Final Blog Wrap Up (Michelle)

After a couple weeks of research of our group blog project, every member in our group learned new information based on their topic and came up with conclusions. Our research blog was focused on the factors in media that affect the transformation of gender roles from 1950s to present day. Through our research, we selected different media factors such as advertisements, TV shows, films and music to further investigate the transformation.

In my case, I focused on the media field of advertisements. Advertisements can be seen as relating changes in society. First, advertisements in the late 1800s and early 1900s were used as a tool of propaganda. Those early propaganda was an essential tool to target the audiences to believe in them. Advertisements in the 1900s were also a targeting tool for producers to introduce their product to the community and to persuade people to purchase their product. In the time period from 1950s to present day, advertising posters and images are closely connected to the gender role of the society.

In reflecting on my proposal of the blog project, I have always believed that women in the early era were housewife materials. Men on the other side have the dominance and priority over women whereas they take over the role of being the “boss” of the household. It is because of this belief society chooses to believe in for the past centuries, women shown on advertisements are always portrayed as housewives and children bearers. In my proposal, I predicted that women’s role would change, as time progresses while men’s role remain strong and still. It was hard for me to predict the specific timing, however, in my research of my blog, I was able to estimate the timing that women’s role in society changes. The role women were portrayed as in the early mid 1900s were weak and as time progresses, women then takes the advantage of being in social media and uses their physical appearances as a sex appeal figure to attract the public.

In the 1950s, the baby booming events took place giving women the role of a housewife and children bearer. In this decade, women in advertisements were shown as housewives with babies on their side in kitchens. In that blog post, I used 1951’s Margarine poster as an example of housewives in kitchen. Men, on the other hand, take the role of professional jobs wearing suits and ties. In respect to this era, I selected 1957’s Kellogg poster to portray men in this era wearing professional clothing. In the next decade, the gender role between men and women did really change. Advertisements remained to target consumers using women as figures in household and men in businesses. However, there is one significant change in this decade. Many advertisements begin to place both genders on the same page and as to this change; this also means that the society will soon accept women to be equal as men. In the later decades, women started to wear less clothing on advertisements making them an attraction for men and also a sex-appealing figure in society. A drastic change was widely seen in the 1980s with producers using women as sex appeals to attract consumer and on the other hand, it created career path for women in the advertisement fields. Not only women are becoming sex-appealing figures, men also use their masculine and muscular body types to promote advertising products. The trend of using both genders on advertisements has set out a path for future generations to follow.

On the other hand, my group members focused on films, music and television shows to further depict the progression of gender. From their blog post such as the film industry, the role of women from a weak figure have greatly transformed into a more “complex” character. Another one is the music industry; female singers are more likely to express their feelings in their music videos by using their physical looks to reveal their thoughts. Lastly, the television shows also changed, throughout the time period the definition of family did progress. Overall, the previous predictions I made about gender roles matched. First, I predicted that women in the early 1900s were stay home wives and mothers taking care of household duties and children. Men on the other side, take dominancy over women in society where as they are being portrayed as strong heads of the household who is the only source to support the family. It is because of society’s definition of men and women, the role of men always have priority over women regardless. However, as time progresses, society’s view begin to slowly change and reform. Women’s presences in public such as advertisements are starting to promote them as a source of essential targeting factors for consumers. As time progresses, women shown in posters from being housewives changes to sex appealing characters with less wore clothing. Therefore, the trend of less wore clothing are becoming useful and most of the time successful in introducing products to consumer. Not only did women became sex appealing characters, but men on the other hand picked up the trend; both men and women worked together in the commercial field to better the advertisements. As the blog depicted the usage and importance of media, we can conclude how social media greatly influences the daily lives of Americans.  Social media such as advertisements have influenced the society’s view on gender role from men dominancy and priority over women to equal standards of both genders.