Why This Project?

Why This Project?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

<Idea: This project grew out of my pedagogical efforts in my Gender courses as well as my introductory social science courses at Lake Tahoe Community College and Valparaiso University. What started as a PowerPoint document has now become a web page (I hope to eventually include that PowerPoint on this page). The use of a Web page allows me to share the information and images with others. This is an ongoing project, so many updates—adding new images and analyses—will occur.

Organization: The Gender Ads Project is organized in a number of topical areas or tropes of advertising. These are themes that I or others have identified in popular culture and gender. By clicking on the trope, you will be taken to the appropriate page. Many tropes have sub-tropes within their pages. As well, each trope includes what I call an "archead," or an ad that typifies the trope in question.

A Recent Reflection: I recently came across three flyers that I had been using to get the word out about the Project defaced on my local college campus. These are presented below:

Flyer 1	Flyer 2

I was surprised to see so many of the flyers defaced on my campus, but I ultimately realized that our society has a long way to go to achieve a meaningful and critical existence. I hope that the individuals who took the time to deface the flyers will attempt to educate themselves in whatever ways possible. The sad state of reality that is our consumer culture also produces numerous other representations of gender that are just as troubling as those reflected in the Project. These five samples of cartoons from Hustler, Playboy and other magazines should give us all a real to pause and reflect on the real dangers of our culture. You may disagree with the ideas contained within these pages, but ask yourself, do we not have serious and deeper gender problems when cartoons such as these exist?

Image 1	Image 2	Image 3	Image 4


Image 5			Home

Recently, I received an e-mail in regards to these cartoons. The context of the e-mail was disturbing. To read about it, follow the link to the comments page. Here is a recent local ad from the a South Lake Tahoe publication:

Contributions: If you are interested in sharing an image or providing commentary for images, please e-mail me.

Warning: Many of the images on this site are disturbing. Unfortunately they are a reflection of the misogyny, violence and dehumanization present in our consumer culture, our media and advertising specifically. >