A father and son are driving and collide head-on with a truck. The father dies at the scene, but the son survives and is rushed to hospital. He is taken into theatre, but the surgeon sees the boy and says, “I can’t operate on this boy; he is my son.”
How is this possible?
Most people cannot solve this riddle since they overlook the fact that the surgeon could be the boy’s mother. It shows that even today, unconscious gender bias exists and continues to confine both men and women to outdated gender roles; gender roles that harm both males and females and hinder positive change towards gender equality.
[Society teaches boys that women belong in the kitchen, and that men must be the main earner for their family. Society teaches girls to be submissive and obsessed with their self-image. Parents can try teach them otherwise, but with the media being omnipresent in our connected lives today, it is not hard to see why the messages it presents are so influential on young people.
Not only are these unrealistic gender stereotypes inappropriate, even immoral, but they also counteract the efforts of those who have been fighting so hard for gender equality.
That is why the realistic representation of males and females in advertising is so crucial.
Argument 1
As any observant Australian will know, we live in a digital age. Advertising has become ubiquitous as a result of companies wielding digital media as a tool to connect with their audience. According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, young people are the greatest consumers of digital media. (83% of youth watch free-to-air television regularly, and 91% use social media. )By 13 years of age, boys and girls will be spending, on average, two and a half hours watching TV, of which 25% consists of advertisements. Advertisements that often – in attempting to sell their product – capitalise on stereotypes to deliver a clear message to their audience. By using oversimplified gender roles to represent what their target demographic wants to see or , but in the process they are reinforcing
Of course, as adults we can sometimes notice these stereotypes, but children are especially vulnerable. They are still developing their views of the world, taking in visual cues of what society shows to be acceptable and forming their own around these. When they see patterns in how men and women are depicted in society, they begin to internalise these messages: ideas that only males are doctors, that only females are nurses, that boys are smarter than girls. Parents can try to teach them otherwise, but with the media being omnipresent in our connected lives today, it is not hard to see why advertising can be so influential the messages it presents are so influential on young people.
Marketing is moulding our children when they are too young to realise.
This situation becomes problematic when we consider the inherent unrealistic and unrepresentative nature of advertisements in our society today. An audit of the advertising industry by Unilever in 2015 exposed the fact that 40% of female viewers cannot relate to the women they see in advertising.
Society teaches boys that women belong in the kitchen, and that men must be the main earner for their family. Society teaches girls to be submissive and obsessed with their self-image. Parents can try to teach them otherwise, but with the media being omnipresent in our connected lives today, it is not hard to see why the messages it presents are so influential on young people.
This research also found that men in ads are often restricted to the tough, macho and domestically-inept cliché.
The image of a father struggling to put on a baby’s nappy should not be an object for satire, rather it is a crude, threadbare remark about men from a previous time.
Gillette’s polarising ad drew significant attention earlier this year with its confronting
For men to abandon dated models of masculinity
It is a step in the right direction for brands, but alone this is not enough. A Norwegian study suggests that brief counter-stereotypical role models in the media do not elicit long-term changes in children’s beliefs. (Only short term)
Clearly, the advertising industry is failing to present men and women proportionately and realistically.
Are these the messages we want younger generations to see?
Meanwhile, males are restricted
(show images of male parenting in ads)
Although stereotypes are created as the result of people accepting such beliefs, the media plays a large role in perpetuating these gender norms.
that we have to be subjected to such unrealistic stereotypes
(Unilever, a (transnational consumer goods company and)? major member of the UN’s Unstereotype Alliance revealed in)
only 3% of women in ads are shown in leadership positions, and a meagre 0.03% of women are depicted as being funny. I think I can safely say that many more women are capable of this.
Of course, we all know that the real world provides many exceptions to these narrow formulae.
Children up to the age of six are generally unable to distinguish the world shown in commercials from the real world
Evidently, the advertisement industry still fails to present both genders proportionally and realistically
“On the whole, the advertising industry has struggled to portray both women and men proportionally and realistically. We are still seeing women and men depicted in outdated, unacceptable ways, even if gender stereotypes are now often presented in a more subtle manner.”
Argument 2
The advertising industry is notorious for its Machiavellian marketing. They use tactics which are good for them, but ethically, are not so good.
On surface value, a stereotyped advertisement may seem harmless. Why? Because we have been exposed to them for so long that their inherent sexism is often overlooked. Companies time and time again exploit the unconscious bias of their target demographics for financial gain, ignoring the severe social consequences of the messages expressed in their advertisements.
Many stereotypes are subtle, like a housewife in an ad for cleaning products, or a businessman in an ad for insurance, but this does not make them free from harm. Instead, it makes distinguishing between what is stereotype and what is realistic difficult. Yes, wives still clean houses. Yes, husbands work in offices and control financial affairs. But the opposite is also true, isn’t it?
Should ads be allowed to educate our children obsolete stereotypes
Imagine what this is doing to their aspirations. Well, you don’t need to, because they are already doing this. A recent study by _________________ showed that by the age of 6, girls believe that boys are, as a whole, smarter than them, and as a result females can be discouraged from seeking more intellectually demanding, prestigious careers, which is reflected in their underrepresentation in such fields.
2019-7-17-1563344711