The Treatment of Women in Ads
University of Michigan Business School
Marketing Management
Fall 2000
Eric DeRosia
One of the optional assignments this semester was to submit two print advertisements: one which degrades women and another which supports, celebrates or even honors women.
Your examples of the former certainly were effective in terms of their degradation. They were all pretty scummy, so I hope you don't mind that I didn't scan them. I'm sure you don't need to see them; once you've seen one Cutty Sark ad, you've seen them all.
Your examples of the latter were very interesting, and some of the highlights are displayed below. Click on any of the thumbnails to see the (very) full-size ad.
There are some interesting examples here. Remember that at least one student found each of these ads to be supporting or honoring women. Do you disagree? Do you think any of these ads actually degrade women? In your evaluation, you may want to consider not only the visual elements but the verbal (i.e., textual) elements as well.
Feel free to e-mail me your comments.
Eric DeRosia (ederosia@umich.edu)
