Search results for sex in advertising

Before there were flight attendants, there were stewardesses.  Below a vintage commercial for airlines (found here thanks to AdFreak, see also this print ad):

While pressure on airlines to be less sexist means that we don’t see ads like this anymore, Stephen W. alerted us to the ongoing sexism in “general aviation,” that is private planes and jets owned by individuals and companies.

Airports have FBOs (or “fixed based operators”) which are, essentially, glorified gas stations for planes.  A private pilot can choose which airport and thus FBO, or which FBO at which airport, to patronize.  So FBOs will compete for customers.  Stephen pointed to one strategy: plying pilots, assumed to be men, with sex.

This website allows pilots to see what “FBO Girls” all over the country, the women working behind the counters at FBOs, look like.  Another website, FBO Hotties, allows pilots to submit their favorite girls.

Flower Aviation promises that you will be guided into your parking spot by “girls in short ‘skorts’ and tank tops.”

Here are some of the images from the website, notice that when you spend money on fuel, they reward you with red meat (and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies):

So, there you have it.  Private aviation, still very much a man’s world.

Other than the objectification, I think an interesting sociological question might be: Why have the airlines dropped overt sexist advertising, while general aviation has not? One possibility is that general aviation is, literally, less public and, thus, less vulnerable to public censor. Another may be that pilots are still overwhelmingly men, unlike the customers served by airlines, and so there may still be profit in sexism for general aviation, but not in commercial aviation. I’d welcome your thoughts as well.

Shirley Ann M. sent in this picture of a car advertising Skill Maids:

She says,

I was blown away by the blatant sexual stereotyping in this picture: the maid in high heels, bent over with knees together, Jessica Rabbit figure.

Well, Shirley, what you don’t understand, and what I can tell you because my mom cleaned houses for a living when I was a kid, is that there is no more better outfit to wear for efficiently cleaning a large house than a dress and heels. See, the heels make you taller, so it’s easier to dust the top shelves!

Thanks, Shirley!

A familiar trope: draping the object of sale on a naked woman. This time it’s pasta from a home machine.

Picture via Serious Eats via Erin Doland

I took this photo on Father’s day. The images were on the window of a Sephora store (basically, a make-up store) in Pasadena, CA. The text says:

father’s day is June 15.
who’s your daddy?

I’m sure it’s supposed to mean “Who’s your babydaddy?”  But still… do we really need to go there?

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

This old CoverGirl lipstick ad, found here, illustrates the infantilization of women we often see in ads-women (provocatively) licking ice cream cones, eating fruit, and so on. Thanks to Krystal-lynn M. for sending it in!

These Kenzie ads (available at the University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center’s website) also have women in childlike poses, with their mary-jane shoes and ruffled socks. Thanks for sending them in, Laura L.!

These images illustrate two common trends in advertising: on the one hand, women are portrayed as little girls, as coyly innocent, as lacking in power and maturing. On the other hand, child-likeness is sexy, and girls are portrayed as Lolitas whose innocence is questionable.

NEW (Mar. ’10)! Jeff H. sent along this photo from a GQ spread in which Reille Hunter is posed with Kermit the Frog, Barney the Dinosaur, and Dora the Explorer:

I guess this is what sexism used to look like (before it looked like this and this and this and this and this):

These Folgers commercials are doozies:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VprIbx4QkPc[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjjkgIO3Ck[/youtube]

Thanks David P. for sending us both the ad, found here, and the commercial!

* I stole the title of this post from HeatherShow.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Rolling Stone cover (April 2007) advertising the movie Grindhouse.

These anti-statutory rape PSAs were made by advertising agency Serve for the United Way of Milwaukee. They created enough of a controversy that they were pulled (see an article at Salon).
In response to the controversy, the advertising agency put a little over 2 minutes of focus group footage on youtube:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61-gu2X_57k[/youtube]