proposal

Proposal 

Title: Gender Roles Broadcasted through the Media

Author: Sam Imsland

Topic: Male and female pressures inflicted by advertising 

Exigence: To explain the impacts of sexual, violent, and dehumanizing advertisements in the media and the influence they have on peoples perception of the gender code. 

Intended Audience: The younger generation of men and women who pay attention to ads in the media. 

Purpose: To inform readers the power media has on influencing the socially desired gender roles. 

Claims: the objectification of women in ads dehumanizes them and the encouragement of violence for males in ads has increased sexual, physical, verbal assault in our country. 

Main evidence: 

To be accepted as a “real guy”, Kimmel argues, “The face you must show to the world insists that everything is going just find, that everything is under control, that there’s nothing to be concerned about”(609).

Eminem say’s, “The lowest degrading thing you can say to a man when you’re battling him is to call him a faggot and try to take away his manhood. Call him a sissy, call him a punk. “Faggot” to me doesn’t necessarily mean gay people. “Faggot” to me just means taking away your manhood”(612).

For example, “don’t be such a good boy”, say’s an ad with two beautiful women looking adoringly at a man, but he isn’t looking at either one of them. 

In a Diet Coke ad “the women are physically, separated from the man. He is the one in control. His body is powerful, not passive”(587). Strength and powerfulness are gender stereotypes which are ways to oppress and discriminate one or the other.

In an ad by Calvin Klein, they use a model who looked abused, vulnerable, and exploited. She is lying naked on a sofa, “plaint, available, androgynous enough to appeal to all kinds of pedophiles”(593). This kind of advertising degrades women and stretches the male and female roles further apart in our society. 

Also when compared to women, men are less likely to be sexually abused, but cultural attitudes make it difficult to take this seriously. “Many boys grow up feeling that they are unmanly if they are not always ‘ready for action,’ capable of and interested in sex with any women who is available”(595).