Gender in Advertising

In these two advertisements, the major difference is that the first one is for the boys’ clothes and the second one is for the girls’. My perception of GAP changed after analyzing the second advertisement. It first showed a girl wearing GAP clothes. There’s text beside it saying, “THE SOCIAL BUTTERFLY”. It interprets that wearing GAP can make the girl become famous in school. Also, I think the word “butterfly” is dehumanizing the girls. In the slogan “Chambray shirts + logo sweaters are the talk of the playground.” From “the talk of the playground”, it claims that wearing such clothes can make you become the central focus of all people. Also, it is encouraging the girls to care about their looking and their sociability. However, in the first advertisement, it claims that the boys are supposed to be the scholars. In the picture, the boy looks cool in the shirts and graphic tees but I notice that “Einstein” is spelled wrong on the tees which makes me feel not “scholar.” Also, in the slogan, “Your future starts here. Shirts + graphic tees = genius idea.” It puts me into such emotion of wearing in this style can make you have a bright future. But I think the clothes should not be used to define who you are as it says “genius idea”. I think it categorizes and limits gender recognition into specific genres and it is offensive to both genders. These advertisement delivers wrong values to the children that GAP can make you smart or popular in school. It puts the children into the gender stereotypes that the adults are put into. It limits possibility of the children’s development into different personalities. the People should avoid these kinds of content because it will give the children a wrong view of the world especially when these clothes are designed for the children who are around the age of 4 to 12. The people who designs these ads should be aware of the recent social content to make the connection with the audience and the customers. People need to be especially mindful when they are handling the advertisements towards the children since these ads can make huge influences to their construction of their values.

Overall, I don’t want to put GAP into a category of “Sexism”, but I think they definitely need to be more thoughtful on the content they are trying to deliver and be more aware of who the audiences and customers are. These two ads cannot be the evidence of GAP as a company being sexism since there are many other ads from GAP. These two ads become a hot topic because of the information. They make me feel that the company stuck in the past. But at the same time, I think that it is a successful advertising because it makes the public to notice the brand, but the content is out of time and it is about a topic that people are very sensitive. I think they need to make more relevant context to recent topics. I hope people think of the information they are delivering to the audience more deliberately.