Gender and language in advertising

Some American scholars, in the 1970s, began to develop a new approach to sociocultural studies such as literature, sociology, history. This approach has been called "gender studies", a new method to reinterpret socio-cultural studies starting from a different point of view, that is to say analysing gender identity. In fact, gender studies have been inspired by feminist ideas and movements which declared that women’s role in history has been defined by men, since feminists tend to highlight the opposition between ‘sex’, namely the biological difference between men and women, and ‘gender’ which is instead a social stereotyping of women’s role created exactly by men in order to dominate their partners. Gender studies have been applied to a wide spectrum of sciences and human social aspects, including advertising.
The aim of this paper is to study gender stereotyping in advertising, in order to outline how women are depicted in advertisements in contrast with men. Our target are obviously women, who have to understand how advertising manipulates their minds using fashionable and stylish advertisements. However, we also address to men, whose support would be fundamental if we really want to destroy gender stereotypes. We will explain how gender defines men’s and women’s identity since their childhood, especially through the learning of a mother tongue or language in general, a relevant element in gender construction. Moreover, we will deal with the stereotypes proposed by advertising, highlighting the subtle power they have on our society, which can be easily manipulated in order to suit advertisers’ models. Finally, we will employ the theoretical studies regarding ‘gender and language’ and ‘gender in advertising’ to examine some advertisements, underlining how advertising has not really changed since the 1950s.
This paper is, then, divided in three chapters. Chapter One is focused on ‘gender and language’, in other words it explains how language is influenced by the gender of the speaker and how the speaker himself is influenced by language. In fact, men’s speech shows some features which are not observed in women’s speech, such as the opposition between a direct male speech and a female speech which is characterised by elements of uncertainty and politeness. Language also influences an individual’s identity: women learn how to speak in a ‘ladylike’ way since their childhood, in order to become polite and submissive adults when they will grow up.