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University of Bucharest
Department of Sociology and Social Work





Reflections on Erving Goffmans Gender Advertisements
Author: Ilinca Ioana Andreea, Anthropology




















Bucharest, 2014

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Advertising has known such an extensive development in the 20
th
century that is now
present in every aspect of our daily lives, making its way in all forms of media, developing new
techniques and being also one of the major domains that offer numerous jobs and that are sought
for employment. Subjected to criticism and debate on moral issues and invasion of the private
life, advertising and the commercials it creates give way to many sociological studies and
approaches, being also a form of communication.
Edward Bernays, considered the father of modern public relations and advertising,
changed its approach forever, using ideas of crowd psychology, psychoanalysis and
manipulation. He is associated with the idea behind advertising that human instincts can be
targeted and sublimated into the desire to purchase goods.
In a society that knows now an unprecedented offer of commodities, commercials
represent the essential tool for a producer to reach more audience or potential buyers - than its
competitors. Advertising has long become a normal part of our lives, we no longer see
commercials as something out of the ordinary, nor do people question their intent or try to find
hidden meaning s in them.
A sociologist though can and will find in commercials patterns and displays of social
concepts and mechanisms. Erving Goffman certainly did in his 1976 paper Gender
Advertisements, in which he studies some 500 ads and news photographs to reveal the way
gender is portrayed in advertising. Looking closely at these commercials, he finds them peculiar,
more so regarding the gender display and asks why do most ads not look strange to us? Since in
fact they are and they promote highly gender stereotypes, that we have come to embrace to such
an extent that they do not shock us or even draw our attention upon them.
Goffmans study develops around six themes of investigation:
1. Relative Size. He notes that one way in which social weight - power, authority, rank, office,
renown is echoed expressively in social situations is through relative size, especially height
(Goffman 28). Thus the commercials reveal that the man is taller then the woman or women that
surround him.
2. The feminine touch. Here Goffman finds that the women, more than men, are pictured merely
touching an object, tracing its outline or caressing it. Women dont have an actual grip of the
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object, they dont possess their surroundings, they dont manipulate, or hold, like the men do, in
an utilitarian kind that grasps (Goffman 16).
3. Function ranking. Functional ranking is conveyed when one person is cast in the role of
executor or the principle player, while an interactive partner is cast in a secondary or supporting
role. This category conveys information regarding the social importance and social hierarchy of
the participants. Of course, men are always portrayed in executive roles, in commercials
involving both women and/or children.
4. The family. Composed of mother, father and at least one boy and one girl, family portraits in
commercials suggest at a mere glance a special bond between the mothers and the daughters,
respectively between the fathers and the sons.
5. The ritualization of subordination. A classic visual statement of subordination is that of
lowering oneself physically in some form or other of prostration. Correspondingly, holding
the body erect and the head high is stereotypically a mark of unashamedness, superiority
and disdain (Goffman 40). Needless to say that women are portrayed laying down or with one
knee bent, while men are always active or sitting up straight.
6. Licensed withdrawal. Licensed withdrawal occurs when a person in this case woman - in a
visual setting seems to be physically or psychologically removed from the present situation, thus
leaving the impression that they are socially dependent upon others.
Gender displays serve to affirm basic social arrangements (keeping women in their place,
one that is lower in every sense of the word to the mens) and they present (mis)conceptions of
our gender identity. These displays are suffused with a behavioural vocabulary typical of parent-
child relationships. The" orientation license", "protective intercession"," benign control" and
"non-person treatment" which parents ideally extend to children also serves as a model which
characterizes the socially situated treatment of adult women by men
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. Thus," ritually speaking,
females are equivalent to subordinate males and both are equivalent to children" (Goffman 5).
Gender Advertisements coins the stereotypes surrounding us and reaches beyond image to
the hidden meanings and social programs that are well implemented within us from birth
throughout our entire lives. Nevertheless it did not receive the same amount of interest as other
impressive works of Erving Goffman, neither from sociologists, nor the public. It serves still as a
reference to feminists and his ideas were carried out and presented to a larger public through

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Greg Smith, Gender Advertisements Revisited: A Visual Sociology Classic. Electronic Journal of Sociology, 1996.
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films like The Codes of Gender (2009), directed by Sut Jhally and Killing Us Softly:
Advertisings Image of Women (1979, 1987 and 2010), created by Jean Kilbourne.
Both films take Erving Goffman analysis and illustrate it even more, demonstrating how
advertising communicates ideas about masculinity and feminity, specifically stereotypes and
how it has effects on womens self image, objectifying womens bodies.
Killing Us Softly criticizes the advertising industry and its use of women and sexuality to
sell basically any kind of goods. It claims that the images used in commercials build up the
power of heterosexual men over others and the trivialization of women and values linked to
femininity. Kilbourne connects these images with eating disorders, self esteem, and domestic
violence, claiming, among others, that they reinforce the patriarchal society. Women are turned
visually into objects, they are portrayed in the shape of bottles or as a part of video games,
always with most of their clothes taken off. This last aspect also gives way to a new beauty
standard, a sort of physical perfection that causes frustration and anxiety. All of these suggest
that ads have the power to shape our values, make way for new ones, that are not necessarily
good or better, but in fact can cause a lot of damage. Supporting this idea is an example copy
from a teenage girl magazine that states: He said the first thing he noticed was your great
personality, he lied. This single line carries with it the idea of the physical beauty above
everything else, a perfection of the body that will ensure social success.
Comparing women ads to men ads, Kilbourne finds that men are rarely, if ever, shown in
same poses as women and when they eventually are portrayed semi-naked, than the ad generally
rises amazement. She also draws a connection between advertising and pornography, claiming
that the advertisers are Americas real pornographers. The link to pornography can also be
found in The Codes of Gender, where Jhally concludes after a series of prints that depict women
lying down, that this pose suggests submission and lack of power, it is a pose that leaves women
defenceless.
In the same note, The Codes of Gender explores Goffman claims and looks beyond
advertising solely as a means of selling products, but more as a means of shaping identities and
proposing power relations between individuals. Commercials reveal patterns of masculine and
feminine displays and poses, in a ritualized cultural performance performance that takes place
in everyday life as well.
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Goffman wrote his book in 1976, the first version of Killing Us Softly was firstly made in
1979, while The Codes of Gender was shot in 2009. Looking at all of them, it appears that in 30
years little change was made, in fact it seems that basically nothing has changed.
Commercials are supposed to send a message instantly, in a mere glance. For them to be a
success, they need to communicate the essential in a few seconds and have a strong message that
will stick to the consumers and make them eventually buy the product it advertises. For this to
happen in a context of a market oversaturated with commodities and a fierce competition, ads
will only get more and more aggressive, witty or visually shocking. Stereotypes are mind
shortcuts we normally, but unfortunately use, so commercials will use them forever to get the
message across. The problem rises when the message is distorted, or plain wrong. In a quest to
sell more and more, advertising will sacrifice values and reinforce new ones that suits the
purpose. The subliminal messages they cary with them eventually shape the society and generate
behavior patterns for which we try to find explanations looking at the way we were educated
both at home or in school, when in fact some of the answers lie right in front of us, when we turn
the page of a magazine or watch television.
The values of a society in a certain time frame are reflected in the media content whilst
the same content lures inside our minds and generates values. It is like the snake that bites its
own tail. Advertising is a powerful tool, one that can manipulate and convince people to buy
things that they dont need, to act in a manner that does not come naturally from within, but it
was learned and induced, visually and verbally.











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Bibliography
Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements. Harper Torchbooks: 1976.
Killing Us Softly 4. Created by Jean Kilbourne. Dir. Sut Jhally. Cambridge
Documentaries, 2010.
The Codes of Gender. Writtend and directed by Sut Jhally. Media Education Foundation,
2010.