Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Overt Sexist Commercials

How many of you have ever drank Folgers coffee? Ate Skittles? Drank Coke? Some of these most notorious food and drank brands have not only produced food/drinks that we know and love, but also overtly sexist commercials and/or ads. I included a commercial that Folgers released in the 1960’s. Watch it. Do you think they would still release something like that today? Of course not! In fact, I just saw a Folgers commercial and it was completely different from the one they released in the 1960’s. This just goes to show how society influences corporations and how corporations influence society. In other words, if it wasn’t socially acceptable to advertise a product in such a way, corporations wouldn’t advertise it (or at least I like to think they wouldn’t). With that being said, commercials like this further reinforced traditional stereotypical social norms and prototypes that of men and women. At the end of the day, these monopolized corporations may have just been trying to appeal to the then dominant view of American culture, but it still illuminates the mentality that existed in America at that point in time.

I know plenty of older women and women that are not so old, (40’s) that explained how when they were my age all they wanted to do was finish high school so they could get a job, a husband, and have kids. My grandma, for instance, and my best friend’s mom and grandma held this view. They will tell you that that’s what every girl wanted and that that’s what was expected of them. Now, women have a lot more autonomy and freedom to decide first, if they want to have children, and second, when they want them – without all of the scrutiny and stigma that would have accompanied a women in the 1900’s. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5-x-9LciYA

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