Advertisers' Depiction of Men and Women

by Don Rey

     Advertising has always been the subject of much controversy and discussion. Advertisers will go to nearly any extent to grab an audience. This can be outright offensive to anyone who takes the time to analyze the methods and intentions of an ad. However, if viewed superficially (which is how they are viewed by the general public) they are very successful at drawing consumers to a product and they seem most innocent. Innocence, however, is also only superficial in the sense that the damage is done internally and unconsciously. Advertisers very often, if not always, make assumptions about their audience in the form of a stereotype. These stereotypes are often blunt truths about how people think subconsciously. This is the topic of Susan Bordo’s essay, "Hunger as Ideology." In this essay, she analyzes very deeply several advertisements. She details the assumptions made and the intentions of the advertisements, as well as reasons behind these. Although some of Bordo’s descriptions of the advertisements are a little too deeply analytical, they have basis that I agree strongly with. The difference in the way men and women are represented in advertisements is a careful balance of aspects appealing to the conscious and subconscious mind of an audience, engineered in a way that will draw that audience toward the product advertised.

     In a particular passage in her writing, she describes two ads promoting Häazen-Dazs "yuppie ice craam" (Bordo 168). The first ad consists of a woman dressed in rather sophisticated clothing with expensive jewelry. She is holding an intentionally expensive-looking art frame and a Häazen-Dazs "Brittle Bar." The placement of the brittle bar is important, in that it is inside the frame as if being displayed as a work of art. The woman has apparently taken a single bite (of medium size) out of the bar and has a very satisfied look on her face. In a very similar ad, a man with equivalently sophisticated clothing, substituting a tie and cufflinks for jewelry, has assumedly eaten a carton of vanilla fudge ice cream about a pint in size. The carton is tipped over on an art-setting surface, the man has the spoon in his mouth and also a very satisfied look on his face (Bordo 169)

     There is very little coincidence in these advertisements. They are engineered to be virtually flawless. They make many assumptions and inferences. However, Bordo writes about sexual references to the ads in her essay. In this way, she has overanalyzed the ads and explained inferences that do not exist. The only sexual association to these particular ads is the attractiveness of the models. This is simply for basic viewing pleasure of their audience. An advertiser (for ice cream especially) would not chose overweight models or unattractive ones. Regarding sexual reference Bordo writes, "To eat in a business suit is like having "quickie" sex in the office, irregular and naughty" (Bordo 170). I disagree that this is an intention of these particular ads. Sexuality is very often used in advertisements today, and often very cryptically. But this is not always the case. Instead, these ads are designed very carefully so that the viewer sees the clothing, setting, and facial expression. The state of the ice cream in the woman’s case is to avoid upsetting the subconscious mind of the audience by showing a woman indulging "salaciously" in her ice cream. In the case of the man, it is more a goal to appeal to the audience by showing how good the ice cream must be if he indulged so "salaciously" in it that he left it empty and tipped over, assumedly as a snack.

     The state of the woman’s ice cream bar in comparison with the state of the man’s ice cream carton is the most important difference between the two ads. The bar has a mere bite out of it, while the carton is apparently finished. Both the man and the woman are indulging in their little ice cream snack. The manner in which they are doing so, however, is very different. The woman has taken just a bite, while the man has finished the carton. The tipped carton further emphasizes this. In describing another ad which displays a man indulging heartily in a bowl of cereal, Bordo writes,

…we might begin by attempting to imagine an advertisement depicting a young, attractive woman indulging as freely, as salaciously as the man in the Post cereal ad […]. Such an image would violate deeply sedimented expectations, would be experienced by many as disgusting and transgressive. When women are positively depicted as sensuously voracious about food (almost never in commercials, and only very rarely in movies and novels), their hunger for food is employed solely as a metaphor for their sexual appetite (Bordo 148)

I agree with this statement, and this is the reason for the major difference between the two advertisements. There is no danger, and in fact there is benefit for displaying a man with a large appetite for dessert. However, a woman with a large appetite would consciously be seen as wrong and disgusting. The subconscious implications of this, however, are more complicated and very different.

     In my recent experience on a college campus with teenage and young-adult women at mealtime, I have seen the assumptions of this advertisement (and this idea of the small appetite of women) proven wrong. An audience viewing an ad that depicts a woman eating "salaciously" would subconsciously find this revolting. However, women know that if they had that ice cream bar, they would not simply leave it at one bite for any great amount of time. They would not stop to pose after taking a bite, but would continue to eat the remainder of the bar. This behavior is advertised freely with men, and even condoned, but forbidden in ads with women. Being a college student and a bother to three sisters, I have seen the appetites of women at the dinner table. I know women who eat a great deal more than men of similar size and build. I would approximate that more than half the number of females I have eaten with behave in this manner. This very much contradicts the advertisements and possibly popular belief, or at least what a woman will admit. And this is where the successfulness of the ads comes in. Advertisers prey on stereotypical desires of women. Eating a great deal of food will not help a women get what she wants subconsciously, but eating salaciously implies this. Therefore, an advertiser will not show a woman eating this way in order to please the audience. Men will openly admit to having a large appetite, and this is a popularly known fact. Women are much less likely to admit this so it is not accepted as a fact of life. The assumptions made by the advertisers are those facts of life.

     Not only can these assumptions be found in advertisements, but also with what is not shown in advertisements. I looked long and hard for an advertisement displaying a woman in the process of eating cereal to compliment the Post cereal ad featuring a man. The closest I came was an ad showing both a woman (not eating) and a bowl of cereal in the same image. The woman looked content and genuinely happy, but was not eating the cereal. It just sat there with milk and spoon in the bowl, untouched. The advertiser expects the audience’s attention to first be drawn to the attractive woman, deep in content thoughts, then to the perfectly untouched, very appetizing cereal. Again, the advertiser makes the assumption that women do not want to admit they have a large appetite. Displaying an eating woman would imply the woman’s appetite, and this would not be attractive.

     There is deeper purpose to the business suit in this advertisement, as well. This is to display a man and a woman of sophisticated stature very much enjoying some ice cream. This is appealing to a wide audience. A more sophisticated audience, who may often dress in business suits or even business casual will see the ice cream as sophisticated and therefore desired. A less sophisticated audience (by virtually any definition) will merely see some well-dressed people very content with their Häazen-Dazs ice cream. They may subconsciously want to be like the sophisticated people, or they may simply want a more sophisticated ice cream. In either case, the advertisement is successful. The difference between the two advertisements is the jewelry worn by the woman. A woman with jewelry can be considered more sophisticated because of the cost of jewelry. Sophistication implies wealth, which makes jewelry is affordable. The only jewelry worn by the man is his cufflinks. These, however, do not visibly stand out in the ad, so men wearing any jewelry at all must not be appealing to a general audience when sophistication is the idea attempted. Today, men who wear jewelry are generally younger with less experience and less personal wealth. Therefore, the use of men with jewelry would not help the advertisers get their idea of sophisticated ice cream across.

     Bordo agrees with the wide audience attempted with these ads. Bordo writes about the caption of the ad, "Enter the State of Häazen-Dazs," describing it as "…a clear invocation of the public world rather than the domestic domain" (Bordo 170). She is describing the large social target range of an advertisement such as this one. Häazen-Dazs ice cream is not necessarily a product strictly for the sophisticated, but the ad may appear to the audience as a measure its quality. Sophisticated people with such expensive dress must have the money for better products, so are accustomed to better food and they must have good taste in ice cream. Therefore, if people as sophisticated as those depicted in the ad eat this brand of ice cream, then it must be good.

     The goal of advertisers is not to change society, but to sell their product based on assumptions made about an audience in society. These assumptions come from both the subconscious and the conscious minds of men and women. When an ad is engineered, much psychology, thinking, and hypothesizing is put forth. Nothing placed in these advertisements is coincidental. The differences between men and women in similar ads have purpose, whether conscious or subconscious. The differences themselves are not particularly meant to be noticed, and often the details that differ are not meant to be noticed either. They are often aspects that are left out because if included, they would damage the image of the product. Other times, they are details (such as the woman’s jewelry) added to better appeal to the audience. In any case, the aspects that differ, as well as the rest of the ad, are not coincidences. They are carefully planned to assist in the sale of a product.

Reference:

Bordo, Susan. "Hunger as Ideology". Ways of Reading. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. 4^th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999. 139-70