Gender Advertising: Women Stereotypes in Print Advertisements

The intense use of female images in print media can be seen almost everywhere today. Womens stereotypes all over pages of magazines, newspapers, catalogues and etc; they are all along the streets on billboards, flyers, and stands. Print media like print advertisements incorporate social messages within their design and visual elements. This remains unquestioned. Therefore it seems relevant to explore such an approach in detail and to investigate the roots of the use of such stereotypes. There are six theories related to the women stimuli in print advertising field. These theories are: Gender self-Schema, Arousal Theory, Selective perception, Self-concept, Distraction, and Aggression theory. With the help of these theories one can closely observe the distractive points behind women depictions in print advertisements.