Elon University

Sexism in Modern Advertising and its Impact on Women

Alexandra Bean
COM 4970F: Great Ideas: Issues and Research
Dr. Byung Lee
29 November 2021
Abstract
The goal of this study was to examine the prevalence of sexist advertising in modern advertising
and to evaluate its impact on women. Six female college students were interviewed through a
series of 13 questions on their perceptions of advertising, the impact it had on them, and what
they wished to see change in advertising. Findings showed two sexist portrayals of women in
advertising: “the caretaker” and “the model”. “The caretaker” was used to show women taking
care of her house and family, while “the model” portrayed a stereotypical, attractive model being
used as a sexual promotion to sell a product or service. The study concludes with
recommendations posed by respondents on how to improve female representation in
advertising. (119)

I. Introduction
In the decades since researchers first began investigating the portrayal of women in advertising,
it is assumed that some progress has been made. Responding to contemporary concerns on
inclusion and diversity, the media industry has adapted to a wider array of roles and images for
women (Kacen, 2002). However, advertising media has not followed this trend. According to
Kacen (2002), “stereotypical portrayals [of women] have continued and perhaps even increased
in the last 20 years.”

The problem with female representation in advertising is not trivial. Advertising portrays a
“soundbite” into “how to act, dress, and behave and then feed[s] those images back to us in an
endless feedback loop” (Kacen, 2002). Advertisements typically rely on stereotypes in order to
convey information quickly, but at what costs?

The purpose of this study is to examine how sexist advertising tactics are still being used today
and to evaluate their impact on women. This study will also suggest areas of growth for the
advertising industry based on respondents’ recommendations.

II. Literature Review

How the Literature Search was Conducted
The JSTOR and ProQuest journal databases were used to find articles relating to the topic at
hand. The search terms used included: sexism, advertising, media, women representation,
psychological effects, and female stereotypes. A Google search was also conducted using the
same terms to reveal non-scholarly, more current research on sexism in the advertising industry.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Literature

To be included in the literature review, the articles had to meet a certain criterion such as: a) the
article had to be published between 1995-2021 (an exemption was made for some articles for
comparative reasons) b) mention the evolving and ongoing issues with sexism and female
representation in advertising (c) mention the effects of advertising on women. Articles that were
excluded had elements such as: a) outdated advertising examples and information b)
male-centered reviews of advertisements.

Overview
Mager and Helgeson (2011) evaluated the portrayals of women and men in United States
magazine advertisements from 1950 through 2000. Based on 7,912 portrayals of people in
3,212 advertisements they found significant changes in advertisements over time. Despite
transitions in feminism and cultural trends over the 50-year time period, Mager and Helgeson
found that the results still showed that women remained subordinate to men in advertising.

Similarly, the Center for Research on Women (CROW) at Stanford University studied how
women are perceived in advertising and suggested ways to improve women's image within the
industry. The study showed that advertising agencies continued to favor sexist imagery in
advertising, rather than considering the social needs of women (Butler-Paisley, 1975).

But how is it, after all this time, do women remain victims of sexist advertising? My analysis
examines how a continued negative pattern of sexist marketing tactics may be at fault. This
literature review serves to investigate how perpetuated ideals of female physical image,
expectations, and stereotypes illustrate an on-going sexism issue within the advertising industry.

The Female Image

While examining issues related to gender, sexism in language, and gender bias within
advertising, Artz and her colleagues (1999) found that women were more often portrayed as
young, and they were significantly more concerned with physical attractiveness than their male
counterparts. Similarly, a study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a
nonprofit research organization, examined how women are represented in advertisements. This
study found that men spanned across their 20s, 30s, and 40s, while women were almost
universally in their 20s (Mallon, 2017). Additionally, one out of 10 female characters were
dressed in "sexually-revealing" clothing, which was six times the amount of men outfitted in a
similar fashion.

When analyzing magazine advertisements specifically, researchers have found that “Western”
models (young, blonde, thin, white girls) contribute to greater sexuality in magazine advertising
(Nelson, 2005). More specifically, results show that advertisements targeted to young adults
were 65 percent more likely to contain sexually provocative models and 128 percent more likely
to contain sexual behavior than those for mature adults (Reichert, 2003). Furthermore, female
models were 3.7 times more likely to be portrayed sexually than were male models in
advertisements for young adults.

Furthermore, Telford (1997) examined the effects ad campaigns had on promoting an

unattainable appearance in women. She found that sexist portrayals of women in advertising
were not only prevalent, but they had a negative impact on the women who observed them,
specifically contributing to eating disorders and a negative self image.

Female Expectations
Oftentimes, brands rely on the stereotypical idea of a woman–the young, thin, blonde, who is
passive and agreeable, whose main ambition in life is to get married and have children.
However, there has been a shift in focus from how women need to fix their appearance, to how
they can “improve” their attitude and behavior (Tesseras, 2021). Although this mentality is often
well-intentioned, telling women to change who they are is equally as damaging to their psyche
as telling them what they should look like.

This idea even presents itself into corporate feminism. With corporate advertising, women are
told that in order to be successful in the workplace they need to be braver, bolder, and more
outspoken, which may seem positive in theory, but women being told to change their demeanor
at work suggests that women can not be themselves and still be successful, they must still
change something about themselves (King, 2021).

When women are shown in advertising it is often in a negative light, with ads featuring explicit or
implied criticism about their appearance or their failure to look after their house or family. This
results in a perfectionist narrative that implies that women are failing to live up to the
expectations set for them.

To measure the impact of this perfectionist narrative, over the span of 15 years, Cunningham
and Roberts conducted 4,000 hours worth of interviews and discussion groups with women
about their opinions on advertising. Cunningham and Roberts found that, despite women’s
progress across many areas of society, advertisements still consistently portray women as
secondary (Altman, personal connection, 2021) The authors argue that the most common
misconception in advertising is that women’s goal and ambition in life starts and stops with
“achieving male approval and patronage” (p. 14). Essentially, getting married and having kids.
Advertisements then perpetuate the idea that everything leading up to this is preparation and
training to successfully achieve it, and everything after that is a decline into nothingness.

When looking at this impact over the course of a lifetime, where it is assumed that young
women consume roughly 10,000 messages a day from brands, as kids, girls are taught to be
kind, sweet, affectionate, and looking after others (Altman, 2021). For young women in their late
teens and early 20s, it’s all about their appearance, making sure to be as perfect as possible in
order to seek and achieve male approval, and then, in their 30s, women are expected to be the
perfect mom, endlessly happy and delighted to have a baby (Mallon, 2017). Everything after
getting married and having children becomes irrelevant as it is expected for the woman to
cherish her husband and children more than her personal ambitions.

Female Stereotyping
Cunningham and Roberts (2021) also found that women were routinely cast in “male-pleasing”
roles, such as the sweet little girl, the boy-crazy teenager, the sex doll, or the perfect housewife
and mother. Among these personas, Gill (2008) also found women to be portrayed as the
young, heterosexual, and sexually driven women, the vengeful women, and the “hot lesbian.”

Furthermore, marketing is still presenting women as “vacant" and dumb. When asked what
characteristics they felt defined them most, women put sense of humor and intelligence as two
of the top three, however, results showed that only 3 percent of ads consist of women actually
being funny and only 3 percent of ads show women acting intellectually (Cunningham &
Roberts, 2021). To make matters worse, when researchers examined the setting of an ad,
women were 48 percent more likely to be placed in the kitchen compared to their male
counterparts, and roughly 33 percent of men were shown to have a job, compared to just 25
percent of women (Mallon, 2017).

In order to test the extent of derogatory (stereotypical) depictions of women in online

advertising, Plakoyiannaki (2008) examined the portrayal of women across multiple online
platforms. The results showed that women were generally portrayed in a stereotypical way. Most
notable from their findings were the stereotypical portrayal of women across web pages with
considerably different audiences. With female-audience web pages, women were expressed
decoratively with pink or floral patterns. On male-audience web pages, women were found
depicting “dependent” roles to their male counterparts, and with gender neutral-audience web
pages, women were portrayed as polarizing depictions of either the housewife or an equal to
men. The author found that, overall, traditional stereotypes were largely evident in all three
audience types.

However, it is important to note that Michele Miller (2005) found that the most common error
made in advertising to women is addressing this mass demographic as “just that”--a mass of
female hormones that are programmed to think, act and behave in a similar fashion.
Additionally, it is a mistake to divide women into either “stay-at-home moms” or
“businesswoman,” as there is overlap between the two categories (2005).

Areas of Growth
“Femvertising,” a term coined by authors Varghese and Kumar (2020) , is defined by them as
“an advertising style that highlights women’s talents, centers themes on pro-woman messaging
and counters stereotyping" ("Introduction"). Although “femvertising” is a long way from becoming
a part of mainstream advertising, recent societal factors have started to contribute to its growth.
These include growing activism around the better representation of women in advertising,
growing brand activism, criticisms of corporate feminism, increasing awareness of gender
stereotyping, and increasing scrutiny on gender role representations in advertising (2020).

Research Questions
As a framework for analysis of sexist tactics in advertising, the author asked the following
research questions:
(1) How are sexist advertising tactics still being used today?
(2) What are the short-term and long-term effects of sexist advertising on women?
(3) What change still needs to be made in the advertising industry?

III. Method
Interviews
In research, interviews are used to help explain, better understand, and explore deeper into the
opinions, behaviors, experiences, beliefs, etc. of a subject. Many researchers have used
interviews to examine sexism in advertising. For example, researchers Cunningham and
Roberts conducted roughly 4,000 hours worth of interviews and discussion groups with women
about their opinions on advertising over a span of 15 years (Altman, 2017). Although timely, the
in-depth examination and analysis of a subject's viewpoints on an issue provide researchers
with a greater understanding on how their research affects their target audience.

This research attempts to do the same. In this study I will conduct interviews with women to
examine their opinions on sexist advertising, particularly on what forms of sexist advertising they
are familiar with, how it has impacted them, and what changes they want to see made in the
industry. This will help me to understand and answer my research questions above.

Procedure
For this study, I will be using a convenience sample. Meaning, I will interview six women that I
am in close proximity with due to the limited timeframe of the study. These six women will
consist of my roommates, friends, and sorority sisters, who are Elon University students
between the ages of 19-22 and self-proclaimed feminists.

Appendix
All interviewees will provide answers to the 13 questions below.
(1) Where do you view advertisements?
(2) Do you think advertising is sexist? If yes, how so? If not, why not?
(3) What are your general perceptions of advertising?
(4) What are your perceptions on female representation in advertising?
(5) What sexist forms of advertising have you seen/experienced?
(6) Has an advertisement with female representation ever made you second guess your
appearance or character? If so, why? Which one? Explain the advertisement in as much
detail as possible.
(7) What short-term effects do you think advertising has on you in terms of psychological
effects?
(8) What short-term effects do you think advertising has on you in terms of your perceptions
of your physical appearance?
(9) What do you think the possible long-term effects are in terms of psychological effects?
(10) What do you think the possible long-term effects are in terms of your perceptions of
your physical appearance?
(11) Have you observed any advertisements that you feel as though did an accurate or
appropriate job at representing women? If so, which one(s)? What elements of the
advertisement made you feel that way?
(12) Has an advertisement with female representation ever offended, angered, or left a
negative impression on you? If so, why? Explain the advertisement in as much detail as
possible.
(13) What do you wish to see change in advertisements?

IV. Findings and Discussion

The Interviews
There were six interviews completed over the course of one week in November 2021. Each
interview lasted roughly 30 to 45 minutes. All interviewees were female, Elon University
students between the ages of 19 and 22. All interviews were conducted outside, masked, and
socially distant.

Findings and Discussion

In regards to research question one, over 60 percent of respondents said they have
experienced advertisements depicting traditional gender roles (women being set as mothers
and homemakers, while men are seen working). According to one respondent, “cooking ads and
baby ads are still largely targeted towards women as they are still seen as caretakers and
homemakers.” Additionally, all respondents said that they experienced women being sexualized
in advertisements, especially in advertisements targeted towards men. One respondent said
that alcohol or car commercials targeted towards men are the biggest culprits of sexist
advertising. Another respondent said that advertisements targeted towards men almost always
have to do with power. The respondent added, “men always have the power and women have
to follow the men [in advertisements].”

This insight perpetuates the idea that women suffer from hypersexualization in advertisements
as a way to objective them. This objectification correlates the women to the product or service
being advertised, making the women a part of the product rather than a person promoting the
product.

When looking at research question two, all respondents reported experiencing immediate
self-criticism when viewing advertisements with stereotypical models. All respondents agreed
that these advertisements have an effect on their mental state and that they severely affect their
perceptions of their body image. One respondent said that these advertisements cause her to
question her appearance, asking herself “do I look good?” and “should I change?” before
leaving her house.

In terms of long-term effects, all respondents agreed that sexist advertising has serious negative
effects on how they think, act, and look. One respondent reported, “sometimes, I feel pressure
to look a certain way, and it’s reinforced by ads.” Another added, “if you’re constantly seeing a
level of perfection when it comes to physical beauty in women, it makes you feel like you are not
good enough or abnormal.”

However, half of respondents say they are actively aware of the negative impacts that sexist
advertising has on them, while the other half say it is more subconscious. According to one
respondent, “subconsciously, I think it has a much bigger effect than I realize.” Another
respondent admitted that advertisements subconsciously alter her attitudes toward her behavior
and appearance.

In regards to research question three, all respondents agreed that there needs to be more
diversity in advertising, not only in race and ethnicity, but in body sizes. Additionally, 66 percent
of respondents said they want to see more equality in terms of female representation in
advertising. According to one respondent, “it would be nice… if gender roles weren’t a focus
because I feel like ads are more successful when they don’t follow a traditional mold.” Another
added, “I wish there were more ads empowering women instead of using them as a means to
sell a product. Women are too sexualized in advertising.” Ultimately, women want “more
diversity, more equality, and better representation of people in general.”

V. Conclusion
Although it may seem that advertising has progressed in recent years, this study highlights the
prevalence of sexist advertising, its effect on college-age women, and the changes women wish
to see made in the industry. All respondents agreed that sexist advertising is very much present,
and that it negatively impacts both their mental and physical health. In the future, women hope
to see better image representation and more equality in the industry.

Past researchers have documented the psychological impact that sexist advertising can have
on women, both short- and long-term. With an expected increase in media usage in the coming
years, it is important to address women’s concerns with advertising in order to better represent
them. Hopefully, this will prevent future generations from the negative impacts of sexist
advertising.
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