Gender Bias and Advertising Trends

^{Image courtesy of Brian Sawyer via Flickr.}

Recently, a word cloud depicting advertising terms commonly used to sell boys' toys vs. girls' toys has been making the Internet rounds. No one is surprised to learn that advertising to children is heavily gendered, but it is interesting to see a visual representation of this fact.

Here are five other types of products that are advertised in an especially gendered way.

1. Bath products

Most bath products do one of two basic things: clean you or rid you of unwanted hair. Nothing is especially masculine or feminine about either process, but advertisers don't want you to know that. Case in point: the Axe Detailer Shower Tool. Its effect is no different from that of a loofah, however, loofahs are marketed toward women and Axe will have none of that. From this springs the Detailer, a body-cleaning mechanism with an explicit reference to cars. The lesson here is that it's better to be a car than a woman.

Women's bath products are marketed in a flowery, feel-good way, while bath products targeted for male consumers focus on the tough nature of beards. Men's bath products also tend to be cheaper than their female-targeted counterparts, presumably because women are expected to spend more on their appearances. A while back Vi wrote a post with some tips on avoiding gender pricing inequity when buying bath products.

2. Cooking

In the world of advertising, some cooking activities are for men, and some are for women. Barbecue-related products are marketed almost exclusively toward men, using "masculine" colors like red and black and drawing on cultural associations of meat with masculinity. Baking products, on the other hand, heavily target women. They tend to use softer colors and fonts and often use phrases associated with nurturing, such as "for your family."

3. Alcohol

Ads constantly tell us that there are men's drinks and there are women's drinks. Men's drinks include beer and hard alcohol. Cocktails are acceptable if they contain three or less ingredients, and DO NOT HAVE A STRAW. Drinks for women are fruity, sweet and elaborate--or else they are wine.

The wild card here is light beer which, like low-calorie food in general (see #5), is usually targeted toward women. Recently, more light beer ads have attempted to reach out to men. In light of this already-gendered territory, however, they must tread carefully. As this Michelob Ultra commercial insinuates, you are only a real man if you drink their brand of light beer. Any other brand is for women!



4. Baby products

While some baby products are gender-specific for anatomical reasons (diapers, etc.), there are an awful lot of products in the baby aisle that are pink or blue for no real reason. Note the difference in color schemes for mobiles for baby boys and mobiles for baby girls. It's often difficult to tell the gender of clothed babies, who have no secondary sex characteristics (Benjamin Button being a notable exception). Marketers are crazy about this fact, as it allows them to sell scads of items to make babies more gender-identifiable.

5. Food

Food, which you'd think would be the most gender-neutral product there is, is frequently and hilariously marketed in a gendered way.  While meaty, hearty food is aimed at men, lowfat or low-calorie products often target women. This is even true for food that is a slightly healthier version of an unhealthy product, such as KFC grilled chicken. Frozen dinners run the gamut from the male-targeted Hungry Man, which emphasizes its all-American comfort food-ness, to the female-targeted Lean Cuisine, which advertises its low calorie count and touts words like "panini" and "cafe."

For more, here's a funny post about some pointlessly gendered products, which includes tape, Epsom salt, and earplugs.

What are some other products you know of that are marketed in a gender-specific way?