Gender Relation in Advertisement : from Time to Time

Abstract

As part of the media, advertising is an effective marketing communication tool. Moreover, advertisements on television that have broad reach. Therefore, producers will allocate a very large advertising budget on television, in order to obtain a high level of sales. Apart from informing about products, advertising is also able to shape reality in society, including the reality of the relationship between men and women. In other words, advertising is a dynamic agent of gender socialization, in the sense that it can perpetuate existing gender relations, as well as form new gender relations. This condition needs to be criticized, because sometimes showing advertisements causes harassment, discrimination, and even gender violence, which is especially experienced by women. For this reason, this study aims to examine changes that may occur in the characters and gender roles between men and women who appear in television advertisements. This research approach is descriptive qualitative where the data is obtained from the results of research at Google Scholar from the 1980s to the present. Furthermore, the data were analyzed using an interactive method sharpened with a gender perspective. The results of the study show that during this period female figures were still presented stereotypically with feminine characters while male characters were masculine. However, other characters also appear where both women and men are presented with mixed characters. The role of the father is also described as being closer to the family. This shows that gender is dynamic and advertising can be an agent of gender relations reform. For this reason, advertisers and advertisers need to be encouraged to make advertisements that are fairer and gender equal without worrying about a decrease in product sales.