Impacts of advertisements that are unfriendly to women and men

Taking Belgium as a case in point, this study analyses, first, tolerance for advertisements unfriendly to women and men as expressed by advertising and marketing professionals, consumers and gender equal opportunity workers.

Impacts of advertisements that are unfriendly to women and men

Corine Van Hellemont and Hilde Van den Bulck

University of Antwerp

The main objective of advertising is to persuade consumers to buy goods and services. Yet products are not only consumed for their inherent use-value. As objects they also help to create or express consumers’ identity, including gender (Barthes 1957; Garst & Bodenhausen 1997; Weems 2000). Its omnipresence makes advertising – next to family, school, peers – an important socialising factor that forges gender roles (Pollay & Gallagher 1990; Gauntlett 2009). While sex is a biological fact, gender...

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