Advertisments: Sexist Advertising

The automotive industry largely has no idea how to market their products toward women, which is why you see a number of advertisements repeating trends where:

(1) Women are objects that male car buyers want to accumulate

(2) Women are accessories that make cars appear more attractive to male car shoppers

(3) Women are seen as helpless and entirely unaware of how the entire car-buying experience works

(4) Women serve the primary role of minivan-driving mothers.

Despite this brief but inspiring run of feminist friendly car ads, sexist car ads have remained an offensive, ugly, thing of the present. Automotive companies are still operating under notion that women are objects to be used to hawk products that they are simultaneously considered dumb and incapable of using, as this Ford Cortina ad suggests:

In the 1970s, thanks in great part to feminist magazines such as Ms. Companies and advertising agencies, viewers were now alerted to the large consumer base of intelligent, capable, empowered women and that led to some feminist advancement in car advertisements. Not only were there nonsexist advertisements, but car companies actually marketed their products to women as informed, financially independent consumers. This new body style for advertisements included the ads below for Subaru which appeared in 1974 issues of Ms.

A video titled #WomenNotObjects went viral earlier this month by pointing out the sexism and objectification of women in advertising.

Now we find out that a New York advertising agency produced the video: Badger & Winters recently came forward to take credit for the #WomenNotObjects campaign and vow never to objectify women in its ads or work again.