gender and stereotype inquiry

 

A commonality between all three of the advertisements is that it is imposing a beauty standard on both genders that facial and body hair should be removed because it is aesthetically unappealing. This is stressed more strongly on shaving leg hair for women and facial hair for men. For the second advertisement, it implies that if that hair is not shaved off , it will makes men undesirable in a romantic way. Another common factor is between the Venus advertisements  since they both objectifying woman as it has dehumanized them as a person and simplified them to shaved, tones legs. As for the second advertisement, it is insinuates that a man's romantic desire is depended on the lack of facial hair. All three advertisements are placing a hateful quality on the growth of facial and body hair which is  a natural feature in all humans. One of the differences between the advertisements is that the Venus razors encourage shaving hair for a personal and societal benefit while the men's advertisement encourages men to do it for the benefit of flattering a woman.The advertisements reveal that there is a clear divide in how the product is marketed to men and women, leading to a gender divide for the same product with the exact same function. The women's razor is marketed to imply that shaving is a necessary thing for women to do in order to be considered beautiful. Because of the objectification portrayed in both advertisements, women are required to have smooth, long, lean beautiful legs and to do this they have to "landscape" in order to achieve this. This effect would be an example of self-objectification as women would consider themselves as not feminine or desirable if they did not meet these beauty standards. As for the men's advertisement, it can be concluded that for men is to appear desirable and pleasing to women they must shave their face. This says that men are only meant to look shave in order to look pleasing pleasing for women or they have no motivation to shave. This type of gender division in marketing consequently creates more pressure for women because to an extent, not only do they have to look good for themselves, society, other judging women but also for men, whereas the latter only has to do so in order to look desirable for women. The advertisements reveal that society  highly values smooth, nearly flawless skin and that it is necessary to achieve a certain type beaut. This indicates that a person's beauty relies on outer beauty and aesthetics, rather than the person's actual personality. This is evident from the objectification reflected in both Venus ads. The ads also are imposing a certain beauty standard specifically on women, as they need to be slim with long, flawless legs and is placing a hateful property on facial and body hair, something that is meant to be completely natural. This is implying that it is something that should be removed, regardless of the cost and the tediousness that it can imply.