March 25th, 2018

Portraying Women in Ads

by Bannerman, Gradisher, Konar, Lawton, Epstein & Piro

This cartoon was based on something  I learned about women in print ads.
My husband was a multi-award winning newspaper editor and journalist for many years. As part of his work he once went to a seminar on how women were portrayed in print media. This was nothing new, but when he shared what he learned with me I really started looking at newspaper and magazine ads. There were lots of ads for women’s undies but also women in many other ads were often crouching, bent over or otherwise minimized as opposed to how men in ads were portrayed. Anyway, things have been changing for the better with more women editors, photographers, film-makers and company Presidents (not to mention cartoonists!). Still, who doesn’t love a good sale on all cotton undies?