brains, as backed up by the New York Times study (average person exposed to over 5,000 ads a day). One could easily impact the other. The advertising industry is said to deliberately decide what to show us, via media outlets.
In more recent times, companies have been said to target specific people in certain areas, such as on the Internet. According to a 2012 Pew Internet and American Life Pro-
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ject report, 59% of Internet users have noticed targeted advertising. Out of the 1,729 users that were queried, 68% had an unfavorable view of the process (Purcell, Pew Research Centre, 2012). Targeted advertising is the tracking and analyzing of a person’s web history. These users said that they had specifically noticed advertisements online that are directly related to things they had recently searched for or sites they had recently visited. Search engines are becoming more intelligent with their strategies, as highlighted by Clint Pumphrey in his article ‘How do advertisers show me custom ads?’ (Pumphrey, Sep 2012). He mentions that Internet advertising has become a lot smarter since the early 2000s. Some users see the collection of browsing history as an invasion of privacy, but advertisers insist that it’s harmless. However if adults are surrounded by targeted information, it will cause an effect.
Adults are role models for the younger generations. The US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) suggested that gender-bias begins in Primary School (Lavy, 2015). A study saw several groups of students take two exams, one marked by outside examiners that didn’t know the students’ names, the other marked by teachers who did. Girls outperformed boys on the anonymously marked exam, but boys outperformed girls when assessed by teachers who knew their names, suggesting that they may have overestimated the boys’ abilities and underestimated the girls’. Where does this stem? Looking back at the fact that people can be exposed to at least 5,000 ads a day (Story, NY Times, 2007).
If a teacher is exposed to a minimum of 5,000 ads in one day (Story, 2007), this will affect their thoughts and beliefs substantially, maybe beyond their control. It could quite easily be possible for sexism in Primary Schools to stem from harsh media exposure. This
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would then suggest that advertising creates the illusion that the human race is divided between male and female. Man and woman. It suggests that what’s between our legs, defines what is between our ears, or so to speak. How can that be so? Does this assumption have negative effects? According to the NEBR (Lavy, 2015) students are marked discriminately in school, so before children have even entered the adult world they are discriminated.
As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains in their article ‘Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender’, the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ mean different things; but neither are easy or straightforward to characterise (Mikkola, 2012). Alternatively, most ordinary people view sex and gender as the same — male means man, female means woman. However, some theorists suggest that male and female are diverse, backing up Mikkola’s suggestions. For example, in the 1970s, it was argued that women should not become airplane pilots due to sex differences which meant that they would be hormonally unstable once a month and, therefore, unable to perform their duties as well as men (Rogers, 1999).
In order to explain why some people felt that they had been born into the wrong bodies, the esteemed psychologist Robert Stoller (1968) decided to use the word ‘sex’ to pick out biological traits and ‘gender’ to pick out the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited. Although typically a person's sex and gender went together, separating out these terms allowed Stoller to explain the phenomenon of transsexuality: For some people, sex and gender simply don't match up. An example of this would be Kate Bornstein, this gender theorist occupies a space between male and female because she associates with neither; this is explained in the film ‘Kate Bornstein is a queer and pleasnt dan-
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ger’ (Feder, 2014). Bornstein believes that people need not associate with either gender because ‘gender’ is the term used to define (social) behaviors.
Does this infer that gender is a construct of society and/or culture? What does this mean for advertising? We’ve already seen that advertising has a big coverage (Story, NY Times), and they have a lot of choice and control over what they show us. Therefore they will impact our thoughts and beliefs… If we are discriminating in Primary Schools based on genders, are we confusing sex for gender? But ‘gender does not exist’ according to Mikkola in her report ‘Feminist perspectives on sex and gender’ (Mikkola, 2012). The terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ could have been constructed; labels to explain masculine and feminine behaviours. It is plausible to say that advertising employs the ‘gender’ concept. It is seen all over the world that adverts are designed to target certain audiences; they’re trying to attract people. They use relatable circumstances. They create products and advertisements designed to target certain genders. I shall now examine an example on the market, ‘Bic for Her’ (Amazon, 2012).
‘Bic for Her’ (Amazon, 2012)
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This product received a phenomenal amount of criticism for the blatant discrimination. The reviews left are cynical about the fact that this product’s existence suggests women cannot hold a standard-issue (or ‘man’) pen. An example comes from the Amazon user ‘A keen skier’, ‘[the pen] has enabled me to vent thoughts about new recipe ideas, sewing and gardening’ (Amazon, 2012). It’s clear that people thought it was ridiculous, as shown by the fact that both women and men left cynical comments. One man left the comment ‘Normally I only use pens designed and created for real men, in colours appropriate to such instruments of masculinity - black like my chest hair or blue like the steely glint of my eyes’ (Amazon, 2012). The product sparked global outrage and national newspapers wrote articles about the uproar, for example The Telegraph remarked ‘While BIC’s intentions are no doubt sincere, the products have inspired a wave of online ridicule as women poke fun at their strategy’ (Furness, August 2012).
Looking at the packaging, it is observed that the colours are limited to a specific palette — stereotypically ‘girly’. The colours of the pens are soft and pastel-toned, i.e. nothing too harsh or ‘manly’ for the girls. Dainty little illustrations of flowers decorate the packaging — pretty and cute, for pretty and cute girls. It’s finished off with an artfully written ‘Miss’ above ‘BIC’, just to make sure you understand it’s for ‘her’.
The existence of this product and its presentation boldly implies that women should fit into one box: simple, silly and sweet. The packaging is indirectly suggesting that the product is made to fit a specific group. As if the description of the packaging above should define the woman it is designed for. This product along with plenty of others on the market are setting the standards of beauty — the standards of which are explained in the book ‘The Beauty Myth’ (Wolf, 1990) which redefined the view of the relationship between
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beauty and female identity. Women should fit into this ‘delicate’ category, and men fit into the opposing ‘macho’ one. This product and it’s advertisements are one of many that promote gender stereotyping and set the standards for women to fit into, tick-boxes that have been created to ensue judgment. Multiple gender theorists oppose this concept and they explain that gender doesn’t exist…
Suggesting that gender is a construct prompts the question, what else is a construct? If gender were part of a larger construction then this would directly affect the extent to which advertising constructs our ideas of life in it. Diane Barthel is a Professor of Sociology; she revealed the previously overlooked and underestimated depth of cultural meaning behind advertising (Barthel, 1989). She countered what has already been suggested about advertising feeding us their secret agendas. Advertising is a reflection of social values, according to Barthel, who does not blame the messenger for the message. This would suggest that advertising simply reflects our current, made-up ideas of gender. So the complaint is not for advertising, but for the values of society (Barthel, 1989).
In The Social Construction of Reality, Berger argues that ‘reality and knowledge are socially constructed’ (Berger, 1966). He explains this with an example, ‘what is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to the American Businessman. The ‘knowledge’ of the criminal differs from the ‘knowledge’ of the criminologist.’ He is saying that specific conceptions of ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’ pertain to specific social contexts. Advertising plays a substantial part within society, people look to the media for advice on how to be — as is also claimed by famous androgynous model, Rain Dove, in an interview with Buzzfeed (Karlan, Buzzfeed News).
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From Berger’s report I deduce that things change depending on their social relativity and if we were to look into non-Western cultures we would observe vastly different contexts. Resulting in differentiating ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’. Thus the understanding of gender would change.
Berger’s theory can be compared to Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality’ (Ortner, 1982) because as the title depicts, Ortner discusses the culture of gender and the different ideologies in both Western and non-Western cultures. These two texts go alongside each other because Ortner is describing how the concept of gender alternates between various cultures, and Berger also suggests it is dependent upon context. However, these two theories have differences — the terms intertwine and work together but their meanings are subtly different. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society. Berger focuses on the social context, whereas Ortner focuses on the broader topic of culture (of which society is an aspect). This results in confusion when one asks whether gender is a construct of society or culture. This confusion could suggest that both contribute to the construct, seeing as Ortner and Berger’s theories overlap.
The advertising industry has been seen as quite unaccepting of people that ‘ignore the system’ as such. An example of this is Caitlyn Jenner, she was slandered when she transitioned from male to female. Brighe for Bustle.com wrote ‘Given his extraordinary economic and social privilege, Jenner's experiences will not be even remotely representative of the lives of most transgender people or their transition experiences’. (Bighe, 2015) People appeared bitter; alternatively, Bighe mentions that it was a big step forward for the trans community. For example a 2013 Public Religion Research Institute survey discov-
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ered that out of over 1,000 applicants, 24% were unsure what the word ‘transgender’ meant (Chalabi 2015). This would suggest that more exposure of the trans community is certainly necessary.
On the other hand, there are examples within this industry that suggest it might plausible to break the ‘social norm’ and still get by. For example, no more than a year ago an androgynous fashion model became popular on social media sites. Rain Dove is a ‘model, actor and activist breaking binary laws & simply... A human’ (Dove, 2014). In an interview, Dove explained what it is like to ‘model as all genders’ and ‘as a human being’ (Karlan, 2015). She had ‘realised that being a woman was not a good thing in this predominantly male work environment’. She put on clothes that were designed for ‘men’ and for some time she lived her life ‘as a man’. She mentioned that ‘nobody even asked if I was trans or gay; they just thought I was a guy.’ This is astonishing to learn because it reinstates that ‘gender’ is just the word for a set of social behaviours such as tone of voice, clothes and mannerisms. This specific site put Rain Dove in a mesmerising, revolutionary light. One comment on the article was ‘Rain Dove is the perfect example of a society where conventions just shouldn't exist anymore’ (Karlan, 2015). This positive feedback shows that advertising and the wider media are powerful in how we perceive things. There is a certain way of seeing — advertising forces us either to see or be blind to chosen people and events. Rain Dove has a massive following on the Social Media Site Instagram — 34,400 people ‘follow’ her account.
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‘Saturday. Sunday. It’s #justcloth’ (Dove, 2016)
Dove posted the ‘Saturday. Sunday. It’s #justcloth’ to her account on the 23rd of January 2016. The image, along with the caption, is powerful and evocative; it depicts how she must explain the simplest of things to be accepted. Using ‘just’ in front of ‘cloth’ really speaks of how simple it can be. It becomes poignant just how ridiculous it makes clothes appear. On the left-hand side Dove is dressed in clothes that are stereotypically designed for a ‘woman’, whereas on the right-hand side you see her wearing ‘men’s’ clothes – it is material that is being draped on her body. She is choosing to wear different types of cloth, neither of which makes her a man or woman. She is who she is. All of this can be gathered by one image and one caption. The very fact that she is being employed to model clothes for ‘men’ and ‘women’ speaks a lot about how our society is developing and leaving oldfashioned beliefs behind. This movement could already be seen as revolutionary in terms of how advertising constructs our ideas of gender.
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Kate Bornstein, the gender theorist discussed earlier in relation to Stoller’s theory, is not predominately seen in the news or on social media sites. She’s discovered after digging around in related areas on the Internet. The very fact that she has not popped up anywhere says more to me than if she had. This astonishing person is not being preached about in the newspapers or online. Why? Perhaps it is because she is controversial and she breaks the binary codes? Kate identifies neither as man nor woman. Her choices are explained in the film ‘Kate Bernstein is a queer and pleasant danger’ (Feder, 2014).
Kate wrote the book ‘Gender Outlaw: Men, women and the rest of us’ in 1994 (Bornstein, 1994). Since then it has been translated into numerous languages and is taught in many colleges across the globe. It was considered revolutionary and led the way for many more gender theorists. Throughout the book Kate was not afraid to stand back and take apart the concept of gender piece by piece. She was deemed controversial, for example she suggests that gender is not supposed to be binary: "There's a really simple way to look at gender: Once upon a time, someone drew a line in the sands of culture and proclaimed with great self-importance, 'On this side, you are a man; on that side, you are a woman.' It's time for the winds of change to blow that line away. Simple” (Bornstein, 1994). This quote is simplistic; it makes the issue seem black and white. However, that might just be how Kate looks at it; for her, it’s how it is. She does suggest though that more people should have this outlook
A secondary quote from Gender Outlaw… “The need for a recognizable identity, and the need to belong to a group of people with a similar identity — these are driving forces in our culture, and nowhere is this more evident than in the areas of gender and sexuality” (Bornstein, 1994: 3-4). Kate implies that gender and sexuality are the main
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causes for population divides. Yet, referring to my previous point, Kate is predominant in the media, she appears to be overlooked. This could be due to her ideas outlined in Gender Outlaw. They are controversial concepts because they challenge the norm and change typically scares people — due to an instinctive fear of the unknown, as explained by Dr. Andrea Simon (Simon, 2013).
Taking from all of the above research, to what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender? It has appeared that advertising plays a role within our society. We are exposed to it constantly (Story, 2007). Among gender theorists, such as Bornstein, Berger and Ortner, it is strongly suggested that gender is a construction of our society and culture. Seeing as advertising makes up a large proportion of our lives, it could affect our personal thoughts and beliefs without our conscious awareness. Reactions to products such as the ‘Bic for her’ show that people are aware of the present discrimination (Amazon, 2012). Such a reaction reinforces Bornstein’s claims that there are ‘so many more than two [genders]’ (Bornstein, 1994). There are thousands of hues and shades of human identity. The following question should now be, can/will people fight their fear of change (Simon, 2013) in order to overcome the construction and restriction of ‘gender’, and to what extent can advertising assist in this battle?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Website references: Amazon, (2012), ‘Bic for Her’, Bic, [online] available from < http://www.amazon.co.uk/BicCristal-Her-Ball-Black/dp/B004FTINSI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1453836614&sr=83&keywords=bic+for+her [date accessed: 26 January 2016]
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Brighe, M., (April 2015), ‘Bruce Jenner came out as transgender’, Bustle.com, [online] available from < http://www.bustle.com/articles/78625-bruce-jenner-came-out-as-transgender-butwe-have-so-many-more-important-things-to-talk [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Costello, C., Hegewisch, A., (February 2016), ‘The Gender Wage Gap and Public Policy’, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, [online] available from < http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination [date accessed: 30 April 2016] Chalabi, M., (June 2015), ‘Most Americans say they don’t know a transgender person’, FiveThirtyEight.com, [online] available from < http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/mostamericans-say-they-dont-know-a-transgender-person-but-many-of-them-probably-do/ [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Dove, R., (2014), ‘About Me’, Facebook Profile, [online] available from < https://www.facebook.com/raindovemodel/info/?tab=page_info [date accessed: 28 January 2016] Dove, R., (January 2016), ‘Saturday. Sunday. It’s #justcloth’, Instagram Profile, [online] available from < https://www.instagram.com/p/BA3VSPfBsdt/?taken-by=raindovemodel [date accessed: 28 January 2016] Feder, S., (April 2014), ‘Kate Bornstein is a queer and pleasant danger’, KateBornsteinTheMovie.com, [online] available from < http://katebornsteinthemovie.com/synopsis/ [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Furness, H., (August 2012), ‘Bic ridiculed over ‘comfortable’ pink pens for women’, The Telegraph, [online] available from < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9503359/BIC-ridiculed-overcomfortable-pink-pens-for-women.html [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Huffington Post, (February 2014), ‘America the Beautiful’, Coca-Cola, [online] available from < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/02/coca-cola-america-thebeautiful_n_4714931.html [date accessed: 28 January 2016] Karlan, S., (April 2015), ‘13 Reasons Rain Dove Is The Androgynous Model Of Your Dreams’, New York, Buzzfeed News, [online] available from < http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/13-reasons-rain-dove-is-the-androgynous-model-ofyour-dreams#.kwKlrWNjW [date accessed: 25 January 2016] Lavy, V., (January 2015), ‘On The Origins of Gender Human Capital Gaps: Short and Long Term Consequences of Teachers' Stereotypical Biases’, The National Bureau of Economic Research, [online], available from < http://www.nber.org/papers/w20909 [date accessed: 26 January 2016] Mikkola, M. (2012), ‘Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), [online] available from < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/, [date accessed: 25 January 2016]
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Nichols, J M., (April 2015), ‘Rain Dove, Androgynous Model, Is Breaking Barriers In Fashion’, Huffington Post, [online] available from < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/04/rain-dove-androgynous-model_n_6993640.html [date accessed: 25 January 2016] Pumphrey, C., (September 2012), ‘How do advertisers show me custom ads?’, HowStuffWorks.com, [online] available from < http://computer.howstuffworks.com/advertisercustom-ads.htm [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Purcell, K., (2012), ‘Search engine use’, Pew Research Centre, [online] available from < http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/03/09/main-findings-11/ [date accessed: 26 April 2016] Simon, A., (April, 2013), ‘Why we’re so afraid of change’, ForbesWomen, [online] available from < http://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2013/04/08/why-were-so-afraid-of-change-andwhy-that-holds-businesses-back/#84583485cd09 [date accessed: 30 April 2016] Story, L., (January 2007), ‘Anywhere the eye can see, it’s likely to see an ad’, New York Times, [online] available from < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/media/15everywhere.html?pagewanted=all [date accessed: 26 January 2016] ————————————————————————————————————— Book References: Barthel, Diane., (August 1989), ‘Putting On Appearances: Gender and Advertising’ Philadelphia, Temple University Press. Berger, Peter L., (1966), ‘The Social Construction of Reality’, New York City, Penguin Books. Bornstein, Kate., (1994), ‘Gender Outlaw: Men, Women and the rest of us’, New York City, Routledge./ Ortner, Sherry B., (January 1982), ‘Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality’, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Rogers, L., (1999), ‘Sexing the Brain’, London, Phoenix. Stoller, R., (1968), ‘Sex and Gender: On The Development of Masculinity and Femininity’, New York, Science House. Wolf, N., (1990), ‘The Beauty Myth’, Chatto and Windus, London.