User blog comment:WhitePinoy/Misandry?/@comment-3242362-20120710013533/@comment-1915803-20120710211811

''"Casual sexism in the form of advertisement is well ingrained into our culture–not only that, but there are female stereotypes. Females in ads for beer are regularly scantily clad, and there is quite often an undertone of "buy the car, get the girl" in car ads featuring women that targeted at men. The ads the guy mentioned, which are targeted at women, are obviously going to try and make the customer feel good, and if they're targeted at, say, gender (as in that shoe ad), they are going to run with that. If it's targeted to nationality, well, how many Chevy ads have you seen with a subtext of "buy American, and you're a patriot. If not, you're a disloyal !$#@er!"?"''

Both of these are simply propaganda techniques that usually work on the general population. It's very common for commercials aimed at men to use attractive women to persuade men to buy the product/service. Because, let's face it; sex sells. This has been a subject of controversy amongst females because it allegedly subjects certain females that males consider attractive to this kind of exploitation. And they claim it discriminates against those who aren't seen as "pretty" or "sexy." In my opinion, I think it's outrageous that men would buy a product just because they see a sexy female on the advertisement and are convinced that the sexy female will have some relation to the product. Don't get me wrong, I'm a male and it's hard not to be turned on by attractive females, but they basically just utilize their bodies to project something normally unrelated. This propaganda technique is called transfer; basically it's the notion that "I'll show you something you like and you'll transfer your positive feelings towards it" or "I'll show you a negative thing about my opponent and you'll transfer your negative feelings towards it." About the women who criticize this practice, I say it's not such a big deal in the long run and ultimately the actors/models can choose to partake or not. And if you're feeling let down because you're not "sexy" or "beautiful" enough to be on there, then you need to reevaluate your life.

As for nationality, that propaganda technique is informally titled "flag-waving" and it basically says "you're patriotic if you choose this route" and "you're unpatriotic if you don't." This, again, is ridiculous because who are they to say what's chauvinistic about their product in relation to America. This brings me to the issue of "American Exceptionalism" which I believe is a flawed mentality because it basically justifies every negative action America ever does in the spirit of "flag-waving." It's also an outright selfish thing to claim, that we're some kind of exception in the world. No. Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all have comparable living standards, political systems, and economies and they're not (to the point of America) overly boastful of themselves. But I digress, the point being, appealing to one's nationality as a means of arguing in favor of a product, service, or idea is just stupid and irresponsible.

"Also, gender roles are to some extent designed by society (although the worldwide history of men being dominant and women subservient in cultures does show there probably is a genetic basis for said gender roles). These ads just appeal to various roles. For example, where a man is stupid comparative to the woman? That references the fact that women regularly do better than men on educational tests. (This, however, is probably not genetic–girls in public school perform better than boys, but in private schools there is no gap. There is also no gap between homeschooled boys and homeschooled girls, which suggests the problem lies with public schools, not with men being dumber than women.)"

Gender roles are just fine in my opinion; it's both how society designed us all over time and how naturally different men and women are. It's true that men are different in that we are less able to articulate our emotions, we're physically capable of exceeding the body mass of females, and we have issues with feminine but useful things like multitasking and speaking our thoughts. Sexism is where it goes over the line; the act of saying "we're better because X." Both genders have their ups and downs, and it's just intolerant to say one is better than the other when you aren't fully aware of what it's like to be the other. Men are not smarter, women are not smarter. It seems to me that men have a better mindset of deciding long-term thoughts, while women are better at short-term fixes. This isn't true in everyone, just a trend I notice.

Which brings me to my conclusion; advertisements are almost always very clear who their target audience is. The ones involving cleaning, personal embellishment, and kitchen equipment are usually aimed at the more feminine, and ones involving workshop equipment, trucks, and beer are usually aimed at the more masculine. This is not to say there aren't exceptions, it's just the societal trend associated with gender roles. There's no sexism here in my views, however, I think they do assume too much occasionally and oversimplify problems/differences.

Yay, rambling.