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Gender 2000       Journal Entry 6

Women in Media: Advertising and Gender Roles

1). What gender messages do people learn from advertising? Do the messages vary based on the type of media? Based on the presentation? Speculate below about three different areas where people learn different gender messages from different media. Explain what three different media areas you'll be discussing, and then your hypothesis about the messages found in those ads.

2. Then find three examples of advertising from televison (video record) or magazines (photocopy or rip out). You may want each of these to come from your areas of speculation above, but they do not need to. Explain what the primary audience for that ad is and how you know. For example, you might speculate that tell an ad for peanut butter is aimed at women. As evidence, you might look at content-the narrator in the commercial addresses "Moms"-or context-it appears during All My Children, a program with a particularly high female viewership. Write up a gender analysis for each that you will share with the class along with the recording or copy of your ad. Again focus on what gender messages are being relayed. Do they suggest an ideal of behavior or form for men or women?

3. Read the essays and then react. Do you believe what the writers assert? Do you disagree? Why or why not? How has what they've said impacted you? Has what they said held true in your experience? How does your analysis of the three ads support or disprove those writers ideas? Answer these questions in detail.