Gender biased Adverts

_Dara_ wrote: »

Alrighty, here we go. I haven't even broken a sweat coming up with these. And I'm not trivialising men's concerns about the way ads are increasingly portraying them. I'm just saying it is very erroneous to say that it's all rosy for women in advertising. And of sometimes ads can objectify men, but there are just so many more featuring women. It's background noise. And that before we even get on to the subject of what Mitchell and Webb were getting at with their famous sketch.

American apparel ads featuring a unisex shirt:



https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/02/1b/71021b2c1af66e5770e388ac3e0a2113.jpg - Probably NSFW





https://s13.postimg.org/bxbf2b1o7/2_EF841_CF00000578-3341856-image-a-35_1449009081057-1260x840.jpg - NSFW!

https://s13.postimg.org/vrxgohebr/1444075022-american-apparel.jpg - Probably NSFW

https://s13.postimg.org/u1efmg6x3/Lana-_Del-_Rey.jpg - Probably NSFW



https://s13.postimg.org/qhshwzrg7/up18u.jpg - Probably NSFW. An organ donation ad. Yeah.

https://humanwithuterus.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/images.jpg - NSFW. One of those lovely breast cancer awareness ads I was talking about. And 'Save the Tatas', what? That's so crass when part of the treatment will involve lopping off a boob. And this is just one example. There are many more, trust me.

https://s13.postimg.org/pgs97p2p3/s30.jpg - NSFW

And I could go on and on really.

I hadn't seen any of those. Any tv ad's say for example? Ideally one which some of us would have seen and remembered, not some late night one-off showing from the national broadcaster of Burundi for example.

Something along the lines of this one maybe, from about a week ago?



The top link you gave is terribly pixelated. Was that an approved active campaign?

The Lynx wash me ad: How shocking. Got anything more recent than 2007 on that one?

The 3rd one has two shirtless men, and a woman in reasonably daring outfit, but she's not exactly prominent. This is a terrible example to state women are sexualised more than men, if anything there are more objectified men here than women!

Katy Perry holding a packet of potato chips. I'm sorry I'm not seeing anything there.

Next 2, yeah fine, never seen either of those. Has anybody on here? Ironically American Apparel seem to be the worst offenders with this, you'd think they'd be one of the companies where wearing clothes was the better way to show off their brand!

GQ: Terrible example. You've taken one front cover with a woman in a provocative pose, and 2 guys in suits. And? These are anecdotes. Also, the target audience for GQ is males from 18 to 25. It's a lifestyle magazine that appeals to that group. It's not exactly a great surprise to see covers with a well dressed man or a reasonably attractive woman. Let's also not ignore the fact that her pose is not exactly what you'd often see of the cover of FHM back in the day.

The suited man behind sofa. Again, am I missing something here?

Organ donor ad - Yep, terrible, but again, who has seen this? How obscure and 3rd rate is that campaign? This Belgian ad from 2008 was quite controversial at the time.

Save The Tatas: Is that even real? It looks a forgery.

Tom Ford: Yeah, fine, that's a good example. Again, this was from 2007. Looks like we are struggling here.


So of all of those we have maybe 4 examples where it used a woman in a perhaps excessively sexualised tone, none of them on tv, most of them from about 10 years ago, and the genuinely bad ones were rounded criticised! I doubt many were visible in the Irish market. In any event all of these are anecdotal evidence and no more. Nothing has been proven from that.

If we were able to mine every advertisement campaign in the world you could probably sufficiently suggest anything you wanted to believe was true.

(For what it's worth good luck to them. Modern advertising is crap anyway, and I'm not convinced most of it works.)

_Dara_ wrote: »

Print ads were easier to post about. I barely watch TV ads these days so I'm not taking notice of them. Many of my examples are for big companies. So what if you personally haven't seen them? "I haven't seen them myself so it's not an issue". The conditions people are attaching are bizarre. Blatant goalpost-moving.

The pixelated ad you asked about. I'm not sure but it's American Apparel. That ad is tame compared to what they usually put out.

Oh and I never said all the ads were in the last year or two. I'm obviously not going to bother feverishly checking their exact release date. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Oh and one more thing: 'Save the Tatas' is a very much real campaign.

As for whether advertising works? Yes it does, otherwise companies would not spend money on it. We're all susceptible. Yes, even you.

How are print ads easier to post about? That's absolute rubbish. It wasn't an issue for me to go on YouTube and find a tv ad I was looking for as an example I had in mind to go against your proposed narrative. It took all of about 30 seconds to find! The reason I could do so was because I knew what to search for, the reason for that was because the advert was so prominent!

If we look at the basis of this thread, the discussion is around if it's acceptable to advertise with the specific reference to men v women.

You made the following comment:

"Men much more regularly get treated as idiots in ads.
Women much more regularly get treated like sex objects in ads.*

Both genders have problems with their portrayal in advertising.

*Wonder if someone will bring up the nearly 30 year old diet coke ad in order to refute this point."

Your post is current tense. Therefore it stands to reason that if you're going to use examples, that examples of very recent history would suffice. Let's also not ignore the last sentence you include, which suggests that it has been a long time since a man has been treated as a sex object in an ad. I was able to come back to give you an example of an ad which has been quite prominently advertised on tv in recent months, and as far as I know is still an active tv ad! Are there examples of the reverse which we'd have seen here in Ireland any time recently? I won't even argue that there are none, but I see ads all the time and I can't think of one as overt as Paco Robanne.

I don't even really see what the problem is with either men or women being used in a sexualised way in an advertisement campaign. If people don't like it then don't use their products. I've done this in the past and it seems a reasonable approach.

You were challenged to give examples to back your post and came back with what you did. You were asked on this because posters were trying to think of examples where there was an overt sexualisation of women used in the ads. I mean if it's so prevalent in the market then surely there should be some examples that easily come to mind, prominent examples. If what you've proposed is your attempt to support your argument (which I can only assume it is - I mean why else would you bother posting it if not?) then you have failed miserably. Most of them are either extremely old (thus not appropriate to your current tense claim), were not overtly (and in some cases even subtly) sexualised towards women, and in others they were so obviously obscure that it's very unlikely that we'd have seen it. This was the challenge that was put to you. I mean I think it's fair to say that this includes not just strictly Irish ad campaigns, but ones included in UK or arguably even US ones.

You said you barely watch TV ad's so you take no notice of them. Reasonably to deduce then that since you didn't post any TV ad's, and you're using that as an excuse, then you are acutely aware of the details of the examples that you did provide. So I assume then you knew of the several ads you gave as examples were over 10 years old, and several of them were promptly pulled after quite hearthy backlash and negative feedback.

I move no goalposts when I say that I haven't seen those specific ads. It stands to reason that I, like others, have not seen these obviously high profile ads, that we all can't be wrong. We're talking here about examples people could REASONABLY have been expected to see. The poster who asked you to give examples did so on the basis that he himself couldn't think of any, so let's see some. I hardly think the Belgian advert for Organ Donation from 2008 falls into this category. I mean call me a harsh judge on that score for having such a tough criteria for timeliness and relevance to what's predominantly an Irish forum. I'd say 90% of the people reading this post WOULD have seen the paco robanne ad at some stage.

Indeed, many of your examples are from big companies, but like I say, they are also f*cking ancient and/or were promptly quickly pulled from the market, and/or aren't really all that sexualised.

You never said the ad's were in the last year or two? You're post was in the current tense. Therefore, either reconsider your tense, or give current examples.

I won't even argue that women are occasionally sexualised to use in advertising campaigns. But recent history has shown massive backlash when it did occur e.g. the Hunky Dory's ads. There has been a huge collapse in the visibility of this sort of campaign. I won't even argue that there is a huge amount of men being sexed up for advertising, but when it does occur it can be fairly out there and there's no real backlash against it. It strikes me that the point you're making is certainly much less relevant today, possibly to the point where it's not even true. The challenge is there to prove otherwise.