Boys vs Girls

Gender Research



Sex is a biological fact however gender is a learned behaviour (Mayne, 2000). Men and women are taught, through socialisation and mass media, what to look like and how to behave. This coaching starts from an early age as children are influenced in what is typical male or female behaviour. Men are, stereotypically, forward thinkers, leaders and breadwinners in the family, whilst women are the home-makers, cooks and child bearers with slim figures and pretty faces (see below Jell-O ad). These sex roles vary with culture, age or sexuality (Chandler, 2001) but are socially accepted as normality in many environments.

 

Jell-O, 1970 (All American Ads of the 70's)

Masculinity or femininity are not biologically determined traits and vary culturally, but stereotyped characteristics for each gender are also known  as sex-types. Possessing a mixture of male and female characteristics is described an androgyny and there is a distinction between sex-typed and androgynous people (Solomon, 2010).

Finding out which characteristics people have can be assessed using different tools like Bem's Sex Role Inventory (BMSI) or even the BBC's Sex I.D. profile test.

Men and women process information differently based on their distinguished gender identities, so therefore sex (biological) and gender (social) hold important implications for the consumption of advertising (Hogg et al. 2003).

Equality vs. Equality

Over the past 30 years the argument of equality for women has been at the forefront of the Western culture. Feminists would have us believe that women are the same as men and deserve the same opportunities and treatment, however mentally, and anatomically, we are different. With women expected to hold 60% of wealth in the U.S. by the end of 2010 and 95% of household purchasing decisions (CBS Business, 2007), marketers and organisations must continuously refocus campaigns to reflect this statistic in order to capture this wealth.