Gender, Consumption, and Ideology in Advertising Across Eras
This paper examines how gender, consumption, and ideology are interwoven in advertising by analyzing three print advertisements spanning several decades: a 1952 Schlitz beer ad, an early 1970s Sansabelt pants ad, and a contemporary Budweiser ad. Drawing on scholars including Laura Mulvey, Feona Atwood, and Evans and Riley, the paper traces how depictions of women in advertising have shifted from passive domestic figures to sexually assertive subjects. It argues that while feminist and post-feminist ideologies have altered how women perceive their own sexuality and agency, advertising has remained anchored to sex as a primary motivational force, raising unresolved questions about whether women's sexual visibility in ads represents empowerment or continued objectification.
- Introduction: Sex, Gender, and the Advertising Industry: Bernays, Freud, and sex as advertising's foundation
- The Schlitz Ad and the Budweiser Contrast: 1952 domestic ad versus modern sexualized beer advertising
- Sansabelt and the Male-Centered Gaze: 1970s pants ad reinforces male dominance and sexual hierarchy
- Post-Feminism, Consumer Citizenship, and Shifting Ideology: Post-feminist theory reframes women as consumer agents
- Conclusion: What Advertising Reveals About Gender and Power: Sex still drives ads despite ideological change
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds abstract theoretical concepts — the male gaze, post-feminism, neoliberal subjectivity — in specific, concrete advertisement examples, making the argument accessible and evidence-based.
- It presents multiple ideological perspectives honestly, acknowledging that feminist scholars disagree about whether women's sexual visibility constitutes empowerment or objectification, rather than forcing a simplistic conclusion.
- The chronological comparison across three decades of ads gives the argument a clear developmental arc, showing how gender representation has evolved without claiming a single linear narrative.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative textual analysis of visual media. By placing ads from different eras side by side and reading them through competing theoretical lenses (Mulvey's male gaze, Atwood's sexualization thesis, Evans and Riley's post-feminist consumer citizenship), the writer shows how the same image can carry contradictory ideological meanings depending on the framework applied.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a historical framing via Edward Bernays and Freud to establish why sex dominates advertising. It then moves through two detailed ad analyses — Schlitz/Budweiser and Sansabelt — each paired with theoretical commentary. A standalone section synthesizes the post-feminist turn before a conclusion that returns to the paper's central tension: whether ideological change has meaningfully altered advertising's relationship to gender.
Introduction: Sex, Gender, and the Advertising Industry
When Edward Bernays — nephew of Sigmund Freud and widely regarded as the father of modern advertising — first shaped the industry, he relied on a lesson learned from his uncle: sex sells. Bernays understood, as Freud did, that sex is one of the most powerful motivating forces of human nature (Jones). Sex and gender consequently took center stage in advertising throughout the twentieth century and beyond. This paper examines the way that gender, consumption, and ideology are tied together in advertising across several decades. It argues that sex and gender stereotypes persist in advertising media and that sexual content has grown more provocative over time — this despite successive waves of feminist movements.
Today, sexuality is something that women are often presented as wielding to dominate men. The advertisements analyzed here suggest that sex and gender remain powerful forces in advertising regardless of the ideological positions held by men and women at any given moment. Human nature appears unchanged, and advertising reflects that constancy: ads have grown more sexual over time and may be less overtly sexist, but they remain deeply sexual. In this way, advertisers seem more attentive to formal equality while simultaneously becoming more aggressive in their pursuit of what Laura Mulvey called the "male gaze" (Turow 195). Whether women are genuinely empowered by claiming ownership of their sexuality is difficult to determine, since the underlying objective still appears to be making men feel gratified. How that outcome benefits women in terms of real power remains an open question — unless, as E. Michael Jones suggests, the goal is to make men slaves to their own desire. Examining advertisements from the past several decades can at least reveal how gender, consumption, and ideology intertwine to produce a message, whatever that message ultimately means.
Works Cited
Atwood, Feona. Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture. IB Tauris, 2014.
Evans, A., and S. Riley. Technologies of Sexiness: Sex, Identity, and Consumer Culture. Sexuality, Identity, and Society. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Jones, E. Michael. Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control. St. Augustine's Press, 2000.
Kearney, M. C., ed. The Gender and Media Reader. Routledge, 2012.
Turow, J. The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader. Routledge, 2009.
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