Male Sex Roles in Magazine Advertising, 1959–1979

Abstract

In general, men have increasingly been portrayed in less stereotyped roles, but in women's magazines the "manly" activities were replaced by more decorative roles.The increasingly large number of articles and studies relating to sex roles in advertising have chiefly dealt with sex roles portrayed by women (1, 3,6, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18,21). Men, in contrast, are mentioned in only two studies (9,20). This disparity may be a result of the women's movement that has directed attention to the narrow and limited roles and relationships in which women are confined, not only in daily life, but also by their portrayal in the media and its advertising. Although this trend has also expanded the awareness of the roles and relationships that can be taken by both sexes, the role of males has been virtually ignored in advertising research. Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine male sex roles in advertising during the last two decades.The majority of sex-role studies, almost all focusing on women (4, 5, 7, 14, 15, 17), have concluded that the bulk of advertisements show women in stereotyped roles, relationships, and situations. However, in recent years, there has been a trend toward showing women in nontraditional and authority positions. Paradoxically, even as women and men are being shown as more equal, there has been an increase in the number of decorative or nonactive illustrations of women in the past decade (10, 19).

How to get “kissably close”: Examining how advertisers appeal to consumers’ sexual needs and desires

“…Less clothing, however, does not necessarily equate ads being rated as "sexual." In addition, ads in men's magazines have been found to portray women more decoratively than other types of magazines (Lazier-Smith;1989;Skelly & Lundstrom, 1981), whereas ads in women's magazines portray both men and women decoratively (Busby & Leichty, 1993). Therefore, it is unclear whether sexual ads will be more prevalent in women's or men's magazines.…”

La classe moyenne se met en scène : la publicité des quotidiens montréalais comme discours de classe, 1920-1970

“…Au tournant des années 1980, des études se sont également penchées sur l'évolution des caractéristiques publicitaires de l'identité masculine (Wolheter et Lammers, 1980 ;Skelly et Lundstrom, 1981).…”

Through the looking-glass: Exploring the wonderland of ‘other’ female portrayals in advertising

“…Studies have analysed mass advertising media such as magazines (Busby and Leichty 1993;Döring and Pöschl 2006), television (Bartsch, Burnett, Diller and Rankin-Williams 2000;Chow-Hou, Mei-Lan and Siok-Kuan 1995) and radio (Monk-Turner, Kouts, Parris and Webb 2007). The majority focused on comparing male and female portrayals (Ford, Voli, Honeycutt and Casey 1998;Furnham, Pallangyo and Gunter 2001;Luyt 2011), some examined female (Ferrante, Haynes and Kingsley 1988;Ishak 2013) or male portrayals (Kolbe and Albanese 1996;Skelly and Lundstrom 1981). Contextually, many studies focused on a specific country (Cagli and Durukan 1989;Furnham and Spencer-Bowdage 2002;Ishak 2013;Mwangi 1996), whereas others conducted cross-cultural comparisons (Gilly 1988;Paek, Nelson and Vilela 2011;Siu and Au 1997).…”