Sexism is seen in obvious and subtle ways in everyday life. When the average person hears the word sexism, he/she might think of someone being sexist towards a woman, but that is not always the case. Many sexist ads depict men as being incompetent or needing to be over masculine. A study at the University of Manitoba in Canada showed that hyper-masculine ads often led to an increase in violence and sexual aggression in men. This can be seen as comparable to a women who sees constant body stereotypes in marketing that lead her to an eating disorder. Now that we have defined the issue at hand, we must take a deeper look into the ethical value of respect to see where marketers are going wrong.
A segment from the American Marketing Association’s ethical values about respect is noted in the introduction specifying that marketers should respect consumers by not stereotyping by gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. It also states that marketers should respect the needs of consumers and monitor and improve their ads continuously to better respect the consumer. The ethical values describing respect concludes with the golden rule: treat others like you want to be treated. Are marketers treating different demographics the way they would like to be treated? Or are they going to extremes to try to appeal to the stereotype? Next, we will dive into the divide between marketing women and men, to see the extremes some marketers will go to.
While diving into our two specific targeted groups, we will first take a look at how marketing can be sexist towards women. There are many different types of sexism towards women. There can be the obvious sex symbol objectification of women while targeting towards men. While targeting to women marketers often use unrealistic body types to sell their products with the roaring overtone screaming, “This is what you should look like!” Sexist ads do not just affect the consumers of that product, but they affect most women that see the ad. A study was done to observe how women react as bystanders to a sexist comment. The study concluded that even though the remark was not said towards them, it raised their anxiety and depression because they related to the scenario. Sexist ads can disrespect more than just their consumer base.
The first sexist women’s ads we will explore are those marketed to women. Society has an impact on almost everyone, but how does it affect the malleable minds of our youth? There was an ad depicting a young girl who appears to be around the age of eleven jumping in the air in a bikini, and the ad was for “waxing for girls 15 and younger.” It claimed to offer young women a safe easy way to get their “first wax.” Many parents and psychologists were horrified at how much the ad sexualized these young girls.
Do these unethical marketers ask themselves how young is too young to sexualize women? They should be asking themselves if they are following the ethical guidelines of respect by sexualizing women of any age to sell their product.
Pinterest has a user base that is 80% female, with 90% of their posts being female as well. However, they recently hired the man behind the sexist Axe advertisements to be their head of marketing.
One of the commercials he created was called “Axe Instinct” and it showed three guys checking out a girl as she sits down at a table. It appears to be like a video game, when it shows the girl the words “get ready to play” beside of her, and above each guy it says “player.” Each of them chooses their “weapon” (or in this case, roses, chocolates, etc.) and zeros in on the girl trying to win. But of course the roses and chocolates were no match for the power of Axe body spray.
One of the most common things seen in sexism in marketing is the unrealistic body type shown on women. In the Canadian study mentioned earlier about the aggression advertisements can cause men, it listed Golf Digest, as one of the least harmful magazines. However, they may in fact be harming women instead. For one Golf Digest cover, they used a picture of Paulina Gretzky wearing white yoga pants, and a white sports bra in a “take me” pose as the article calls it. Paulina Gretzky plays a little golf, but she is primarily a model. Stacy Lewis, who has won two major titles, and was number one in the world last year, has never been on the cover. It seems as if marketers are so reliant to sell products with sex that they lose quality and content in the process.
When one things of sexism he/she may often think of sexism against women and examples like we discussed above, however, sexism isn’t sexist. Sexism affects many men negatively as well. This can range from sexualizing men in underwear ads, to depicting the incompetent dad/husband, to disgracing the metrosexual or homosexual man for not being manly enough for the standard definition.
The first type of advertisement we will look at is the manly man commercial. I am going to describe this commercial in full before telling you what it is advertising. It begins with a man checking out of the grocery store. He is a vegetarian checking out with his tofu, and the man behind him is checking out with ribs, steak and all kinds of manly man foods. The tofu man looks very self-conscious and leaves the grocery store in a hurry, extremely upset. He drives straight to the Hummer dealership, buys a new hummer, and drives off eating a carrot as the words appear on the screen “Restore the balance.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4ZkYPLN38
There are also many commercials that are targeted at women that are sexist against men. These are often the ones that make men look like the “simple minded idiot,” while making the women look smart and up to speed. There was a Yoplait Yogurt commercial showing a women on the phone telling her friend about the amazing pies and cakes she has been eating as a part of her diet. Her husband hears and begins digging through the fridge dying to find a piece of pie. The ad shows his confusion and lack of ability to recognize flavored yogurt, while making the women look healthy and smart. While this may work for some women it shows a complete lack of respect for the male sex.
Not every advertisement and commercial in the marketing place is disrespectfully sexist. However, the fact that sexist advertisements still exist at all is a major flaw in marketing ethics. Luckily most adults can recognize sexism in marketing and learn to ignore it or become tolerant to it. But what happens when children are given these gender roles at an early age? I once saw a pink glue stick that had a sticker on the front of it that read “Just for girls!” How does that make a little boy feel when he sees it and wants to use the pink glue stick? While advertisements do not affect all adults, it still leaves its mark. The Canadian study found that younger, low-income, less educated males were more likely to be susceptible to sexual aggression and violence caused by hyper-masculine advertisements.
Sex will forever be a difficult stain to move from advertising, but the rest of the gender roles can be easily improved. Some guys like tofu and they might also want a Hummer so do not exclude them. Some boys like pink, so do not tell them it is just for girls. Girls are not a video game conquest so do not create this associational lens for young men to see women through. For advertisers to release a commercial that could even barely be taken as sexist, they should be required to show the commercial to a panel of people of that sex, so find if the commercial made them feel disrespected in any way.
The disrespect that comes with sexism hurts people of both sexes and all sexual orientations. It is not ethical for marketers to degrade one sex or the other to sell a product. The average person living in a city sees 5,000 advertisements in a day, so even though we may not realize it, these images are constantly filling our minds.
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