9. Video Slideshow with Voiceover

The following video slideshow with voiceover was created discussing the concept of hegemony and gender roles in advertisements.

Here is a transcript of the dialogue in the video slide show:

Gender roles can demonstrate how a society views what it means to feminine or masculine and these roles are preformed through various interactions. The concept of cultural hegemony suggests that there is a power structure in society in which men are seen as the dominant sex and women are viewed as the subordinate. There are many forms of communication from which we seek for entertainment, information and can be a reflection of how a society interacts with others. The following photos were taken to examine these concepts of hegemony and gender roles further. 

Erving Goffman's 1979 research titled, Gender Advertisements examines the depiction of female gender roles from a symbolic interactionist perspective. 

Goffman notes that, advertisements do not depict how men and women actually behave; rather they serve the social purpose of convincing us that this is how women and men are, want to be, or should be. Furthermore, gender advertisements show women in subordinate, subservient and male pleasing roles and reinforces sexism in society. 

8. Video Slideshow

For the video slideshow assignment, I choose to focus on female gender representations in advertisements. I found that depictions of women in these advertisements very powerful images that depicted varying perspectives of femininity  Some interesting results when examining print advertisements was that some of the women that were depicted looked androgynous and while other women were depicted in a very sexualized manner. While the photos that were taken at La Cantera showed how various stores tried to market their products to a specific type of women. For example, the Ralph Lauren display evoked a sense of upper class, elite women at a country club. 

Erving Goffman's Gender Advertisements (1979)  which examines the depiction of female gender roles from a symbolic interactionist perspective inspired me to complete this assignment. Goffman notes that Gender Advertisements, "The author notes that advertisements do not depict how men and women actually behave; rather, they serve the social purpose of convincing us that this is how women and men are, want to be, or should be."

Resources: Erving Goffman