Khachatourians 1

Edwin Khachatourians
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
23 October, 2016
Would You Still Buy It?
Inequality between men and women has been plaguing societies ever since the beginning
of time, from the tale of Adam and Eve, where Eve was created from Adam, to the society we
live in today. In todays society, this ideal of inequality can be seen in its many aspects. One form
of inequality that is present in todays society can be seen in the media. An example, of this can
be seen in an advertisement by Bosch. Bosch is a company whose focus products are household
appliances. In the advertisement under analysis, Bosch was trying to persuade the public to buy a
new washing machine. In their advertisement, there is a time line of washing machines starting
from the earliest form of a simple washboard to the latest and newest form of washing machine.
Alongside each model of washing machines stands a woman, of the same correlating time,
preforming the act of doing the laundry. All of this falls under the advertisements big, black,
bold title, which reads, 125 Years of Evolution. This advertisement is a perfect example of
media representing the inequalities of our society in terms of gender in todays day and age and
can be analyzed through many outside sources, and the book Composing Gender by Rachael
Groner, and John F. OHara. Despite the fact, that many people tend to argue that the
advertisement is doing nothing but portraying the stereotypical gender roles that history has
implemented over the years, it ultimately portrays the ideals of inequality towards the female

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gender and continues to prompt it for future generations to come by not allowing to live up to
their full potential.
The advertisement that was placed by Bosch of women doing the laundry as opposed to
men and women evokes many feelings within the audience. Some people when viewing this
advertisement state that it is not doing anything wrong. They look at the advertisement and
choose to only look at the face value of the visual that is presented and they choose to state that it
is simply a picture of women of different time periods standing next to their corresponding time
periods washing machine. They argue that there is nothing wrong with image due to the fact that
the image is only portraying the gender role that history has taught society for many years to
follow. However, this way of interpreting the advertisement is only adding to the inequality that
is in society. This interpretation is reinforcing the traditional feminine gender roles that has been
hindering women for many years. The fact that the advertising is continuing to prompt that
unjust ideal is in fact keeping women down rather than raising them up as equals in society.
Women compared to men have been held down as lesser or not valued as much as men do to
perceptions like this. This advertising has a far deeper meaning within. The fact that it is only
women who are the ones who are doing the laundry is reinforcing the stereotypical gender role of
doing laundry as a feminine or a womans job rather than an action that should not be associated
with a specific gender. A male or female doing laundry is nothing but an individual cleaning their
clothes it doesnt make anyone more or less feminine. However, when society uses media like in
this advertising to portray women only doing the act of laundry rather than both males and
females it reinforces the idea that the job of women is domestic work and not to hold important
responsibilities or masculine positions in society therefore not allowing women to live up to their

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full potential. Society needs to reexamine how they observe media if there will ever be equality
for men and women in gender.
Inequality towards the female gender seemed to be the main take away from this
advertising. Throughout the picture this ideal is revealed due to many aspects that hinder women
by playing on the stereotype that women are the groups responsible for doing the laundry, and
that doing domestic work is all they are good for. This can be expanded upon by many authors
who share these ideals that media is not equal. According to Mean Girls? the Influence of
Gender Portrayals in Teen Movies on Emerging Adults' Gender-based Attitudes and Beliefs by
Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz and Dana Mastro it is revealed that Media and movies statistically
do associate with the negative gender and prompted the stereotypes each held, and negatively
influenced gender roles(Morawitz & Mastro ). This reveals that in media women are portrayed
as the stereotypical woman and not for the individuals they are. This can be seen within the
advertisement. These women were being associated with the negative role of doing laundry
rather than as equals, which is negative because it implies that domestic work is the only work
for women. This results in an inequality for women since they are being deprived of the right to
break free from their assigned roles, where men are free to do as they please. Similarly, in the
article The Effect of Cartoon Movies on Children's Gender Development by Armaan
Gkearslan the idea that even in Cartoons have always portrayed men and women in their
stereotypical gender roles rather than as equals ( Gkearslan).In other words, cartoon also
portray women in their stereotypical role. Due to this example of cartoons portraying gender in a
negative way, it is further revealed that the advertisement by Bosch is in fact negatively
enforcing gender roles for women due to its similarities between the way cartoons and movies
represent gender, which leads to the oppression of women. This is oppressing women, because if

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women are kept down and made to do work that is deemed feminine rather than where they
belong than both the world and they are being deprived of the chance to live and make changes.
Other sources also add upon the idea of inequality towards the female gender. Inequality
This can be seen in the book Composing Gender. In this book, many authors address the topics
related to gender through articles. In one of the articles, No Way My Boys Are Going to Be
Like That: Parents Responses to Childrens Gender Nonconformity by Emily Kane, Kane uses
logos to persuade the audience of her ideas. In her article when she begins recall a scenario
where a little boy was playing with nail polish and her, upper-middle-class, homosexual, father
stated, He put nail polish on himself one time, and I said No, you cant do that, little girls put
nail polish on, little boys dont (Kane 93). The father of the little boy was having a problem
with is son wearing nail polish. By the little boys father telling his son to not put on nail polish,
because its only for girls, he further the reveals why the idea of having only women in Boschs
advertising was creating inequality. This was causing inequality because nail polish, like a
washing machine, is only an object and does not have a correlating gender or sex to go along
with it. By stating that only girls wear nail polish or only having girls do laundry evokes the
feeling that women are only meant for domestic responsibilities since domestic work is prettier
than manual labor. It keeps women down by not letting them aspire to be something greater than
just a house wife. In addition, in another article, From Women, Men, and Society by Claire
Renzetti and Daniel Curran a similar topic is brought up. While Renzetti and, Curran are talking
about toys being separate for boys and girls they state, It is not difficult to figure out which of
these toys is targeted at the male market and which is intended for the female market (Renzetti
and Curran 83) by stating this they reveal that people in society do in fact place genders on
objects, rather than seeing them as inanimate objects. This creates an inequality to the female

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gender because it creates a discouragement to explore and learn through the use of items that
arent stereotypically feminine. This can be seen in the advertisement by Bosche since they also
placed the feminine gender on a washing machine. By doing this they not only keep women from
trying to grow out of what society intended but by placing a gender on objects like toys and
appliances society causes inequality by restricting its people from growing as individuals, out of
fear of becoming an outcast or being labeled as not a part of the norm. The mere fact that it is
discouraging women from growing as individuals, rather than housewives implies the sense of
inequality.
Men and women have never been considered equal in society, an invisible barrier has
always been upon them since the beginning. In todays day and age barrier between people
should be broken down in order to unite the world together. However, advertising like the Bosch
washing machine 125 years of evolution is a perfect example of how society is unequal in
terms of gender. By assigning inanimate objects like a washing machine a gender and not having
the media reflect the ideal society where everyone is equal, society chooses to stick to what
history has thought in despite of the negatives it holds in regards to equality. This in turn restricts
feminine genders by not allowing them to live up to their potential. The advertisement chooses to
follow the stereotypical gender role of women and tried to use it to persuade society to buy
washing machines, however all they were able to accomplish is add to the barrier in gender in
society, when as a society, we need to join as one to eliminate inequality towards the female
gender all together.

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Work Cited
Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth, and Dana E. Mastro. "Mean Girls? The Influence of Gender
Portrayals in Teen Movies on Emerging Adults' Gender-Based Attitudes and Beliefs."
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 1, 2008., pp. 131-146
Bosch. 125 Years of Evolution. 2011 Bosch advertising. Euronics. Photograph. 2016
Gkearslan, Armaan. "The Effect of Cartoon Movies on Children's Gender Development."
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2.2 (2010): 5202-5207.
Kane, Emily. No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That: Parents Responses to
Childrens Gender Nonconformity. Composing Gender. Edited by. Rachael Groner and
John F. OHara. Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Page 92-93
Renzetti, Claire, and Daniel Curran. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing Gender.
Edited by. Rachael Groner and John F. OHara. Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Page 82-83