Research and Knowledge

ABSTRACT

Sexism towards women has been present and highly problematic for decades. It is encountered in almost all situations of life, including advertising. The aim of our paper is to find out to what extent sexism exists in advertising and how discrimination against women is characterized. Furthermore, we examine whether sexism has changed in advertising and which developments can be observed. Our work is based on a literature review as well as the analysis of advertisements and the presentation of concrete examples. These examples made it clear that sexism has many faces and is still a part of our advertising industry today, even if the way it is expressed has somewhat changed. Throughout the years, sexist depictions of women range from being initially reduced to maternal functions, to being sexualized and objectified in more recent examples.