I was idly flipping through the Target ad that comes with the newspaper today and noticed this advertisement. I took it out and scanned it. It's somewhat big, so I'll just give the link.
Notice that the ad for the bold-colored, action-associated product features a boy, while the light pink-colored, inactivity-associated product features young women. Sure, it's not the most offensive form of sexism in advertising today (not by a long shot) but it irked me a little to see this subtle affirmation that doing cool stuff with brightly colored things is "for boys" while relaxing and not doing much of anything on a light pink inflatable chair is "for girls."
Does this bother you guys at all or do you think things like this -- that is, things that aren't overtly and massively offensive -- should just be ignored?
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I saw that ad in yesterday's paper and I looked at it for a while. I didn't notice that aspect of it right away, though. I thought more about the idea that women are to be looked at and men are the active ones...kind of similar.
Stuff like that bothers me too, but I usually get teased/condescended to if I bring it up ("Jeez, you're hypersensitive, why can't you ever just be calm? It's not good for your health to be so angry all the time!").
Actually, I'm attempting to make a living out of analyzing this kind of subtle sexism. Well, that and teaching college classes, but still. I think it's very important, because images like this are all around us and have definitely been found to have an impact on our perceptions of gender identity. This ad is an almost classic example of the active/passive dichotomy, and I could easily use it as an example in class. If you're interested, there's more on this kind of thing here:
http://www.genderads.com/Gender_Ads.com.html
Might I just say, that is a freaking awesome way to make a living. I just love learning about and discussing advertising techniques, especially gendered advertising. I agree that it's very important to analyze these types of ads -- it's a big step away from blindly accepting media portrayals of gender (or class, or race, or sexual identity, etc.) and believing them to be true just because The TV/Magazine/Movie/Newspaper Said So.
I have a feeling that I'm going to be spending the remainder of my week on that site. Thank you so much for the link!
I actually think this is the more dangerous kind of sexism, because it slips into our unconscious unnoticed. Blatant, horrible offensive sexism (or any other -ism) is easy to spot and reject. It's the subtle stuff that gets inside and alters the way we think about things, even when we're actively trying to move past that kind of crap.
No, it does not offend me.