Sexism and Advertising in the Global World: A Theoretical Perspective

Introduction

The contribution that active sexism and daily sexist attitudes and behaviors provide to gender inequality happens in a large scale and seems to be a recurrent problem (Dahl, 2015). The majority of authors’ state that sexism can be divide in two categories: benevolent sexism and hostile sexism (Glick & Fiske, 2001). One of the major problems with this concept is that it still faces, along with the concept of feminism, society misunderstanding. There is not a fully notion of sexism understood by society and, sometimes, people do not take this matter seriously. The same happens with companies that do not perceive the subject as a relevant one. However, it is occurring a shift in the paradigm and nowadays society is worrying about topics that were not seen as relevant before. Advertising strategy is defined as an agglomeration of decisions, whose objective is the transformation into actions intending to reach the stipulated by the publicist when placing an advertisement in the possession of the consumers. The study of female stereotypes in the advertising industry began in the 1960s (Cunha & Sawerbronn, 2014). This was due to the birth of feminist movements. The feminist waves enabled women to search for the concept of equality, both in the world of work and at home. Female emancipation began to show strength in this decade. While some authors claim that advertising interferes with societies cultural and social beliefs, others indicate that advertising only reflects existing values (Schouten, 2011). In view of the above, this chapter intends to present some contributions about the theme of sexism and advertising and its implications for marketing. In an exploratory and conceptual perspective, this manuscript presents contributions for communication, marketing and advertising around the phenomenon of sexism. In a more practical contribution, the study focuses on the motives why sexism in advertising does not seem to bother consumers when they decide to purchase an item. This chapter aims to present a critical review and theoretical contribution about sexism and advertising in the global word.