Gender construction in fashion advertising

The controversial Dolce & Gabbana campaign from 2007

Advertising is a mechanism that makes people want to buy things, we all know this. Advertising still feels the need to photoshop the most physically blessed people in the world, we all know this. Advertising makes everything look magical. Everything is the best thing ever. Every dog on earth is a cute labrador. Men are always driving cool cars, drinking with their mates or receiving loving care from their hot wife. Women are usually complaining until this new magical product fixes their problem, unless it's a tampon commercial, women are always happy when on their period. Advertising constructs an ideal reality different from ours that contains all the things we need, we all know this, that's why we keep buying things in stores, the gateways to that perfect world.

Erving Goffman, an American sociologist, was the first to do research on gender in advertisement in the eighties. The analysis he makes in his book Gender Advertisements (1979) is still the foundation for research being executed today. He argues that men and women are both portrayed in a stereotypical manner. In general, the men are depicted as strong, protective, grasping something firmly and with a strong look, aware of their surroundings. Women on the other hand are shown as being inferior to the man, gently touching something, lying down, with dreamy and unfocused faces. Goffman coined the term “commercial realism” to refer to advertising when it uses something real like the relationship between a man and a woman, but tries to portray it as something different as it really is. This way the viewer is looking at a distorted image of a reality without realising it.