A new ad series that reverses gender roles portrayed in vintage advertising calls attention to the sexism that Professor June Cotte says still exists today.
“Women are six times more likely to be shown in sexualized clothing, for example, in advertising today,” she says. “There are still a lot of things that are not as outrageous, but they are still there.”
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Cotte tells CTV News such advertising may have a harmful influence.
“I think when kids grow up in this media environment and see these sorts of ads, they just internalize the roles that are depicted,” she says. “It’s not something that people set out to do necessarily, but it just becomes part of the cultural bath that we bathe in and it does sink in.”
The interview was in response to Photographer Eli Rezkallah’s series, In a Parallel Universe, which recreates ads from the ’50s and ’60s with male models taking on women’s roles. Aiming to raise awareness of the outdated gender prejudices that still exist today, Rezkallah says the series was inspired by a conversation that mentioned “womanly duties.”
