Muratalla 1

Carlos Muratalla
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
31 October, 2016

Media: The effects of stereotyping women

Women in society are treated with disrespect and are thought to have thin variety of skill
and talent. The advertisement industry influences our society by making us think that women
need to be in the kitchen or that they need to be showing off their perfect body. In society is
often frowned upon if you seem feminine, because women are mostly feminine. This is
important to analyze and call out because it shows how there is an inequality in society in terms
of the way males are treated as opposed to females.
In the advertisement I chose, the picture shows a man saying wives are only for cooking.
The ad shows him saying The chef does everything but cook thats what wives are for!, this
shows how in society even though the women is doing all the cooking and cleaning in the
kitchen, the man still gets the title as Chef. The chef is often the one who is in charge of
everything in the kitchen, and still the women who does everything is still treated as the servant
and is inferior to the man. This ad also shows the women smiling, making it seem like the
women is happy with being in the kitchen, being without a provider for her family and being

Muratalla 2
less. The man is smiling as well in the picture and the text on the image is said as if it were a
joke, this statement shows how before women were thought to only have skills in the kitchen and
in the area of maintaining the house for the man. This reinforces the stereotype that women are
happy being in the kitchen and they enjoy being bossed around. This articles helps to show that
roles in society are male dominated and are full of men being the leaders of the business.
In Renzetti & Curran the authors speak of when we are at a young age we are often
affected by the types of toys we use and see. In studies that were taken by the 2, it was found that
the girls had toys that often helped influence and breed them for their lives later, the toys often
found for the girls were taking care of babies, playing with dolls and being in the kitchen. For the
boys it was often found that they played with vehicles, action figures and outside in nature. This
connects to the idea that women are treated as less because during childhood years the girls are
taught to be nurturing and to maintain the house, then by the time they are with their spouse they
are influenced by the advertisements to be a happy house wife and have less freedom than their
spouse. They have to conform to these ideas of being at home and not trying to get an education
just because they were bred to do such. This idea also relates to the article of Aaron Devor, in
this article he says that in society we show our gender by the way we present ourselves and roles
we do. This occurs in the ad, the woman gives an example of how a woman was supposed to
look at that period in history, the woman has painted nails and her hair is neatly fixed, while the
man is in a suit that looks as if he works for a business. The ad has a message that shows only the
man can do business and that the women has to listen to what is said. These advertisements that
are meant for women were male dominated creators and they were trying to get persuade a sale
from the womans point of view. In Renzetti & Curran, they speak of the difference of the toys
that we have based on the sex of the person. The boys again had violent action figures with

Muratalla 3
weapons and enforcing with strength figures, and this develops the way the males think because
the toys teach us the being violent and killing those who oppose us is the right thing to do. For
girls the toys that use are those mainly concerning the concept of maternity, this shows how they
are bred to become mothers and care-takers.
In advertisements that involve women it is often seen that the womans body is contorted
and made to look perfect, something that is unattainable. This causes the women to want plastic
surgery on order to attain the characteristics that they want. In the article What do Woman
want? The effects of Gender and Sexual Orientation on the Desirability of Physical Attributes in
the Personal Ads of Women by Christine Smith, she says that women often feel as if they are
not pretty and in this society where on social media we often see these beautiful women in ads it
is virtually impossible to not witness. Through the media we teach each other how to treat our
women and men in society, but from this societal output we teach each other that it is right to be
treated this way. In old cartoons that Ive personally seen there would be construction workers
and as soon as they saw a woman walk by, they would do a cat call and what this is, is a where
they whistle and are ill-mannered of the womans beauty. In the cartoons the woman would turn
around and enjoy the attention because this meant they meant something because they were
pretty, the media taught us that whistling at women was appropriate when it wasnt, and it taught
some women that being pretty is all they have for themselves.
Many try to refute this idea that women are being exploited by men. These people also
say that the women are not forced to do anything and have the right to stop what they want and
leave, but the truth is that the people who control the advertisements are men and they can just
cast another beautiful young women and exploit her body in exchange for fame. Also, the people
we tell them that the woman who is taking part in the music video or photo shoot is empowering

Muratalla 4
herself and is doing good to stop the stereotypes of a woman who does not doing anything but
stay in the house as a way to convince them to use their body. Women, who, through such
media representations, are increasingly encouraged to exploit their bodies as a means of capital
exchange. (Coy, 2009; Douglas, 2010; Katz, 2006; McRobbie, 2009; Oppliger, 2008) This
shows that women are able to say no to exploit their capital or body because it is theirs.
However, in an article by Elza Ibroscheva, pieced Caught Between East and West? Portrayals of
Gender in Bulgarian Television Advertisements the author speaks of how in a prospering
industry of ads in Bulgaria, the women are subject to being treated horribly. Women in this
country are often treated with being underpaid in every class and in the year 2004 approximately
50.4% of women from 16- 64 were unemployed because the work force is discriminatory to
women. Due to the fact of advertisement criticizing women and making them seem as the
weaker sex, they have endured turmoil in real life and thus life imitates the art of
advertisement. In the entertainment industry to women have been eroticized with their bodies
and are victims of this from male. As a result from this advertisement in the countries, the effect
of this is that women are being treated as second class seconds. The women are not chosen for
jobs simply for the fact that theyre simply women and they are not going to be enough to
suffice.
In conclusion women in adverts are often treated as being as pieces of meats. Through
advertisements, the sexualization of females has caused a wave of misogyny in eastern countries
that has been apparent in western countries such as the united states. From childhood we are
taught how to act a certain way, and in the united states it is often where the woman is the
weakling and having the characteristics of a feminine which is typically a woman, is known as a

Muratalla 5
bad thing. The way that we view a woman in media comes and influences to view them the same
way in society, by stereotypes of them being uneducated and proud to show their body.

Muratalla 6
Works Cited
Ibroscheva, Zelza. Caught Between East and West? Portrayals of Gender in Bulgarian
Television Advertisements. yr:2007 vol:57 iss:5 pg:409-418

Smith, Christine A. What Do Women Want? The Effects of Gender and Sexual Orientation on the
Desirability of Physical Attributes in the Personal Ads of Women, Sex Roles
May 2002, Volume 46, Issue 9, pp 337342

Curran, Daniel, From Women, Men, and Society, Composing Gender pp76-84