The media and product manufacturers have a profound effect on reinforcing stereotypes. Gender Roles have an impact on the purchases of consumers goods and services. When gender is considered in the design of a product, it is not understood the meaning of doing so. Advertising strategies reinforce gender norms and place a distinction on what is “correct” for each gender to act on. The present paper analyzes the influence of culturally derived sex roles on individuals’ reactions to sex role characterizations in the gendering of products.
The roles of males and females set by our society have remarkably changed, compared to the primary roles in our history. In today’s generation, women have begun to snap out of the fixed position society has left them in. This can’t be said when it comes to gender representation in media advertising and product manufacturing. It is portrayed that women are seen as fragile, beautiful, and feminine. Men are expected to portray being aggressive, strong, and in control. This common way of thinking can be seen as a hold to the advancement of our culture. For women it is extremely hard to pull away from stereotypes that are continuously reinforced. There is a gender based price discrimination consumers face when buying items aimed at girls or women versus identical goods that are designed for males.
We live in a society where products are unwillingly gendered. Pink princess toothbrushes and pink razors show that no item can go without being feminised or masculinised. Our gender is one of the many elements that form our identity. But because society has conformed to such roles and rules it is a very reliable factor to base our identity on. It allows us to question ourselves less because we can just stick to the fixed norms and directions of our gender, making us feel like we belong. To fulfill this gender identity, we use items as gender identity indicators because they display and confirm our gender to others. Gendered products surface our gender identity and can be seen as a real acceptance of our wanted identity.
Advertising agencies are helpers in maintaining gender stereotypes, which is not good for a society trying to become more accepting of diversity. Companies adhere to these stereotypes all in effort of appealing to the population. Therefore they create a cultural expectation for the population to follow on how a gender should act and appear. This is not new news. In fact, toys are a subject of appeal when it comes to the history of gendered products. Sweet (2014) found “gendered advertising existed for about half of all toys in the 1950s before declining to 30 per cent in the 1970s, when toys like Hungry Hungry Hippos existed. But by 1995, the percentage had rebounded to mid-century levels.” In the 1950’s many toys were designed to make young girls prepare their lives for maintaining a home. Sweet discovered that even at this time of gender discrimination, more than half of toys were still gender neutral. When second wave feminism came around in the 1970’s, gender neutral colors were a majority of the popularity. The degendering generation came to a halt when it was driven out by decade of the 80’s. Over time the split of “boy” and “girl” grouping became the established feature of toys. The gendered way of marketing toys is important because it’s not just about gender. As Sweet (2014) puts it, “It’s not just that they’re marketing to girls, but that they’re marketing to a vision of girls as very interested in beauty and fashion.”
This type of marketing connects to a gender binary, where toys are seen as suitable for girls or boys. One of the ways we identify with one of the two genders is through materialistic goods. We buy what society has taught us to think is right for a man or woman. These objects are used to train children as to what society has assumed is the “right” gender. The biggest problem with things that are colored pink or deemed specifically for girls is segregation. Society wants women to compete with men, but sadly, are seperated out as children. Society expects women to look a certain way. And what’s wrong with that? It is usually more expensive. A study conducted by Vox reported that women pay 13% more for for personal care products than men. And it doesn’t stop there. It showed women pay 8% more for clothing, 7% more for girls toys, and 8% more for health care products. Women are paying extra to play a made-up role society created, and society even pays women less for being born into that role. According to US News, “Women, who statistically already make less money than men on average, may pay a premium for items marketed to them simply because they aren’t aware of this so-called “pink” tax. The “Pink Tax” was created to reveal the gendered pricing on products.”
Tampons and pads, soley for women, are designed with girly colors and features. These feminine hygiene products are charged sales tax because they are considered a “luxury” item. I think mostly everyone knows periods are not a luxury. The way advertisements are presented transform to fit the ideals of today’s society. One thing remains the same: women are sexualized. “In the United States, the percentage of advertisements utilizing sex to sell products has risen from 15 percent in 1983 to 27 percent in 2003” (Pappas, 2014). Compared to men, women are strongly sexualized. The media is at fault for creating unrealistic stereotypes. “A survey found that 52 percent of women admitted to buying a product based on how it is marketed and how the advertisement presented women”. And nothing is safe from gender. Items you would not even think could be gendered actually exist. For instance, corporations have designed a toothpaste for men and special pens for women. No one would think these products are gendered until society starts to tell us they are. Many counterarguments propose that women should just buy men’s products. People are constantly viewing pitched items as sex-specific even though there’s nothing inherently male or female about them.
Even if women were to buy men’s products instead of those labeled for women it would still affirm to the gender binary. It is assuming that you are using products specifically designed for males, but you are just going off the grid. It isn’t just about splitting us into two groups, it’s also about promoting what it means to be in one of those categories. Each of these products is an opportunity to remind us. If society continues to gender products it could potentially affect how the world functions as well as how people’s home lives will change. Studies have compiled all the examples of outrageous and unnecessarily gendered products, in which the exact same product in different packaging is being directed to either men or women. This creates a problem because it widens the already large gender gap. It tells them that people have to be of one gender and they are not allowed to switch or reject gender altogether. Women are pink and men are blue. Or at least that’s what society wants you to think. The problem with creating a gender gap is that it creates more problems for people who don’t associate themselves in either of these categories. A majority of our population already refuses to accept that when a transgender person looks a certain way, they do not identify the way they look. Also, it adds to the confusion homosexual people have to deal with when shopping for them and their families. When we talk about the gender binary spectrum, we’re referring a person’s gender as male or female, or somewhere in between.
There are people whose gender does not fall or identify within the spectrum. In a survey conducted it was shown, “Between 2012 and 2016, LGBT-identifying persons went from 3.5 percent to 4.1 percent of the U.S. population, which amounts to an estimated shift from 8.3 million people in 2012 to more than 10 million in 2016” (Bridges, 2017). Companies use specific groups to target their products toward a specific demographic. If the product is extremely successful, it becomes a symbol of a trend. Demographics make marketing easier for companies, because it gives them a category or box to fit their customers into. Not everyone fits a demographic, even when a product becomes part of a trend. The consumers who don’t fit the demographic will end up missing out on the “social status” that is related with having it. They will find a substitute that fits their need of a want better or figure out a way to feel like they conform to societal norms. Corporations capitalize gender binary in all types of products: clothing, care products, toys, etc. By dividing the market by gender, they are more likely to increase their sales. It is more likely if they’re targeting a heterosexual couple, or siblings who happen to be male and female, instead, of an important part of our population, those who don’t fit in to the binary.
Researchers have made progress in broadening our understanding of the effects of gendering products as well as the gender based price discrimination that comes with it. Whether you realize it or not, wherever you go shopping products are divided based on gender. There are products for men and products for women, each in their own section, with their own price, and with their “appropriate” color and style. We are so used to seeing gendered products that many of us, including myself, do not think twice when we need to buy something. The problem is that many of these gendered products have the same function and could be equally used by any gender, but our society has decided what is suitable for each gender. By continuing to gender the market, it serves the notion that men and women are supposed to use different products, as if it is just a part of gender, while maintaining stereotypes about what is “for women” or “for men.” The more people that become aware of this and become less mindless we shop, the more pressure companies will have to apply different ways of appealing to their customers.
